Soler, A: Keyboard Sonata No. 74 in D major

Antonio Francisco Xavier Joseph Soler was born in 1729 in the Spanish province of Tarragona, the son of an army musician. His earliest musical instruction came from his father, who took him to the Abbey of Montserrat, where he was encouraged to join the choir at the age of six. Here, he became highly proficient on the organ, and studied composition. It may have been this early exposure to religious life that made the young Soler to decide to spend the rest of his life in the church. He accepted various musical posts in the church, including organist at El Escorial. He became a novice there in 1752, deacon, priest and chapel master – the latter position after 1757. He was requested by King Carlos III to teach his two sons Gabriel and Antonio. Antonio was the more musical of the princes, and for him Soler composed his 6 concertos for two organs.

Soler came into contact with Domenico Scarlatti who was employed by the Royal Family, and whose music was exclusive to the court and banned from performance outside of the palace. Soler’s 150 keyboard works (written for Prince Gabriel) are dazzling affairs, and test the harpsichords and fortepianos of the time to their limits. Although the influence of Scarlatti can be detected, these are truly Spanish works, and exude Iberian colour and rhythms.

Eighteen sonatas by one of the most enigmatic but important keyboard composers of the 18th Century.

The harpsichord music of Antonio Soler is to a great extent overshadowed by the keyboard works of his near contemporary Domenico Scarlatti, music master to Queen Maria Barbara of Spain. Soler though, rightly claims a prominent position amongst those few select composers who became beacons of the Classical Enlightenment and whose music possessed elements of genius. At the age of twenty-three Soler took Holy Orders, entering the Escorial as a Hieronymite monk in the Order of Saint Jerome where he remained in relative confinement for the rest of his life. His existence at the Escorial is well documented by a colleague who wrote an extremely detailed obituary notice, describing a man who loved his cell and was always there except for duty. Whilst at the Escorial, Soler studied with José de Nebra and Scarlatti. Soler’s output of around 200 harpsichord sonatas were written for the Infante don Gabriel, whom Soler taught from around 1765. The sonatas on this CD can be pigeonholed into three categories: the dance (sonatas R21, R118, R43 & R92d). Those which are slower and more vocal in nature (R4 & R110) with a hint of the melismatic expression found in cante hondo: a pure form of Andalucian folk music. And those which lean towards the new ‘galant’ style (R56 & M27). There are also frequent echoes of the guitar punteado and rasgueado styles, R86 & R43 which are also related to the dance.

Luigi Boccherini was born in Lucca, Italy in 1743 and was renowned as a composer and ‘cellist. In 1761, Boccherini went to live in Madrid where he was appointed music master to the Infante Luis Antonio, and he would certainly have met Soler. This version of Boccherini’s fandango, from the last movement of Quintet No 4 in D major, is Richard Lester’s own arrangement for two harpsichords.

Soler composed day and night in his monastic cell near Madrid and produced nearly 500 works in three decades and they demonstrate the Spanish rococo’s radiant and vibrant zest for life. Godelieve Schrama has examined Soler’s famous harpsichord sonatas with an eye to her instrument, the harp, and recorded them for the first time on SACD.