Classical Music

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)

Classical Music

Includes work(s) by Isaac Albéniz. Soloist: Guido Gonzalez.

An outstanding musical personality of the period around 1500, Heinrich Isaac (c 1450-1517) was one of the most universal and versatile of all the earlier composers and an important representative of the Netherlandish school. Altogether a cosmopolitan in the modern sense, he led a colourful life that is reflected in compositions in all the musical forms and styles of his time using the most important languages of Europe in a way that was comparable only with Orlande de Lassus almost 100 years later. The main work on this recording is Heinrich Isaac's six-part Missa paschalis. It comprises the Ordinarium, the 'ordinary' or 'regular' sections (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei) which are always present in the Mass. The Credo, however, is not set to music in the Missa paschalis. In its place, this recording presents a four-part composition by Isaac which is contained in Choir-book no. 33 in the Thuringian State and University Library in Jena. Heinrich Isaac's Missa paschalis is altogether in the tradition of settings of the Easter Mass. Such Easter Masses were based on the first Gregorian plainsong Mass, which was prescribed exclusively for the liturgy at Easter and on the following Sundays up to Whitsuntide. Like all Isaac's Masses using Gregorian models, the Missa paschalis follows the alternatim principle, the alternation between plainsong and polyphony. It is an exceptionally fine example of Isaac's settings of the Mass, and it is no coincidence that its Kyrie was one of few Mass settings he composed that found its way into the choir-books of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, which has a tradition of performing such works unaccompanied. The unaccompanied choral performance presented by ensemble officium on this recording carries on that tradition.

The influence of the Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer Heinrich Isaac extends into today with his extraordinarily prolific output. The period ensemble, Cantica Symphonia led by Giuseppe Maletto gives an inspired performance in this release that features a cross section of Isaac's many motets, choral pieces along with the first time recording of the music for a mass setting, Missa Misericordias Domini.

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.

Mallorca - Seville - Granada - Co?rdoba - mentioning these cities conjures up memories and imaginations that are associated with the magic of Spain. Nobody knew better how to capture these pictures in music than the piano virtuoso Isaac Albe?niz. The American- Italian guitarist Stephen Marchionda who lives in Spain, a renowned interpreter of Spanish music, lends new colours to this musical declaration of love.

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!

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.

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.

In the latest volume of this critically admired series, a number of rarely heard pieces from Albéniz’s first compositional phase can be savored. They were composed between 1881 and 1892 and reveal the variety and flair of which he was capable, even in the smallest of musical forms, such as the delightful mazurkas. The Siete estudios (Seven Studies) are no mere exercises – rather they fuse the color of Iberian music with the rigor of Central European traditions. Les Saisons is an evocative portrait of the seasons and can be seen as a forerunner of the impressionistic writing that would soon appear in French music.

Just as Albéniz did in his concert programmes, this recording alternates pieces in Spanish style with some of the entertaining salon miniatures written for Spain’s aristocracy during the last two decades of the 19th century. The Suite ancienne reflects Albéniz’s delight in creating personal versions of 18th-century dances, while echoes of Chopin and Grieg lurk behind the themes of the Sonata No. 5. The Rêverie is a work of great expressive intensity, the Serenata árabe is more recognisably Albéniz, and the Tres improvisaciones are a transcription of the only recording ever made by the composer.

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

Volume 6 of this complete edition focuses in the main on Albéniz’s richly varied, early salon style. + It includes the dazzling Chopin influenced Vals Champagne, the Estudio de concierto which rivals Liszt for virtuosity, and the famous Tango from España: Seis hojas de Álbum, a set which conjures up Spain in its rhythms, harmonies and sense of drama. + Written a year before the composer’s death, Yvonne en visite! includes a humorous scene during a pupil’s reluctant performance, while the Marcha militar is Albéniz’s earliest work, composed at the age of eight.

Classical Music