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Recommend some good Spanish piano music in idiomatic interpretations. You could add some Latin American ones too.
Usual suspects:
Alicia de Larrocha
Gonzalo Soriano
Joaquin Achucarro
Others - Orozco, Iturbi........
Latin Americans: Barenboim, Arrau, Argerich, Friere, Ingrid Fliter, Gelber, Novaes, Ortiz, Szidon, Bolet, Tipo...
I'm not convinced that all those Latin Americans are idiomatic in Spanish music, however...
Follow Ups:
If you don't mind Scarlatti being Italian and Sudbin being Russian, his piano sounds like a guitar playing Spanish folk music--in surprisingly idiomatic playing. He wrote the album notes in English and explains his intention in doing this--in surprisingly good, idiomatic English.
Sudbin's Scarlatti disc is one of my go-to piano recordings, both for the playing and the audio quality. Babayan is equally good on both counts (Pro Piano label).
Scarlatti lived in Portugal first, then Spain for the rest of his life so it's no accident if he sounds Spanish at times. He had 5 children in Spain and married a Spanish woman.
One of the great Spanish piano pieces. I spent yesterday reviewing versions. The big names are practically all disappointing. Argerich has flat unidiomatic conducting from Dutoit, Barenboim another flat one, Rubinstein better than most but not stand out and so forth.No - to really get to the snappy, Spanish, idiomatic performances of this you need to go Spanish, and not necessarily big names. Surprisingly satisfying, very good modern sound, and remarkably similar (I wondered if they were the same performance...). Don't be put off by the local orchestras - they have the music in their bones and play well:
Castro/Gran Canaria PO/Leaper 2008 - c/w Amor Brujo
Colom/Orquesto Cuidad de Granada/Pons 1997 - c/w 3 Cornered HatI downloaded the Colom/Pons from Presto in FLAC - Amazon listed the CD as over $100!
And for the rest:
De Larrocha - don't go for the Dutoit or the Fruhbeck performances, he's a rather "lazy" conductor and lacks snap. Look out for the Suisse Romande performance, or maybe the Arambarri which I haven't heard. De Larrocha in herself isn't enough to guarantee overall satisfaction.
Soriano - Argenta is the better version than Frubeck, and it's very good
Achucarra - good performance with the LSO under Mata, but not the best choice.
Loriod/Rosenthal - this is worth a one-off listenIf you want a quick check on which are the good versions sample the 2nd movement - Danza Lejana. That should tell you at once what is idiomatic and what isn't. There's a big difference. Tempo should be just right - not too fast and not too slow. And there should be a real "snap" to the rhythm and orchestral playing - no soggy romantic lingering. Soriano/Argenta is really good here and has palpable drama. Colom is excellent as well. These versions have joie-de-vivre and real snap. Castro is close to the above two but doesn't displace either. Same with de Larrocha and the Suisse Romande, where the pianism is a class higher than the orchestral contribution.
Overall choice in good sound:
Colom/Orquesto Cuidad de Granada/Pons 1997 - c/w 3 Cornered Hat
Edits: 02/03/16
Found it used on Amazon Sellers for about $6.61 plus shipping.
Also up for streaming on both QOBUZ and TIDAL.
Unless you consider that she came to America from Italy. :-)
She was included in an online list of South American pianists - someone else was confused!
I think she recorded most of his work?
And let's not forget her status as a "babe from yesteryear" (who should have been in a Breck shampoo ad):
Funny, I was just listening to Tipo playing Bach today.
Another pianist I like quite a lot in Spanish music is Martin Jones. Wonderful Granadis, Albeniz and Mompou. His South American stuff, especially Guastavino, is also lovely.
Harry
Luis Fernando Perez. Some of his recordings are on Mirare.
But only if partly Spanish and partly idiomatic is of any interest to you.
This was my favourite disc back in the day and walked around many HIFI shows having exhibitor play the track 1 for me.
Wish it is available in vinyl.
I've strayed into Cuba....
But I really like this guy. I used to listen to Edmundo Ros' Rumba Band playing his music as a child. "La Comparsa" is a great tune. This is the record I used to listen to. My parents used to dance to it when they had parties.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPEvXBLs55Y
Música Callada (Music of Silence) is a very special work, one of the most beautiful and elusive in the entire piano repertoire. It is extremely difficult to perform. On the one hand, there's the temptation to stretch each piece out hypnotically, if monotonously, while quicker speeds preserve the music's melodic essence at the expense of much of its atmosphere and harmonic richness. For although much of the music is indeed quiet, and none of it moves quickly, it is all meaningful.
