Products
25001 products
Albeniz, I.: Iberia (Arr. for Guitar Quartet)
Albéniz, I.: Piano Sonatas Nos. 3-5 / Suite ancienne Nos. 1-
Albéniz: Complete Piano Music Vol 2 / Miguel Baselga

As the talented young Spanish pianist Miguel Baselga mentions in this release's excellent booklet notes, there's a considerable gap between much of Isaac Albéniz's salon-like piano output and the labyrinthine originality of Iberia's four books. For this reason, the pianist is allotting one book from Iberia per release in his ongoing complete Albéniz cycle for BIS. The project's second installment improves upon its predecessor in that Baselga truly is making this music his own. His assertive, communicative virtuosity uncovers all the poetic layers interwoven throughout Iberia Book Two's technical hurdles. Similarly, the pianist makes a cogent case for the composer's slighter but utterly charming, neo-Lisztian Seven Studies in the Natural Minor Keys. Baselga's fanciful yet tender treatments of the two salon mazurkas (Amalia and Ricordatti) and the evocative 1897 Souvenirs are absolute delights. The disc concludes with the wild and wooly La Vega, whose elemental impressionism sizzles under Baselga's hot hands. All the music on this disc conveys as full a scope of Albéniz's artistic development as can be contained on one CD. In sum, a disc guaranteed to perk up anyone's piano collection. --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com
Albeniz: Complete Piano Music Vol 6 / Miguel Baselga
The Luxembourg-born pianist Miguel Baselga has now recorded six well-regarded discs of solo piano music by Albéniz, the latest of which includes works for piano and orchestra. In typical BIS fashion the band chosen is the Tenerife Symphony, which celebrates its 75 th anniversary this year, under Shanghai-born Lü Jia. This strategy of employing little-known ensembles is a risky one, but in the case of the Singapore Symphony it paid off handsomely. Indeed, the latter’s Seascapes was one of my Recordings of the Year for 2007. Kees Bakels and the Malaysian Philharmonic’s Rimsky-Korsakov collection (BIS-CD-1667) is just as desirable, proof - if it were needed - that second-rank need not mean second-rate.
Rapsodia Española, originally written for two pianos and usually heard in one of several versions for piano and orchestra, is presented here in a completion by Spanish musicologist Jacinto Torres. Both the band and soloist make a striking impression in the brooding first bars of the piece, Baselga wonderfully fluent and rhythmically sophisticated. The piano sound is warm and detailed, the bass especially well caught, the brief orchestral tuttis suitably powerful. But it’s the soloist who really impresses, with rollicking rhythms and variegated colours. Yes, the orchestra is a little uncouth at times, but they certainly add terrific swing to the demonic dance that begins at 10:17.
An intoxicating start to this recital, and an ideal curtain raiser to the glitter and glitz of the unfinished Navarra, presented here in a version by Spanish pianist Pilar Bayona. One usually hears the somewhat anodyne orchestration by Déodat de Séverac - as played in the recently reviewed Ansermet reissue from Eloquence - but whichever version one prefers there’s no denying the virtuosity of this one. Baselga is simply dazzling, producing bright cascades of sound that will surely gladden the hearts of all Lisztians. As the late Paul Shoemaker remarked in his review of Volume 5, this is pianism of the highest order, and very well recorded to boot.
The Piano Sonata No. 5 also has strong links to the virtuoso pianist-composers of the 19 th-century; in his liner-notes Jean-Paul Vachon characterises the opening Allegro as Schumannesque, although its reach and cool, free-flowing harmonies seem closer to Chopin at times. As for the tiny Minuet, it’s anything but a genteel interlude; indeed, Baselga despatches it with devilish glee. The real gem, though, is the ensuing Rêverie, with its nod to the north. There’s an ease to the playing here, a command, that’s most impressive, the music’s pointilliste elements rendered with great precision and inner feeling. As for the final Allegro, rhythms are superbly articulated, the BIS engineers conveying the crystalline quality of Baselga’s playing without allowing the sound to harden or become brittle.
Albéniz looks back to an earlier century - the 18 th - with the Troisième Suite ancienne, whose Minuet and Gavotte are played with a genuine feel for late Baroque style and proportions. The latter is especially fine, the bones of the stately dance fleshed out with writing of great lucidity and charm. As for Azulejos - another unfinished work, this time completed by Enrique Granados - Baselga uncovers a remarkable amount of detail and colour, the music’s gentle ebb and flow adroitly managed. Daringly, he has replaced Granados’s ending with one of his own; it’s seamlessly done, the piece ending with the lightest of flourishes.
