Residents of Town Going Cuckoo Listening to Clock Play Classical Piece 48 Times a Day
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ARANJUEZ, Spain — The Aranjuez Concerto, one of Spain’s best-known pieces of classical music, is loved the world over with the exception of one place--Aranjuez.
Residents of the central Spanish town, once a summer retreat for royalty, are up in arms after being forced to hear it 48 times a day.
The local branch of the opposition Popular Party has lodged a formal protest with the mayor on behalf of people who live around the Plaza de la Constitucion and are fed up with a new clock that plays the piece’s opening bars for 15 seconds every hour and half-hour.
The clock was solemnly inaugurated Dec. 22 in the presence of 90-year-old Joaquin Rodrigo, the composer of the concerto who is now blind.
The Popular Party has asked the mayor to ban the music from midnight until 8 a.m. “The authorities ought to protect the citizens’ right to get some rest,” the party said in its protest letter.
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