The one thing you won’t find in this five-disc set of Spanish
and Spanish-inspired music is Chabrier’s Espana.
What you will find are recordings selected from the past twenty-odd years of
Harmonia Mundi’s back catalogue, and a whole lot of really well-performed and
well-recorded music. The price is right, too, with HM marking down the set at
much less than the individual discs would cost. Of course, if it’s only one or
two items that interest you, you can still find the HM albums available
separately.
Disc one contains a suite of twelve selections from the
opera Pepita Jimenez (1896) by
Spanish composer and pianist Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909). Here, we find
performances by Susan Chilcott, soprano, and Francesc Garrogosa, tenor, with
the Choeur d’enfants de la maitrise de Badalona directed by Montserrat Pi and
the Orquestra de Cambra Teatre Lliure conducted by Josep Pons. I’m not sure why
Harmonia Mundi chose to start the set with this particular music except that
they arranged the composers alphabetically; the opera never became a hit for
Albeniz, and there are only a few moments in it that seem very interesting. In
fact, if the tracks HM include here are any indication, it’s no surprise why
audiences never warmed to it. The orchestral introduction is the best part of
the show.
Certainly, one cannot fault Ms. Chilcott or tenor
Garrogosa, however, who give it their best; nor HM’s engineering team who
recorded it in 1994. The sound is warm and expansive, with good detailing and
dynamics. Voices are nicely round and natural, too, never bright or forward,
and they are well integrated into the sound field.
With disc two we’re on more stable ground. It contains two
pieces by Spanish composer Manuel de Falla (1876-1946): El amor brujo (“Love the Magician,” the 1915 stage version, sung
and spoken) and El retablo de Maese Pedro
(1919, adapted from an episode in Cervantes’s Don Quixote). In the first piece, we find cantaora (flamenco
singer) Ginesa Ortega, joined by soprano Joan Martin, baritone Inaki Fresan,
and tenor Joan Cabero, supported again by Maestro Josep Pons and the Orquestra
de Cambra Teatre Lliure.
The singing and performances in both Falla works sound
committed and passionate, with a most-sympathetic orchestral support from Pons
and his players. HM recorded the music in 1990, and while it is not as vivid as
some other recordings I’ve heard, it is quite realistic. The playback level is
slightly higher than on the first disc, the upper midrange is a tad brighter,
and voices are a bit more recessed. Otherwise, we again get a warm,
natural-sounding acoustic.
The Harmonia Mundi producers devote disc three to violin
and piano works by French composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). The soloists are
Regis Pasquier, violin, and Brigitte Engerer, piano. The two primary works on
the disc are the Sonate posthume pour violon
et piano (1897) and the Sonate pour violon
et piano (1927). Also on the program we find Kaddish, Tzigane, Habanera, and Berceuse sur le nom de Gabriel Faure.
Needless to say, the Ravel music is not really Spanish but
Spanish-inflected. Close enough, I guess. The soloists play all of it
beautifully, but their way with the sonatas is especially haunting,
occasionally jazzy in a bluesy sort of way, and a touch melancholy. The sound,
recorded in 1990, balances the two instruments quite well and adds a lifelike
resonance to the proceedings.
On disc four we find two pieces for solo piano by Spanish
composer and pianist Frederic Mompou (1893-1987). The most important of the two
pieces is Musica callada (“Silent
Music” or “Voices of Silence”), a series of twenty-eight movements Mompou wrote
between 1959-1967 and played by pianist Javier Perianes. Debussy and Satie
probably influenced the composer most, yet Mompou’s work is highly original on
its own. It’s mostly quiet, contemplative music, with certain mystic overtones
about it.
The Mompou music is, as I say, very quiet, sometimes
almost silent, and always fascinating. Perianes plays the pieces with great
sensitivity, making them appear ethereal, gossamer, otherworldly. While the
piano sound, which Harmonia Mundi recorded in 2006, can be a mite soft and
distant, it always seems appropriate to the gentle nature of the material.
Finally, on disc five we get what for me is the best music
in the set, four guitar works by Spanish composer and pianist Joaquin Rodrigo
(1901-1999), performed by guitarist Marco Socias, Maestro Josep Pons, and the
Orquesta Ciudad de Granada.
Among my favorites is the popular Concierto de Aranjuez, and even though there are tons of good
recordings of it, this one should rank high on anyone’s list. Socias’s playing
sounds relaxed, unhurried, unforced, and purely entertaining. He communicates a
vibrant tone and a gentle heart in all the music. Other works include the Fantasia para un gentilhombre, Musica para un jardin, and Tre viejos aires de danza.
Harmonia Mundi recorded the Rodrigo disc in 2001, with
somewhat mixed results. The Concierto
displays good orchestral depth, realistic imaging, a balanced frequency
response, an extended high and low end, and a pleasant ambient glow. The guitar
appears well integrated within the orchestral context. The other tracks,
though, seem louder and brighter, not always to their benefit.
HM package the set in a sturdy slipcase, with each disc
afforded its own cardboard sleeve. An accompanying booklet in both French and
English complements the box.
To hear a brief excerpt from this set, click here:
JJP
