Albéniz: Navarra

Composing and story-telling are not unrelated, and Albeniz was as adept as any Scheherazade at both! For many, his masterpiece was Iberia, a set of piano pieces composed near the end of his life. It contains twelve 'impressions' (the composer's word) of Spain, and is organized into four books of three pieces each. Although they are named after various locales, it would be facile to call these pieces a musical travelogue, because Albeniz was not interested in literal depictions of his homeland. Together with the orchestration of Navarra, Ansermet recorded five of these - Evocacion, El Corpus en Sevilla, Triana, El Puerto and El Albaicin. Ansermet's 1960 recording of these works long has been a favourite of audiophiles, and even today, it retains its potency, not just as a demonstration of recording technique, but also of the conductor's skill.

The coupling on this recording, Villa-Lobos's First Piano Concerto, receives its CD premiere from the very pianist (Canadian Ellen Ballon) who commissioned and premiered it. This is the largest of his piano concertos, and its third movement comes to a climax with a lengthy cadenza for the soloist. (One remembers a comment made about Villa-Lobos's Concerto No. 5 - a 'piano tuner's orgy'.) Ballon, who studied with Josef Hofmann and who was praised by Artur Rubinstein as the 'greatest pianistic genius [he] had ever met' is a powerful soloist in this recording. Her playing is muscular - the third-movement cadenza is particularly impressive - yet she is able to make the lyrical passages sing as well. The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande seems engaged and intrigued by Villa-Lobos's bejewelled, exotic and sometimes mysterious orchestral writing, and the score as whole plays to Ansermet's strengths as an architect and colourist.

"As the performances are splendidly alive and the quality blazingly good, this is a disc for all Costa Brava enthusiasts and indeed anyone who finds red-blooded Spanish music a thrill." Gramophone (Iberia).

This series of the piano music of Isaac Albéniz has so far focussed on solo works - including, of course, the celebrated collection Iberia. For the sixth volume, Miguel Baselga has chosen to also record two works for piano and orchestra: the First Piano Concerto (Concierto fantástico), and Rapsodia Española. For the latter Albéniz scholar Jacinto Torres has prepared an edition of the composer's original orchestration. This is the first recording of the new edition, while earlier recordings have opted for arrangements by Enescu, Bretón and Cristóbal Halffter. The 'Fantastic Concerto' was written at the same time as the Rhapsody, and both are quite early works - from before the composer's departure in 1890 for London, and later Paris. The present disc also includes solo pieces from the same period, often showing the influence of Liszt, Chopin and Schumann. But Albéniz also liked to include Scarlatti sonatas in his own concert programmes. One result of his interest for earlier music was the three Suites anciennes, of which the third is included here, a two-movement work consisting of a gavotte and a minuet. Azulejos and Navarra come from the opposite end of the composer's career. Composed at the same time - and in a similar vein - as Iberia, both works were left uncompleted at the death of Albéniz in 1909. In the case of Azulejos, Miguel Baselga performs the familiar version completed by Enrique Granados, but for Navarra he has opted for a version made by the great Spanish pianist Pilar Bayona, which here is first heard on disc. This highly regarded series thus continues with a volume full of intriguing pieces of the enigmatic puzzle that is Isaac Albéniz. Besides an introduction to the music, in three languages, the booklet to this disc also contains an essay, in Spanish, by the distinguished Spanish author Antonio Muñoz Molina, looking back on the composer a full century after his death.

Award-winning pianist Luiza Borac champions the compositions of fellow-Romanian Dinu Lipatti in a 2-CD set that includes a number of world-premiere recordings.

Pianist Luiza Borac is the most dedicated champion of music from her native Romania. She was recognised with a BBC Music Magazine Award for her artistry and advocacy of the piano canon of Georges Enescu. She now turns to another compatriot best known as one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century who was also during his short lifetime a celebrated composer: Dinu Lipatti. With influences that range from the counterpoint of Bach to the lyricism of Chopin and the folk-tinged soundscapes of Enescu (Lipatti's godfather), as well as his teachers Paul Dukas and Nadia Boulanger, Lipatti forged an individual voice over the 18 years of his compositional career.

The rarities that Luiza has unearthed for this 2-disc set include a number of world premiere recordings including Lipatti's first Piano Sonata, an arrangement of Albeniz's Navarra, and the complex Fantasie. For the Concertino in Classical Style, Lipatti's first published composition, Luiza is joined by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields conducted by Jaime Martin. Aiming to recreate Lipatti's sound world as faithfully as possible, Luiza performs on a Bechstein piano, Lipatti's instrument of choice.

This year is the centenary of the death of Albéniz. During the 20th century, he was known almost exclusively for his composition Iberia but recently many of his works have been re-evaluated. This CD includes Chants D’Espagne, La Vega, Souvenirs, Navarra and Azulejos.

This is the second Argenta CD on Medici, a companion to the first disc which was devoted to the music of Falla in acclaimed performances from Paris in 1957.

"Zarzuela and Spanish orchestral music" covers music by four composers of the Zarzuela - Chapí (being the most famous), Soutullo, Chueca and Luna. This is followed by Tomas Breton, one of Spain's most respected composers and teachers with his popular serenade 'En la Alhambra', a musical portrait of Granada's great Moorish Palace and 'Bolero' from his four 'Andalucian Scenes'. Guridi's popular 'Ten Basque Dances' represents a sequence of tiny dances from the Basque region while Granados's Intermezzo from 'Goyescas' is a wonderfully lyrical orchestral interlude. Albeniz's Navarra and Turina's 'Procesion del Rocio' and 'La oración del torero' (The Bullfighter's Prayer) are now part of the Spanish repertoire and frequently recorded.

Argenta was a champion of Spanish music but his recordings of this repertoire have not been available for many years an then only in Spain. Collectors have frequently requested that these titles be made available to a far wider audience - they are integral to Argenta's discography.

The stereo sound (Chapí is mono) is of excellent quality throughout providing a wonderful range of colour and immediacy.