Antonio Soler enjoyed high prestige at Spain's royal palace, the Escorial, where his contributions to keyboard technique, harmonic innovation and his Spanish musical identity served to bridge the stylistic gap between the late Baroque and early Classicism. Soler's innovations have often been overlooked but the intricate modulations and rhythmic vitality found in his sonatas offer compelling evidence of their importance. Sonatas Nos. 99-111 offer a wealth of entrancing features, which include sophisticated ornamentation, a synthesis of contrapuntal and Iberian folkloric traditions, and humorous cadences.

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Classical Music

...Like [Joaquim] Homs, [Josep Soler (b. 1935)] also is influenced by composers of the Second Viennese School, but also by the music of Bach, Palestrina, and other musicians of those eras. This is readily apparent in the Partita (1980); the titles of the eight movements (Sarabande, Allemande, and so on) refer to models offered by Bach, but the music itself speaks in a modern tongue. Soler's expertise in counterpoint (he wrote a text on the subject in the same year that he wrote the Partita) is apparent. A three-minute Sonata Fragment from the late 1950s is Bergian to the point of homage. "The Song of God," a sonata from 1993, is almost eccentrically individual. Speaking of eccentricity, I note that the annotations claim that this music exemplifies "a process of natural stylization, in which we can observe the disappearance of all tendency towards exasperation, or violence toward the materials employed, and the renunciation of any hint of avant-gardism, leaving only the distillation of what is most deeply inherent to it: its very essence." I haven't the faintest idea what that all means, but somehow it seems to describe Soler's music to a tee. My comments concerning the approachability and integrity of Horns's compositions need to be applied even more strongly here.

In the absence of a score or a performance tradition I can refer to, it seems to me that Masó's pianism exceeds the music's technical and intellectual challenges (this also was Story's impression in the aforementioned review). He is recording all of Gerhard's music for Marco Polo, and the complete piano music of Mompou for Naxos (another worthy project), so it appears that this repertoire is his bread and butter (or should I say pan y mantequillal). The engineering is not completely successful in coping with the challenges of recording the piano, but it is good enough.

If you're looking for piano music that's as free of gimmicks as it is full of challenges, then one or both of these discs should satisfy you.

-- Raymond Tuttle, FANFARE [9/1999]

SOLER, A.: Sonatas for Harpsichord, Vol. 7

SOLER, A.: Sonatas for Harpsichord, Vol. 2

"Cedille continues to delight me with the quality of its engineering and production. The latest release--again demonstrating the recording-booth talents of Bill Maylone--is Soler's Quintets for Harpsichord and Strings . . . Schrader plays a large harpsichord, resonant and full-voiced. The recording seems perfectly balanced between small-room acoustics . . . and large-ensemble spaciousness." (Fanfare)

Padre Antonio Soler's six quintets for harpsichord and string quartet are post-Baroque masterstrokes, blending Baroque and early Classical styles with a savory seasoning of Spanish folk music.

"In terms of crowd-pleasing qualities, the last three quintets of Soler may even eclipse their predecessors," says record producer James Ginsburg. "Yet they also reward the serious listener."

While formally less diverse than the first three quintets, the latter three are especially lyrical and offer a stimulating variety of moods and timbres which -- at least in the hands of the present performers -- evoke the sound of woodwinds, chimes, harp, and even Spanish guitar.

"Soler's distinctive personality is stamped all over [these quintets]. Schrader has recorded two volumes of [Soler's] sonatas for Cedille Records, and he brings the same digital skill and musical discrimination to these quintets. He leads a quartet that uses mid--to late--eighteenth century original instruments, in performances that are lively, tasteful, and finely balanced. The ensemble is ideally recorded." (Fanfare)

"The pleasures of discovering this unfamiliar music are greatly enhanced by the performances." (Chicago Tribune)

Captivating and quirky, the quintets for keyboard and strings of Spanish composer Padre Antonio Soler were rare, even in the heyday of LP recordings. Now they are available for the first time on compact disc.

SOLER: Keyboard Sonatas / Fandango, Vol. 1

Before his thirtieth birthday the young Catalan composer Antonio Soler had become maestro di capilla and organist at the Escorial palace, positions he held for hte rest of his life. Many of his keyboard sonatas were written for Don Gabriel, son of King Carlos III, and they represent his greatest compositional achievement, effortlessly embodying the dual influences of Domenico Scarlatti and the emergent Viennese school. Each sonata in Volume 6 has its own distinctive character, from the ingenious contrasts of No. 63 in F major and the harmonic sophistication of No. 64 in G major to the delicious Iberian colours evoked in No. 66 in C major.

SOLER, A.: Sonatas for Harpsichord, Vol. 8

SOLER: Harpsichord Sonatas, Vol. II

Pieter-Jan Belder's zeal for the rediscovery of 17th-century keyboard music continues apace with this, the third volume in the first-ever projected complete set of the harpsichord sonatas by Padre Antonio Soler, contemporary and rival of Domenico Scarlatti. Like Scarlatti's examples, these sonatas are intensely colorful, alternately exuberant and poetic, and always distinctive. Soler (1729-83) was born in Olot, Catalunia, and became a monk at Escurial where he was organist and composer. A keyboard soloist of prodigious skills, he composed many sonatas for harpsichord (although not one has survived in his hand), organ works a Requiem, piano quintets and concertos for 2 keyboards, and incidental music to plays by Calderon and other 17th century Spanish playwrights. Much research has been carried out to establish accurate performing editions of Soler's music. The editions used in these recordings are by Professor Frederick Marvin who researched the extensive library and archives of Montserrat Monastery, El Escorial and Bibloteca de Catalunia in Barcelona in the 1940s through to the 1960s, and the edition by Padre Samuel Rubio.

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Harpsichord virtuosi Jory Vinikour and Philippe LeRoy present this brilliant recording of Antonio Soler’s Baroque masterpiece, Six Concerti for Two Keyboards. Antonio Soler was a music teacher and ordained priest. His engaging solo harpsichord sonatas make up a cornerstone of Baroque keyboard repertoire. These two-instrument wroks, however, have rarely been performed or recorded. Vinikour and LeRoy frequently perform as a duo, and have gained an international following. Vinikour has already made several other well received recordings for Delos.

SOLER, A.: Sonatas for Harpsichord, Vol. 9

SOLER, A.: Sonatas for Harpsichord, Vol. 6

SOLER, A.: Sonatas for Harpsichord, Vol. 5

}Gramophone (1/97, p. 81) "...[Rowland's] selection here is interestingly varied and includes keyboard exuberances such as hand-crossings (Nos. 16 and 90), joyous leaps (No. 101), and imitations of Spanish folk instruments..."{

SOLER, A.: Sonatas for Harpsichord, Vol. 3