Mompou himself found the perfect balance between incident and repose, and of all the pianists since, Jenny Lin arguably comes closest to doing the same, only in much better sound. It's not so much that her tempos match Mompou's own (she's actually not copying him--it would hardly be possible in a work containing 28 individual pieces), but rather that her phrasing and sense of timing let the music breathe and sing with its own special poetry. To take just one example, consider the sadness that Lin finds in the fourth piece, "Afflitto e penoso", by allowing the piece's harmonic color time to speak simply and eloquently.
Another secret of her success is the splendid equilibrium between left and right hands. The treble gleams, bell-like, while the sonorous bass lines carry the music right through the many pauses, aided in no small degree by discretely timed use of the pedals. "Secreto", from the early Impresiones intimas, makes the perfect encore and rounds out the program in a most satisfying way. If Música Callada represents Mompou's masterpiece, then this beautifully engineered disc must be its finest modern recording. It deserves a home in every serious piano music collection.
- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
"Jenny Lin, an eloquent pianist whose tastes more typically lead her to new music of a wilder stripe, gives a magnificently serene, probing account of these works. She draws you so fully into Mompou's world that even his most subtle coloristic gradations seem clearly drawn." -- Allan Kozinn, New York Times
"Mompou's music has drawn the attention of prominent soloists like Rubinstein, Michelangeli, De Larrocha and Stephen Hough, and in 1974 the composer recorded his own works for posterity. Now add to their number Jenny Lin, a resourceful performer blessed with superb technique and indefatigable curiosity. Her recording of Música Callada, newly issued on the Steinway & Sons label, is an essential document, one in which every matter of tempo, dynamics and articulation sounds inevitable. It's also a truly fine piano recording, capturing each nuance of a fine instrument." -- Steve Smith, TimeOut New York
"Pianist Jenny Lin has taken on quite a challenge on this recording. Música Callada is not an easy work to negotiate and the line between communicating its unique, almost hypnotic beauties and inducing narcolepsy is fine indeed. Lin is magnificent. There are no wasted gestures in her playing, and that may be one of the highest accolades a pianist can earn in this repertoire. Lin leaves the music alone and it works brilliantly. Her phrasing is impeccable, her touch is perfectly calibrated and her tone is generous and lush. It also helps that the engineers have lovingly captured every nuance of Lin playing a Steinway Model D, making this is one of the most realistic sounding piano records I've heard in a long time. Música Callada is not easy to grasp on first hearing, but Lin's performance makes a very strong case for it being considered one of the 20th century's greatest solo piano cycles." -- Craig Zeichner, Ariama.com
"How does Lin's Música Callada stack up against the competition? She's tied with the composer's, and a clear alternative to him and the versions I've heard because, in an entirely appropriate way, she plays it with a Romantic, Chopinesque level of expressiveness (Mompou adored Chopin, so that makes sense). There's a level of intensity here, of great investment in achieving the full emotional impact of each individual piece, that's downright startling... when she dwells on a piece, interpretive rewards are reaped. Mompou's expressive markings are followed pretty closely, though not inhibitively so... The Romanticism of Lin's playing doesn't include the composer's left-hand-first tic, by the way. It does include a songful projection of melodies, wide dynamic range, deep characterization of each piece, and a wonderful sense of flow with plenty of tastefully applied rubato and agogics, yet no violations of structure, no distensions. Nor does this approach diminish the vividly modernist aspects of this unusual music; in fact, it heightens it, with its outbursts set off powerfully and its brooding passion granted Expressionistic starkness. Sonically, this is superb, as one would hope for from the house label of the most famous piano company. All in all, when I want to hear Música Callada, this will be the one I'll put on most often." -- Steve Holtje, CultureCatch
Zo, it comes well-recommended, and I have heard it too. Not really my cup of tea but I can't imagine its being better played, for what it is.
jm
I'll give it a listen - it's on Youtube. Mompou is a rather special composer, just as you say. I have his Impresiones Intimas played by de Larrocha. I kind of go on and off them. They're bitter-sweet and quite ephemeral. Strange stuff, not entirely comfortable listening.
"He was also influenced by the sounds and smells of the maritime quarter of Barcelona, the cry of seagulls, the sound of children playing and popular Catalan culture. He often dispensed with bar lines and key signatures..."
Quite a guy. His family made bells.
There is also a Mompou CD recently released featuring Arcadi Volodos on Sony Classical, I wonder if anyone has that recording and would care to comment on the performance particularly the 11 pieces that make up Musica callada.
Vahe
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