Soler, A: Keyboard Sonata No. 15 in D minor

Soler was music master to the princes of Bourbon in El Escorial, the palace of the King of Spain. It’s probable that most of his keyboard sonatas were written for Prince Gabriel and these essentially private works – around 150 have survived – bear comparison with the works of Domenico Scarlatti and C.P. E. Bach. Soler was fond of dance rhythms and guitar imitations, as well as infectious and delightful modulations. These fifteen sonatas are heard here in the order proposed by Rubio’s catalogue. Pianist Martina Filjak – “brilliance, sensitivity and imagination” (The New York Times) – is a much admired international artist.

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.

Pieter-Jan Belder’s zeal for the rediscovery of 17th-century keyboard music continues apace with this, the third volume in the first-ever projected complete set of the harpsichord sonatas by Padre Antonio Soler, contemporary and rival of Domenico Scarlatti. Like Scarlatti’s examples, these sonatas are intensely colourful, alternately exuberant and poetic, and always distinctive.

Soler (1729-83) was born in Olot, Catalunia, and became a monk at Escurial where he was organist and composer. A keyboard soloist of prodigious skills, he composed many sonatas for harpsichord (although not one has survived in his hand), organ works a Requiem, piano quintets and concertos for 2 keyboards, and incidental music to plays by Calderon and other 17th century Spanish playwrights.

Much research has been carried out to establish accurate performing editions of Soler’s music. The editions used in these recordings are by Professor Frederick Marvin who researched the extensive library and archives of Montserrat Monastery, El Escorial and Bibloteca de Catalunia in Barcelona in the 1940s through to the 1960s, and the edition by Padre Samuel Rubio.

New recordings.

Booklet notes by Soler authority Frederick Marvin.

Born in Madrid in 1977, Luis Fernando Pérez studied with Dimitri Bashkirov, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Alicia de Larrocha, and has received masterclasses from such maestri as Leon Fleisher,Andras Schiff and Menahem Pressler. His latest record [after three on the Verso label] is dedicated to the sonatas of the baroque Spanish composer Antonio Soler, all of which have been revised from original manuscripts and which contains a never before recorded nor published sonata. "Never would I have imagined that those constant week-end flying visits my parents and I used to make to San Lorenzo de El Escorial, a delightful village in the mountains above Madrid where Philip II built the imposing Monastery of San Lorenzo (something of a fetish for me), were going to unleash my love for the music of Soler, now reflected in this CD dedicated to his magnificent sonatas. San Lorenzo was the symbol of a great, powerful, rich and mystic Spain.This genial friar lived within the walls of its monastery for many years under the protection of Carlos III, the "Enlightened King" where he was tutor to the King's son, the Infante Don Gabriel. And it is at San Lorenzo where Soler lies buried in his modest tomb. Deeply religious, humane, full of life, Soler blended tradition with innovation, the past with the future, Spanish folklore guised in an altogether more international language. There have been almost two years' worth of research, microfilms, manuscripts and the rest. A thousand thanks to my teacher, Alicia de Larrocha, herself a great exponent of Soler's work, to Enrique Igoa for his kindness and wisdom, for the breakfasts at his house during which we would exchange information, to José Carlos Tata, Director of the Royal Library of the Madrid Conservatory, for so generously opening up the library's archives to me, and to N. R. Robinson and Diane Hudson of the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Cambridge University Library for their impeccable care and attention." Luis Fernando Pérez

"It is perhaps early in the 21st Century for predictions, but it is already clear to me that Luis Fernando Perez will take his place as one of the leading pianists of his generation. While technically brilliant, musically sophisticated, and intellectually curious, Luis Fernando has much more to offer us. Like the greats of the past, he possesses that rare ability to direct his musical message straight to the hearts and minds of his listeners. This gift, above all, sets him apart from his fellow musicians; it commands us to listen." Tom Deacon Exec. Prod., "Great pianists of the 20th Century"

Keyboard music in the Iberian Peninsula during the first half of the eighteenth was dominated by three composers; Carlos Seixas (1704-1742), Padre Antonio Soler (1729-1783) and Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757). These three composers were instrumental in the growth of the binary form sonata in the Iberian Peninsula which dominated harpsichord music to an even greater degree than the tiento in the previous two centuries. The harpsichord sonatas of Carlos Seixas and Padre Antonio Soler strongly reveal the influence of Scarlatti with whom they studied. All three were also instrumental in developing the ‘novel’ galant style that effectively provided a stepping stone between the Baroque and Classical periods.

Soler was an Augustian monk and the debate clearly splits musicologists as to whether or not Soler was a great composer or a minor Spanish composer of the 18th century. Many people have said that an ordained monk could not possibly write such cheerful music! This is a beautiful programme of music played by Nicolau de Figueiredo on an instrument built by Emile Jobin after Cresci, Livorno, 1778.