Falla: Noches en los jardines de Espana (Nights in the Gardens of Spain)

An anthology of Manuel de Falla's masterpieces, in which he invented modern Spanish music and revived songs, rhythms and dances out of an Andalusia both legendary yet still alive. A tribute to some legendary performers, approaching their centenaries, such as Clara Haskil, Igor Markevitch and Ernest Ansermet, who made these pieces immortal or taught their intricacies to artists such as Teresa Berganza… Incunabula !

Recorded 1960-1961

In order to carry out this exciting project, Javier Perianes and Josep Pons returned to the original sources: manuscripts held in the Archivo Manuel de Falla in Granada.

A rising star both in his native Spain and, more recently, much further afield, the young pianist Javier Perianes was in London, in January, for his debut concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, recorded here. The repertoire is a piece Perianes knows well, de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain, and the conductor is someone he knows and respects hugely, Josep Pons. Perianes continues to champion neglected Spanish composers and his most recent CD, of sonatas by Manuel Blasco de Nebra, has been a minor revelation.

On the 4th of June 2009 the Wiener Philharmoniker treat the Viennese public with a free open-air concert on the grounds of Schönbrunn Palace

The impressive historical setting of Schönbrunn Palace and its beautiful baroque gardens, a UNESCO world cultural heritage site, form a unique backdrop for this Summer Night concert

150,000 visitors were present in the audience, and the concert was broadcast world-wide in more than 50 countries.

The works for stage and concert hall by Manuel de Falla starts off our new Spanish series with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Juanjo Mena.

Nights in the Gardens of Spain is among Falla’s most impressionistic and poetic works, full of shimmering textures that recall Debussy, but with a hard-edged precision brought to the forefront by the piano. Each of the three movements is imbued with a strong sense of location. The first evokes the Generalife gardens of the Alhambra in Granada; the second, and most animated, displays a strong North African quality; and the third is inspired by the gardens of the Sierra de Córdoba. Here Falla’s lustrous and voluptuous writing is contrasted with a dramatic refrain full of energy, colour, and savagery, and the work offers one of the most sensuous endings in all music. It was performed by the BBC Philharmonic and Juanjo Mena, as part of the conductor’s debut performance at the Proms in 2011. On this recording, they are joined by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, the exclusive Chandos artist and multi-award winning pianist.

Based on the novel by Alarcón, The Three-cornered Hat was commissioned in 1916 by the impresario Diaghilev for his Russian ballet company, the Ballets russes. Centred round sexual jealousy, possessiveness, mistaken identity, and deception, it tells the story of the failed attempts by an elderly local magistrate (whose three-cornered hat is a symbol of authority) to seduce the miller’s lovely wife. The music is exuberant, the principal characters wittily characterised, and the original production itself boasted an incredible wealth of talent: choreography by Léonide Massine, set and costume designs by Pablo Picasso, and the star ballerina Karsavina dancing the part of the miller’s wife. It was one of the company’s greatest successes, and put Falla on the international map as a composer.

Also on this disc is the Homenajes, in which Falla pays tribute to fellow musicians and composers. ‘Fanfare sobre el nombre de Arbós’ was written for the seventieth birthday celebrations of the conductor Enrique Fernández Arbós, while ‘Pedrelliana’ pays posthumous homage to Falla’s teacher Felipe Pedrell, who had informed so much of his musical thinking.

It is interesting that of the nine composers featured in this recital four had no Spanish roots. The “exotic” nature of Spanish music - especially that of Andalusia in the south with its Moorish history and Gypsy culture - has irresistibly drawn non-Spanish composers.

It is an intriguing fact that the musical phrase that has surely been heard most often in history is taken from Tárrega’s charming Gran Vals, dating from around 1902. It was chosen by Nokia in 1993 to be the ring tone on its mobile telephones, and as such it has been heard billions of times. The phrase occurs 14 seconds into this recording, which is of a lightly elaborated four-hand arrangement made specially to provide the present recital with a whimsical encore – and again is the first recording in this form.

This disc, like the majority of recordings from Goldstone & Clemmow features numerous pieces which are new to the repertoire.

With CDs around forty in number and a busy concert schedule stretching back more than a quarter of a century, the British piano duo Goldstone and Clemmow is firmly established as a leading force. Described by Gramophone as ‘a dazzling husband and wife team’, by International Record Review as ‘a British institution in the best sense of the word’, and by The Herald, Glasgow, as ‘the UK’s pre-eminent two-piano team’, internationally known artists Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow formed their duo in 1984 and married in 1989. Their extremely diverse activities in two-piano and piano-duet recitals and double concertos, taking in major festivals, have sent them all over the British Isles as well as to Europe, the Middle East and several times to the U.S.A., where they have received standing ovations and such press accolades as ‘revelations such as this are rare in the concert hall these days’ (Charleston Post and Courier). In their refreshingly presented concerts they mix famous masterpieces and fascinating rarities, which they frequently unearth themselves, into absorbing and hugely entertaining programmes; their numerous BBC broadcasts have often included first hearings of unjustly neglected works, and their equally enterprising and acclaimed commercial recordings include many world premières.