The brighter acoustic of the Auditorio de Tenerife - not such an issue in the Rapsodia - is something of a disappointment after the warm, velvety sound captured in the Auditorio y palacio de congresos, Zaragoza. The orchestral sound is certainly a tad aggressive, but at least the piano is well placed in the mix. Baselga seems fractionally less involved in this concerto, although as always detail and colour are high on his list of musical priorities. Rêverie is a real joy, even if the orchestral interjections are a little coarse. And despite some delectable rhythms in the closing Allegro, I feel the band is the weakest element here.
Ironically, Miguel Baselga first registered on my radar when I heard that his recording of Manuel de Falla’s Pour le tombeau de Couperin (BIS-CD-773) was passed off as a performance by the infamous Joyce Hatto. A compliment of sorts, I suppose, but anyone listening to this new disc will recognise Baselga as a pianist of great range and sophistication. So, even though Alicia De Larrocha will always be favoured in this repertoire, she may just have met her match.
-- Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International
Albeniz: Iberia
ALBENIZ: Iberia (arr. for 3 guitars)
Albéniz: Iberia / Goerner
Albéniz: Iberia / Igor Golovschin, Moscow Symphony Orchestra
Albeniz: Iberia Books 1-4, Etc / Guillermo Gonzalez
Albeniz: Music for Solo Piano, Vol. 2 / Stanley
The first volume of Sebastian Stanley’s Albéniz survey was greeted with enthusiasm for the repertoire and praise for the interpretations in the pages of Fanfare and elsewhere: ‘He is tender and sentimental in the lyrical moments, animated and energetic in his attack elsewhere. He clearly loves the music, and dispatches it with unapologetic flair.’ His sequel opens with the First Suite Española which contains several of the composer’s most colourful and best-known pieces. It begins with the vibrant guitar-strumming textures and Moorish harmonies of ‘Granada (Serenata)’ and continues with his own interpretation of a dance from his native Catalonia. Evocations of Seville, Cadiz and Asturias all spring from the pages with the sharp colours of a Goya canvas, and the suite comes to an exotic, sensuous conclusion with a Cuban habanera. The Second Suite Española is much smaller and less well-known. Its two movements are evocations of Zaragoza and (once more) Seville. Sebastian Stanley includes two further landscapes in sound: the Zambra granadina (Danse orientale) evokes flamenco dance that features a haunting melody to a seductively syncopated accompaniment. The rolled chords of Cádiz (Gaditana) suggest the strumming of guitars, setting the scene for an animated copla dance. The neoclassical side of Albéniz comes to the fore with the third of his Suites Anciennes – consisting of a graceful Minuet and sprightly Gavotte – which anticipate similar projects to revive Baroque forms in modern guise by Ravel and Respighi. As a reminder of the incomparable richness of the finest Spanish piano music,’ Sebastian Stanley’s Albéniz series should invite the attention of curious listeners and pianophiles alike.
Albeniz: Orchestral Works / Mena, Roscoe, BBC Philharmonic
Albéniz: Piano Duos (Complete)
Albéniz’s distinctive musical vocabulary, with its sensual harmonies, rich melodic lines and characteristic rhythmic figures, has ensured lasting popularity, not least in his music for the piano. This album of four-hand piano music reveals the composer’s love of Spain’s regional music traditions, whether in the glittering sweep of the Suite española No. 1or in the Rapsodia Española where a hypnotic dreamscape meets dramatic outbursts. Two movements from Iberia – one of which is a rarely encountered arrangement by the great Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha – reveal a daring modernity that aligns Albéniz with Debussy and Ravel.
Albeniz: Piano Music - Espana; Deseo; Zortzico; Yvonne En Visite!
Albéniz: Piano Music Vol 3 / Guillermo González
ALBÉNIZ Danzas españolas. Pequeños valses. Mazurkas de salon • Guillermo González (pn) • NAXOS 8.572196 (69:42)
Isaac Albéniz wrote some of the defining piano music of the Spanish school. By and large, this is not it. This disc, the third in Naxos’s Albéniz series, is devoted to salon music composed early in the composer’s life. At the time, he was known as a piano virtuoso who also gave lessons to young ladies to whom he dedicated many of his salon pieces, including all six of these mazurkas.
Premonitions of the mature Albéniz may be glimpsed in the Danzas españolas , which shares a pleasant lilt, usually in habanera rhythm, and the composer’s predilection for a melodic line in three against a languid accompanying figure in four. The pieces resemble Granados’s later set of Spanish Dances in their occasional underlying hint of melancholy, but those in Albéniz’s set are neither as formally diverse nor as pianistically challenging as are those of his slightly younger contemporary. Chopin is the predominant influence in the sets of waltzes and mazurkas. Once again the results, while mellifluous and polished, are no comparison to the works of the Polish master in terms of ingenuity and memorability.
