This recording by pianist Yoram Ish-Hurwitz of the third and fourth book of Isaac Albéniz’s Iberia completes the two-disc series. The first volume which featured books one and two was released on the hybrid SACD TR75529. Iberia is a collection of pieces written at the very end of the composer’s life (he died in 1909), and the music reflects the countryside and spirit of his native Andalusia. Disillusioned after the debacle surrounding a planned opera trilogy, the Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz devoted the last years of his life to his magnum opus entitled “Iberia”. In just over two years, a gravely-ill Albéniz wrote the 12 nouvelles ‘impressions’, as he called them, alternating between Paris and Nice. In these pieces he seems to have produced an accurate sketch of Spain around the turn of the century. Because of the flamenco elements and the titles of the pieces, Andalusia is often called the source of inspiration for the cycle, but the emerging Impressionism of Paris also seems to have left its mark on its style.
Yoram Ish-Hurwitz is a Dutch pianist of Israeli origin. He began his studies with Danièle Dechenne and Jan Wijn at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam. In 1993 he was the first Dutch pianist to graduate from the Juilliard School in New York with the Hungarian pianist György Sándor. His discography includes recordings of the works of Schubert, Chopin, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev and the complete 'Années de Pèlerinage' by Liszt.
