The newest installment in the Chandos La Musica de Espana series with the BBC Philharmonic and chief conductor Juanjo Mena explores the music of Isaac Albeniz, one of the greatest Spanish composers to have ever lived. This album includes his Piano Concerto No. 1 "Concierto fantastico", Suite espanola, Rapsodia espanola, and Suite from “The Magic Opal.” The featured soloist for the Piano Concerto and Rapsodia espanola is British pianist Martin Roscoe, who has already been critically praised for his previous recordings on the Chandos label.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Segovia and His Contemporaries Volume 16 - The Guitar in Spain, Part 4: 1928-1955: This�disc highlights the classical guitar in orchestral, chamber, and duet settings. It opens with the live broadcast of the Castelnuovo-Tedesco Concerto No. 1, made on August 17, 1955 by Segovia at the Lucerne Festival. Chamber music is represented by two 1932 recordings made by Luise Walker, Miguel Llobet's student, of works by Carl Maria von Weber and Luigi Boccherini; and of particular interest are 1928 recordings by the world-renowned�Cuarteto Aguilar, �comprised of four lauds (types of Spanish lute), of works by Joaquin Turina and Renaissance composers Gabriel Mena and William Croft. The Guitar in Duo appears in rare performances by four pairings: the Canarian musicians Victor Doreste and Ignacio Rodriguez (1930), who perform�Capricho Arabe, �Sevilla�and a�Folias Canarias;�the Argentinean duo of Antonio Sinopoli and his daughter Nelida (1932), who play a milonga and vidalita penned by the father; the Mallorcan Bartolome Calatayud, a student of Tarrega, and the Catalan Graciano Tarrago (1936), who assay a�popular Mallorcan dance�So de pastera�and Joan Maria Thomas'�Festa de Sant Antoni; and lastly another Argentinean duo, Consuelo Mallo Lopez and Maria Herminia Antola (1937), who conclude with�Mozart's 'Minueto de la Sinfonia No. 39' and Galluzzo's�Romanza No. 2.

Cantos de Espana

Pianist Yuja Wang has become an integral part of the world's major stages, inspiring young and old alike. Her playing displays technical brilliance and a seemingly endless range of emotions. The Piano Recital from the Wiener Konzerthaus allows her to display her fiery virtuosity as well as her mature musicality and imagination with an eclectic, personally chosen program. It combines masterpieces from famous works by Ludwig van Beethoven and Alexander Scriabin to lesser-known compositions by Gyorgy Ligeti and Nikolai Kapustin, including also sublime musical miniatures by Christoph Willibald Gluck and Philip Glass. A historical milestone that is not to be missed! "The hall went wild!" (Der Standard)

As a tribute to guitar legend Andres Segovia, Profil has compiled performances by the master himself as well as up and coming guitarist Friedemann Wuttke. The works are focused on favorites and evergreens from Segovia's repertoire, works of Albeniz, Sor, Vivaldi, Carulli, Paganini, and more, played intimately and soulfully in this beautiful 2 disc set. A fitting homage to a giant.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

This is a remastered recording of the concert given by cantaora Rocío Márquez and pianist Rosa Torres-Pardo at the Fundación Juan March on November 28, 2014. It presents a selection of Spanish classical works interspersed with music from the folk tradition that inspired their composition. The flamenco singer–classical pianist duo interweaves works by Manuel de Falla, Enrique Granados and Isaac Albéniz with popular Spanish songs (some of which were later harmonized by Federico García Lorca). The artists’ flamenco take on classical repertoire reveals the often neglected traditional origins of works whose composers drew on popular culture as they searched for the essence of Spanish music.

Alb�niz wrote seven piano sonatas during the 1880s, but only Nos. 3, 4, and 5 survive as complete works. As with so much of his output they are now better known in the form of guitar transcriptions - at least for Nos. 3 and 5 - but the piano originals show the same fantastical imagination and romantic temperament as his masterpiece Iberia, while conforming to a more conventionally Classical form. Their craftsmanship in harmony, scoring, and voice-leading are beyond reproach, but it is the lyric sweep and often playful touches of harmony that secure their place on the fringes of the repertoire. As a pianist, Alb�niz was a noted interpreter of 18th-century music - not only Bach and Scarlatti but also Handel, Couperin and Rameau - at a time when such music was often disparaged as dryly academic or old- fashioned. The Suites anciennes are an early example of musical neoclassicism, comprising suites of gavottes, minuets, sarabandes and chaconnes in his own tribute to the Baroque era. But then the minuets, rondos and well-worked counterpoint to be enjoyed in the three sonatas also belong to an earlier era. The Fourth is a particular highlight, establishing Alb�niz as the leading Spanish composer of keyboard sonatas since Antonio Soler, but the others are every bit it's equal in craftsmanship and elegance. Sebastian Stanley is a British pianist who has specialized in the piano music of Spain, making well-received recordings of the Danzas Espanolas and Goyescas by Granados. This is his debut album on Brilliant Classics, enhanced by booklet notes by the noted authority on Spanish piano music, Walter A. Clark.

This recording is a tribute to the memory of my mother, Genia Lushtak, to whom I owe what I am today. She was a wonderful musician and teacher. For the first four years of my piano studies at the Stoliarsky School of Music she would come to every one of my lessons with Mme. Eleonora Levinson, despite her own very busy life with many students to teach. Then she would make sure that I practiced as Mme. Levinson required. Most of the pieces on this disc were taught by my mother to her students. I heard them throughout my childhood. Many are melancholic. They reflect a spectrum of feelings and moods. (Faina Lushtak)

Iberia is probably the greatest masterpiece by Isaac Albniz. There are surprisingly few recordings of the complete Iberia. Paul Verona has devoted years of study to Iberia, and his performances show his abiding commitment for the work.

Classical Music