ESPAÑA'2004. VALENCIA.- Música

Among the issues at España 2004 are two stamps on Music , one commemorating the 250 th anniversary of the birth of Vicente Martín y Soler and the other depicting instruments in Musical Bands. On both stamps, with a face value of 0.27 and 0.52 Euros, show a vignette publicising the City of Valencia International Musical Bands Competition 2004.

In the final decades of the eighteenth century, there were two great composers on the European opera scene - Mozart and Vicente Martín y Soler, the latter of whom was Spanish, and was born in Valencia 1754. After working as an organist in Alicante, Martín y Soler settled in Madrid, where he made his operatic debut, and then in Italy, between 1777 and 1785, where he successfully staged his operas. In 1786, he moved to the court of Joseph II in Vienna, where he met Mozart and Da Ponte. He then travelled to London and St Petersburg to direct the Italian opera. He died in the latter city in 1806. He triumphed in the great theatres of European opera with works including Hipermnestra , La reina de Golconda , Astartea, La prudente camarera , Las burlas por amor , La isla del amor , Una cosa rara , El árbol de Diana , Los esposos en disputa and La caprichosa corregida , among other operas, cantatas, melodies and works of sacred music, but the Valencian composer, one of Mozart's competitors, had to work as a teacher in the twilight of his life as his music had ceased to be performed. Musical Bands are composed of numerous groups wind instruments (brass and woodwind) and percussion. They play at civil, military and even religious ceremonies. Among the brass instruments they play are the trumpet, horn and tenor horn. The woodwind instruments they use are the saxophone, tenor clarinet, flute and oboe. The percussion instruments they use are drums, bass drum, tambourine, cymbals and xylophone. The design of this issue, in which the logo of the España 2004 World Philately Exhibition appears, is the work of the Jesús Sánchez Studio.