Platero y Yo

by Bill Heck

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y Yo, Op 190. Niklas Johansen, guitar. OUR Recordings 8.226930-31

This recording will be available October 3, 2025

I’ve been searching for an eye (or ear) catching way to start this review: a great metaphor, a “just right” comparison – hey, I’d settle for a clever phrase. But I’ve come up empty, so I’ll put it simply: this release is a treat. Interesting, wonderful music for solo guitar, a series of short (a few minutes long) interludes based on verses from a lovely prose/poem, superbly played and recorded, and all wrapped up in an excellent package. Let's look at each of these aspects.

We’ll start with the poem, Platero y Yo (Platero and I), by one of Spain’s most famous modern poets, Juan Ramón Jiménez, winner of the Nobel prize for literature in 1956. The 138 sketches in this monumental work are meditations or reflections on life, expressed as directed to Platero, a donkey who is more of a pet than a beast of burden. Lest this sound like some sort of weird fantasy, think of pet owners who say, or at least think, things like “Ah Fido, isn’t this a beautiful day.” Obviously Fido does not answer, nor does Platero; this literary device simply allows the poet to express himself naturally, exploring a range of emotions and a vast store of memories of a childhood in rural Andalusia.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

Castelnuovo-Tedesco was an Italian composer who became friends with Andrés Segovia and ended up composing quite a bit of “Spanish“ music for the guitar. (Readers may recall mention of Castelnuovo-Tedesco in my earlier review of Roberto Moronn Peréz's most recent album of music written for Segovia.) He was greatly taken with Jiménez’s literatry work, eventually composing 28 short pieces, each based on a passage from Platero. While this derivation qualifies the music as programmatic, and reading the associated sketches will deepen your understanding and appreciation of the music, be assured that you can listen to and enjoy the pieces without reference to the writings.

So what is the music like? I really hate that kind of question, as it is so difficult to convey musical experience with written words; still, convention demands that I try. All the pieces certainly are tonal and, as you might suppose, most seem introspective while conveying quite a range of emotions. We wander from sheer joy to deep grieving, from sad commentary on the human condition to wonder at the delights of nature. You might think of the individual pieces as mini-tone poems, all eminently suited to the guitar.

Niklas Johansen

The performances here are, in a word, superb. Johansen certainly is no novice, with a number of recordings and awards to his credit. Moreover, it is obvious, both from his notes in the accompanying booklet and from his playing, that he cares deeply about this music. Technically, the performances are  fully adept, with never any sense of strain. But more than that, Johansen conveys emotional nuance without overemphasis, energy when needed and quiet introspection when called for, not drawing attention to himself but letting the music speak through his instrument.

Then there’s the recording: the booklet informs us that the album was recorded in Fredensborg Palace Chapel in Denmark by special permission of King Frederik X. In this case, the king certainly has done a public service: the acoustics of the chapel are reverberant but not muddy, suiting the music very well, and the engineers have captured the sound wonderfully.

Usually, my reviews are agnostic as to what format a listener might choose: streaming the music, downloading it, buying a CD, or whatever. In this case, however, I really do prefer the two CD set -- it's not just disks, it’s a full package. The attractive outer box contains a similarly attractive inner foldout holding the two CDs (securely but easily extractable) with a handy track listing between them. The box also contains a serious booklet: 72 pages of interesting information about the guitarist, the poet, the composer, the composition itself, the recording process, and even the recording site, all nicely illustrated with photos. And wait, there's more: English translations of all of the 28 sketches on which the musical compositions are based are included, each with an original black-and-white illustration of the setting. Although I mentioned earlier that the music can stand alone without reference to the poems, surely most listeners will want to read these evocative words.

Platero y Yo has been recorded previously, of course. I certainly have not undertaken a comprehensive survey, but I did a few a quick comparisons. Catherine Liolios’s 2017 set, for instance, is good, but I find it a bit subdued compared to Johansen’s more energetic and expressive approach (and her set, along with a couple of others that I tried to locate, seems to be unavailable, at least in the CD version). I also ruled out multiple recordings that include spoken narration (in several different languages): I prefer to read the relevant passages if I’m in the mood to do so, and otherwise to simply listen to the music standing alone; YMMV.

All in all, as I said in the first paragraph, this release is a treat. It’s easy to recommend that you treat yourself to this lovely music as well.

One more quick note: guitarist Niklas Johansen has recorded a series of videos about this project. As of this writing, the first has been released on YouTube here; more are to follow.