Reveriano Soutullo

First taught by his father, a municipal band director in Ponteareas, Reveriano Soutullo Otero was leading choirs and playing in ensembles in Galicia well before he reached the Madrid Conservatory, where prizes paid for travel to Italy, France and Germany. He wrote instrumental pieces, songs, marches and theatre music, but the works that hold the stage came out of his partnership with Juan Vert: La leyenda del beso, El último romántico and La del soto del parral, zarzuelas admired for their lyrical directness, their theatrical pacing and an orchestration richer than the genre normally asked for. Vert died in 1931 and Soutullo the following year, at fifty-two. He had begun at the School of Arts and Crafts in Vigo in 1894, learning the piano with Gregorio Elola, and reached Madrid in 1900. Vigo stayed close to him: he set its hymn to words by Pío L. Cuiñas, first heard in 1907. His papers in Ponteareas hold scores, photographs and letters, most of them to do with the zarzuelas and the band music.