González, a noted Albéniz specialist, has the kind of muscular technique necessary to tackle Iberia and the late masterpieces, but lacks delicacy in this refined repertoire. There would be no whispering or throat clearing in his salon! Overall, this is a pleasant collection but unrepresentative of the composer’s most exciting work. If you are curious about the antecedents of Iberia , it is worth a listen.
FANFARE: Phillip Scott
Albeniz: Piano Music, Vol. 5
Albeniz: Piano Music, Vol. 8 / Laiz
Most known for his piano works which were based on folk music idioms, Isaac Albeniz is a figurehead in Spanish classical music. Transcriptions of many of his pieces are part of the classical guitar repertoire, although he never composed for the instrument. Pianist Miguel Angel Rodriguez Laiz studied in Murcia, Madrid, Dallas, and Canada. He currently serves as a piano professor, chamber music professor, and theory professor at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Musica “Victoria Eugenia” de Granada. On this release he presents some of Albeniz’s most colorful and influential piano works, including the Rapsodia espanola.
Albeniz: Piano Music, Vol. 8 / Miguel Baselga
If at least some part of Isaac Albéniz' music may justifiably be described as 'salon music', this is not something that the composer would have objected to. Quite the opposite: he was himself very much a man of the salon, especially in his youth in the 1880s, which is when most of the pieces on Miguel Baselga's new disc were composed. It was in the salons of Madrid that he recruited new pupils among the young ladies of the bourgeoisie, performed his latest compositions and, presumably, had a good time in general. And although his greatest work - the four books that make up Iberia - was composed much later, in Paris, Albéniz never disassociated himself from the earlier works: 'There are among them a few things that are not completely worthless', he once remarked, '... there is less musical science, less of the grand idea, but more colour, sunlight, flavour of olives.' It was in the 1880s that a strong influence of Spanish style becomes evident in his music, as a result of the influence of the teacher and composer Felipe Pedrell. Folk music, especially that of Andalusia, and the characteristic idiom of Spanish guitar music make themselves felt in compositions such as Zaragoza and Sevilla, the two pieces published in 1890 as Seconde Suite espagnole. Other works on this disc are of a more 'international' character, for instance Les Saisons, Albéniz' own 'Four Seasons': four miniatures in an almost impressionistic style. Also included is the transcription, published in 2009, of one of the three improvisations that Albéniz recorded on a phonograph roll in 1903, permitting us a unique peek into the composer's creative mind.
Albeniz: Piano Music, Vol. 9 / Baselga
The piano works by Isaac Albeníz range from indisputable masterpieces to highly enjoyable salon music, the composer painting with bright Spanish colours as well as the hues of Classicism or Romanticism. On eight previous volumes, Miguel Baselga has guided listeners through the music of his compatriot, earning acclaim from reviewers worldwide: ‘pianism of the highest order’ (MusicWeb-International); ‘berauschend agil und rhytmisch spannungsgeladen’ (PIANONews); ‘un pianista elegante y refinado’ (CD Compact). With the assistance of Albeníz scholar Jacinto Torres, Baselga has been able to access rare editions and scores, and his exhaustive series includes the Marcha militar by a nine-year-old Albeníz (Vol. 7), as well as the four books that make up the celebrated Iberia (Vols. 1-4) and the composer's only two scores for piano and orchestra (Vol. 6). On the present disc Baselga offers us the chance to hear the last of the three Improvisations, transcribed from a phonograph recording made by Albeníz in 1903. A large part of the programme is from the late 1880s, however, a period during which the composer was a fixture at the fashionable salons of Madrid, and composed works in which the influence of composers such as Mendelssohn, Schumann and Chopin is often evident. Recuerdos de viaje, one of the best-known works from the period, nevertheless displays the Spanish flavours that were to become one of the distinguishing features of the music of Isaac Albeníz.
Albéniz: Piano Music, Vol. 9 / Laiz, Sacristán
This latest entry in Naxos' Spanish Classics series is also the ninth and final volume in the Albéniz piano music series. The focus here is on Albéniz’s compositional evolution and his use of inspired folk-based melodies, Hispanic nostalgia and vivid dance rhythms, encapsulated by the intoxicating Chants d’Espagne. The album also includes five works heard in exciting new arrangements for two pianos made expressly for this recording. Miguel Ángel R. Laiz is joined by Santiago L. Sacristán in the works for two pianos.
Albeniz: Piano Works / Martin Jones
-----
REVIEW:
Altogether this is a well stocked and representative survey of Albéniz's colourful and imaginative piano music and Martin Jones is as always a convincing advocate; I am always impressed with character and panache that he brings to all that he plays. The liner notes are informative though are in English only. A marvellous collection of the best of Albéniz' piano music.
