Document

  1988
    June 1988
        Instrumental
                Albeniz Suite Iberia. Navarra. Suite espanola. Cantos de Espana.

Albeniz Suite Iberia. Navarra (compl. de Severac). Suite espanola, Op. 47. Alicia de Larrocha (pf).

Decca (Full price) (LP) 417 887-1DH2 (two records); (Cassette) 417 887-4DH2; (CD) 417 887-2DH2 (two discs: 126 minutes: DDD).

Albeniz Suite Iberia^a. Suite espanola, Op. 47^b. Cantos de Espana, Op. 232^b. Ricardo Requejo (pf).

Claves (Full price) (CD) CD50-8003/04 (two discs: 146 minutes: ADD/DDD). Item marked ^a from D8003/04 (8/80), ^b new to UK.

Written during Albeniz's last three years, Iberia is his masterwork for the piano. And the full extent of the journey he travelled in an all-too-brief life-span of 49 years can't be better appreciated than by comparing these 12 richly colourful 'impressions' with the Suite espanola, generally accepted as his earliest serious foray into the nationalist field. Both Larrocha and Requejo allow us to do this. Aficionados may care to note that Larrocha gives us the youthful work (begun in 1886) as the eight-movement suite found in the Union Musical Espanola edition—that's to say with four extra movements lifted from other contexts. Requejo in his turn plays Albeniz's own four original numbers plus only two others, preferring to restore the familiar "Asturias" and "Castilla" (alias "Seguidillas") to their rightful places as the first and last movements, respectively, of the Cantos de Espana (1896) with which he completes his two discs. Larrocha's bonus is the exuberant Navarra originally intended by the composer (before he rejected it as "too plebeian") to end Iberia.

Coming from two such distinguished specialists in the Spanish field, both albums are as musically enjoyable as they are musicologically stimulating. But were I allowed to take only one to my desert island, it would have to be Larrocha. Her playing has just that much more immediacy, subtlety and charm besides revealing fingers so magically able to conceal Albeniz's sometimes cruel technical demands. And thanks to a first-rate new CD recording, Larrocha's sound, as sound per se, is at once more arresting and beguiling than what we're given on Requejo's slightly metallic, slightly 'canned', refurbished CD. Though it won't comfort owners of Larrocha's much-praised old comparatively confined LP recording of Iberia (SXL6586/7, 10/73)), I must also add that in clarity of colouring what Decca give us now is like an old painting newly cleaned.

But it's not just the recording that allows Larrocha's new Iberia to make a more vivid impact. In an interview with AB at the time of the 1973 recording (October 1973, page 654) she confessed to a strange sensation of inhibition when having to face studio microphones. That by now would seem to have been overcome. Everything here carries just that little extra conviction even though overall differences of tempo (and not one of the 12 pieces lasts the precise time it did before) are only marginal. However, she still favours slightly faster speeds than Requejo for seven of the set (in 1973 it was eight), and this is just one of the reasons why her playing seems to have an easier lyrical flow. As the opening "Evocacion" at once makes clear, her rubato is not so deliberate. And as much else in what follows makes plain, her point-making is not quite so explicit. Yet every tiny detail in Albeniz's multi-layered textures, every counter-strand, every fleck of colour, is always crystal clear. As for Larrocha's range of colour, and the sheer sensuous beauty of her tone, that can only be described as a feast for the ear. In short, Requejo is up against a kind of instinctive poet in this music. But that said, his deeply thoughtful, strongly atmospheric performance must not be underestimated.

The essential temperamental difference between the two artists is more immediately apparent in the early Suite espanola—and most of all through choice of tempo. Always Requejo prefers to take his time, even in the lively "Asturias" and "Seguidillas" that he restores to the later Cantos de Espana, as if an attempt to read more deeply between the lines and persuade us that the child was always father of the man. Larrocha, on the other hand, plays them with a spontaneous delight in their tunes, textures and rhythms, she enjoys them as the engaging morceaux de salon that, in comparison with what follows in Iberia, they undoubtedly are. Chacun a son gout... But I was much impressed by all that Requejo draws from "Cordoba" in the Cantos de Espana. His searching approach certainly pays full dividends here.

JOC



		Written during Albeniz's last three years, Iberia is his masterwork for the piano. And the full extent of the journey he travelled in an all-too-brief life-span of 49 years can't be better appreciated than by comparing these 12 richly colourful 'impressions' with the Suite espanola, generally accepted as his earliest serious foray into the nationalist field. Both Larrocha and Requejo allow us to do this. Aficionados may care to note that Larrocha gives us the youthful work (begun in 1886) as the eight-movement suite found in the Union Musical Espanola edition—that's to say with four extra movements lifted from other contexts. Requejo in his turn plays Albeniz's own four original numbers plus only two others, preferring to restore the familiar "Asturias" and "Castilla" (alias "Seguidillas") to their rightful places as the first and last movements, respectively, of the Cantos de Espana (1896) with which he completes his two discs. Larrocha's bonus is the exuberant Navarra originally intended by the composer (before he rejected it as "too plebeian") to end Iberia.



		Coming from two such distinguished specialists in the Spanish field, both albums are as musically enjoyable as they are musicologically stimulating. But were I allowed to take only one to my desert island, it would have to be Larrocha. Her playing has just that much more immediacy, subtlety and charm besides revealing fingers so magically able to conceal Albeniz's sometimes cruel technical demands. And thanks to a first-rate new CD recording, Larrocha's sound, as sound per se, is at once more arresting and beguiling than what we're given on Requejo's slightly metallic, slightly 'canned', refurbished CD. Though it won't comfort owners of Larrocha's much-praised old comparatively confined LP recording of Iberia (SXL6586/7, 10/73)), I must also add that in clarity of colouring what Decca give us now is like an old painting newly cleaned.



		But it's not just the recording that allows Larrocha's new Iberia to make a more vivid impact. In an interview with AB at the time of the 1973 recording (October 1973, page 654) she confessed to a strange sensation of inhibition when having to face studio microphones. That by now would seem to have been overcome. Everything here carries just that little extra conviction even though overall differences of tempo (and not one of the 12 pieces lasts the precise time it did before) are only marginal. However, she still favours slightly faster speeds than Requejo for seven of the set (in 1973 it was eight), and this is just one of the reasons why her playing seems to have an easier lyrical flow. As the opening "Evocacion" at once makes clear, her rubato is not so deliberate. And as much else in what follows makes plain, her point-making is not quite so explicit. Yet every tiny detail in Albeniz's multi-layered textures, every counter-strand, every fleck of colour, is always crystal clear. As for Larrocha's range of colour, and the sheer sensuous beauty of her tone, that can only be described as a feast for the ear. In short, Requejo is up against a kind of instinctive poet in this music. But that said, his deeply thoughtful, strongly atmospheric performance must not be underestimated.



		The essential temperamental difference between the two artists is more immediately apparent in the early Suite espanola—and most of all through choice of tempo. Always Requejo prefers to take his time, even in the lively "Asturias" and "Seguidillas" that he restores to the later Cantos de Espana, as if an attempt to read more deeply between the lines and persuade us that the child was always father of the man. Larrocha, on the other hand, plays them with a spontaneous delight in their tunes, textures and rhythms, she enjoys them as the engaging morceaux de salon that, in comparison with what follows in Iberia, they undoubtedly are. Chacun a son gout... But I was much impressed by all that Requejo draws from "Cordoba" in the Cantos de Espana. His searching approach certainly pays full dividends here.