Albeniz: Iberia

By Bill Heck

Albeniz: Iberia. Nelson Goerner. Alpha Classics 829 

Although Isaac Albeniz was from Spain and is thought of as a “Spanish” composer, during much of his composing career he lived in Paris and was strongly influenced by impressionism. It’s hardly surprising, then, that his masterwork, Iberia, although often using Spanish-sounding themes, sounds more like something by Debussy than anything by de Falla, Granados, or other typically Spanish composers. 

Any review of Iberia must start with Alicia de Larrocha, widely acknowledged as the queen of this music, and of Spanish piano music in general. (This view is not mere Spanish provincialism, as there is no doubt about her command of the repertoire.) So far as I can tell, she recorded Iberia three times, but each of these versions has appeared in multiple re-releases, so keeping track of what's what can be quite the challenge. In any case, her readings are thoughtful, extremely well played, and evocative; we might think of them as forming a baseline for comparison for all others.

Generally, de Larrocha’s interpretation stayed reasonably constant, although I find that her 1961 take was, by a slight margin, the most spirited of the three, more dynamic and a shade quicker than her last recording. Subsequent versions seem to emphasize the dreamy aspect: tempos are slow-ish and free, and dynamics are wide. At the same time, the playing seems precise if anything, almost tight at times.

But all of these earlier recordings suffer from less than wonderful sound. The first version just sounds dated, with a boxy, mid-range heavy tone lacking in high-end. The last version is sonically acceptable, but nothing to write home about, at least in comparison to newer recordings, with the piano presented a bit distantly in a reverberant space that truly sounds like an empty hall, the upper registers a bit clangy in louder passages, and the bottom registers lacking weight.

Well, there are plenty of other choices. In just one well-regarded example, Jean-Francois Heisser gets through the work more quickly than de Larrocha, but still with much of that dreamlike quality, in a recording that seems to have been the same as the one attributed to Joyce Hatto[1]. But here again, the recorded sound feels dated, more close up and less reverberant than the de Larrocha, but sharing the same restrictions in range and the same tendency toward unpleasant clanginess in the louder passages.

We finally reach the album under review. Aside from the recorded sound, which I'll get to shortly, the first thing I noticed about Goerner's performance was a feeling of freedom, of playfulness, an almost casual (in a good sense) approach to playing. I certainly don't mean superficial, but rather a sense of love for the music, of interacting with joyously with the composition as with an old friend. You can hear this, for instance not only in the very first section of Book 1: Evocation, but in many other sections, such as in the third of Book 2, Triana.

An interesting aspect of this sense of freedom is that some dissonances at first sound like mistakes, but no, the dissonances are what Albeniz wrote. Take for example the third section of Book 3, Lavaples. De Larrocha plays it straight, and sounds as though she's trying to hold things together in spite of a certain insanity in the music. Goerner doesn't shy away, but seems to embrace the craziness, if not emphasizing it. Both approaches are valid, and it's wonderful to hear the contrasting interpretations.

Goerner also employs a huge dynamic range, not only pounding it out when the music calls for that, but playing in an almost whispering way when that's appropriate. The technical ability to play this music, difficult as it is, is obvious. Technical chops are not rare these days, but still it's reassuring to hear everything coming out right.

Which is a nice segue to talking about the sound of the recording. In less well-done recordings, those extremely soft passages might be lost amid noise or muddled in reverberation. Not so here. The piano is recorded more closely than in some older recordings, including de Larrocha’s, not dry but without obvious reverberation, an approach that suits Albeniz’ densely packed scoring quite well. With some earlier recordings, sadly including de Larrocha’s, one must listen through the vagaries of the recorded sound; with the fine job done by the engineers at Alpha, one engages easily with the sound that seemingly is brought into one's own room. By the way, the extensive liner notes, which include an informative discussion of the composition, indicate that this is a live recording from July of 2021. How Alpha managed a live recording during the pandemic – with an utterly silent audience – is a mystery. But with these results, who cares?

So is this CD the one, the only, the best, the replacement for de Larrocha’s (or anyone else's)? There’s never really a “one and only” version of anything, and if you're new to the music I certainly urge you to hear at least one of de Larrocha's recordings. But Goerner’s is a version that definitely stands on its own merits, a very worthwhile take on the infinite possibilities in Albeniz' masterpiece.

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[1] An interesting if squalid story of apparent fraud in the classical music world.