– MusicWeb International
Albeniz: Serenata / Marchionda
Stephen Marchionda resides in Barcelona and is a proven expert in the field of Spanish music. This production is his second release on MDG, once again in the finest 2+2+2 SACD technique, which makes the listener feel that he or she is there in person. A fine and opulent result!
Albéniz: The Complete Piano Music / Baselga, Lü, Tenerife Symphony Orchestra
The piano works by Isaac Albéniz range from indisputable masterpieces to ravishing salon music, the composer painting with bright Spanish colors as well as the hues of Classicism and Romanticism. On nine discs, originally released between 1998 and 2017 and gathered here, Miguel Baselga guides listeners through the music of his compatriot, earning acclaim from reviewers worldwide: ‘pianism of the highest order’ (MusicWeb-International); ‘berauschend agil und rhytmisch spannungsgeladen’ (PIANONews); ‘un pianista elegante y refinado’ (CD Compact). Composed between December 1905 and January 1908, only a year before the death of Albéniz, Iberia is the crowning achievement of the composer’s genius. Marking a high point of the post-romantic piano literature, this collection of ‘12 nouvelles impressions’ was to serve as an endless source of inspiration for other composers throughout the twentieth century, admired by Debussy and Messiaen, who called it 'the marvel of the piano'. Baselga’s exhaustive series places Iberia in its proper context, and with the assistance of Albéniz scholar Jacinto Torres, he has been able to access original editions and scores, including rarities such as the Marcha militar by a nine-year-old Albéniz and the composer's two scores for piano and orchestra. We are also given the opportunity to hear three improvisations, transcribed from a phonograph recording made by the composer in 1903.
REVIEW:
Miguel Baselga was the first and (I believe) only pianist to have recorded Albéniz’s complete solo piano works, a project encompassing nine CDs. The cycle has been reissued in a boxed set, together with each individual release’s original booklet. It remains a significant catalog milestone.
As a stylist, Albéniz covered all bases, from unabashedly salon-like trifles and flashy neo-Lisztian fare to the Iberia Suite’s astonishing originality and labyrinthine complexities. Since Baselga wanted each disc to represent different aspects of Albéniz’s musical personality, he cunningly divided Iberia’s four parts across the first four volumes, aiming to give lesser-known masterpieces like the wild and woolly La Vega and tender Barcarola Op. 202 their due.
The two concerted works (the Piano Concerto No. 1 and Rapsodia Espanola) also receive impressively fresh and well-balanced readings. And for those who can’t get past the faded sound of Albéniz’s three 1903 improvisations preserved on private cylinders, Milton Laufer’s painstakingly notated editions will be revelations, especially in Baselga’s inspired hands.
In all, Baselga’s combination of technical brilliance, exuberant temperament, and tonal imagination yields consistently idiomatic and enjoyable results. A must-have for serious aficionados of Spanish piano music.
– ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)
Alberga, E.: Wild Blue Yonder
Alberga: Orchestral Works
Alberga: Works / Bowes, Pearse, Swensen, BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Albergati: Corona de pregi di Maria, Op. 13 - Vittoria: Anti
Albergati: Il Convito di Baldassarro
Albert Schnelzer: Tales From Suburbia
Born in 1972, Albert Schnelzer has established himself as one of the most successful contemporary Swedish composers. Taking inspiration from both dance and literature, he writes music that has been described as pulsating with feverish tension and vibrating rhythms, outgoing but with room for fragile and lyrically expressive moments. The three works gathered here were composed between 2011 and 2014, with two multi-movement works flanking the single-movement Tales from Suburbia. The work is inspired by the idea of suburbs embodying the transition between countryside and urbanity, where the organic world of nature contrasts with concrete structures and where past meets present. Framing Tales from Suburbia are two concertos, one for cello and one for orchestra, which both owe a debt to the rock band Pink Floyd’s iconic album Dark Side of the Moon. The work titles – Crazy Diamond and Brain Damage – are both borrowed from the album tracklist, and the individual movements carry titles taken from the lyrics. As Schnelzer himself explains in his liner notes, he hasn’t used any actual musical quotations but the lyrics have provided catalysts for his own music. In the cello concerto his focus has been on the fate of Syd Barrett, one of the founder members of Pink Floyd who was forced to leave the band due to deteriorating mental health. Brain Damage – Concerto for Orchestra on the other hand can be seen in terms of wandering through a series of different moods: anger, frustration, grief and perhaps even a glimpse of hope.
Albert: Tiefland (Recorded 1953)
