Kamhi was already an admirer of the composer, thanks to his short piano piece ''Preludio del Gallo Mananero'' (''Prelude to the Morning Rooster,'' of 1926). The happiness of their meeting and courtship (leading to marriage in 1933) was soon followed by their darkest years. Their families fell on hard financial times and could no longer support the young couple. Forced to retreat to Spain, Rodrigo was determined to win a scholarship that would allow him to return to Paris and rejoin his wife. Supporting himself meagerly as a teacher at a school for the blind in Madrid, he eventually won the scholarship, with a little help from his supporter Falla.

He returned to Paris, but after the death of Dukas, the Rodrigos traveled to Austria, Switzerland and Germany. In Baden-Baden, in 1936, they learned of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Rodrigo's scholarship was canceled, and they were caught penniless. They sought refuge at an institute for the blind in Freiburg, spending 18 months in utter hardship.

''In Paris in 1938, after the difficult experience in Freiburg and still in hardship, my mother lost the child she was expecting and became extremely ill,'' Cecilia Rodrigo said. ''They did not know where to turn. He was alone in a disastrous financial situation, and when my mother left the hospital, they had to sell the piano to pay for the hospital expenses.'' The Rodrigos decided to settle in Spain, and the composer carried in his suitcase the work destined to change his luck: the phenomenally successful ''Concierto de Aranjuez,'' for guitar and orchestra.

Although tepidly received at its Spanish premiere in 1940, ''Aranjuez'' has taken in more royalties than any other Spanish work, surpassing even Falla's immensely popular ''El Amor Brujo.'' In 1998 it trailed only the notorious ''Macarena'' and Ricky Martin's ''Maria.'' It has been arranged for everyone from the trumpeter Miles Davis (''Sketches of Spain'') and the pianist Chick Corea (''Spain'') to the tenors Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras, and the Swingle Singers. To top things off, it was one of the pieces the astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin took to the moon in 1969.

Rodrigo adamantly rejected the first, unauthorized arrangements of ''Aranjuez'' and only later in life came to a grudging acceptance of the quality of some of them (like the one by Davis and Gil Evans). The work's formidable commercial success does not in any case detract from its beauty, fine craftsmanship, superb melodies and wise instrumentation, which made it a perfect vehicle for the guitar at a time when that instrument was not considered a worthy classical vehicle. The music's combination of optimism and nostalgia belies the circumstances of its birth, between the Spanish Civil War and World War II.