Divine Art is delighted to announce a superb collection of sensuous classical Spanish language songs for voice and piano, from the sublime musical partnership of lyric soprano Esther Rayo and renowned pianist and conductor Peter Grunberg. This program of works was first heard in a series of concerts given by the San Francisco based teaching and performance organization LIEDER ALIVE! The album features songs by early 20th century Spanish language composers: Fernando Obradors, Manuel de Falla, Enrique Granados, Alberto Ginastera, Xavier Montsalvatge, Consuelo Velazquez and Manuel Ponce. Drawing from Spanish classical poetry and regional folk melodies, these vibrant song cycles offer appeal to art song aficionados and first-time listeners alike. Born in California, and surrounded by Spanish music and language, this music is close to Esther Rayo's heart. Her connection with these songs started when she was introduced to the music of Manuel Obradors while in college. Obradors offered the perfect starting point for her continued study and discovery of Spanish art song, and she was guided by the great 20th century sopranos Montserrat Caballe and Victoria de los Angeles, who kept this music alive. While she was at graduate school in 2017, Esther was introduced to Peter Grunberg by Maxine Bernstein, Founder and Director of LIEDER ALIVE! And they made an immediate musical connection around the works of Spanish language composers. LIEDER ALIVE! #helped provide opportunities for Peter and Esther to perform this music together, alongside it's standard mission of promoting German Lieder. Over the years they continued to study and learn more classical Spanish repertoire, resulting in this, their debut album together. And, even after all these years, they still feel they've only just scraped the surface of this wonderful repertoire!

Divine Art is delighted to announce a superb collection of sensuous classical Spanish language songs for voice and piano, from the sublime musical partnership of lyric soprano Esther Rayo and renowned pianist and conductor Peter Grunberg. This program of works was first heard in a series of concerts given by the San Francisco based teaching and performance organization LIEDER ALIVE! The album features songs by early 20th century Spanish language composers: Fernando Obradors, Manuel de Falla, Enrique Granados, Alberto Ginastera, Xavier Montsalvatge, Consuelo Velazquez and Manuel Ponce. Drawing from Spanish classical poetry and regional folk melodies, these vibrant song cycles offer appeal to art song aficionados and first-time listeners alike. Born in California, and surrounded by Spanish music and language, this music is close to Esther Rayo's heart. Her connection with these songs started when she was introduced to the music of Manuel Obradors while in college. Obradors offered the perfect starting point for her continued study and discovery of Spanish art song, and she was guided by the great 20th century sopranos Montserrat Caballe and Victoria de los Angeles, who kept this music alive. While she was at graduate school in 2017, Esther was introduced to Peter Grunberg by Maxine Bernstein, Founder and Director of LIEDER ALIVE! And they made an immediate musical connection around the works of Spanish language composers. LIEDER ALIVE! #helped provide opportunities for Peter and Esther to perform this music together, alongside it's standard mission of promoting German Lieder. Over the years they continued to study and learn more classical Spanish repertoire, resulting in this, their debut album together. And, even after all these years, they still feel they've only just scraped the surface of this wonderful repertoire!

Returning to the roots of classical masterpieces: this is the mission of Zuzanna Sosnowska and pianist Magi Garcias on their GENUIN debut album titled "I'm Volkston" (In Folk Style). The duo explores the rich diversity of folk music from three distinct centuries and cultures, reflected in three masterworks for cello and piano. The internationally sought-after Sosnowska-Garcias Duo performs Robert Schumann's enchanting "Stucke i'm Volkston", Manuel de Falla's sun-drenched "Siete Canciones Populares Espa�olas", and Fazil Say's powerful musical portraits of Turkish cities, the sonata "Four Cities" (Dort Sehir). This moving collection of significant chamber music speaks from the heart and resonates deeply with listeners.

FANTASIA BAETICA

EDUARDO MATA EDITION VOL 5 - F

FALLA: SIETE CANCIONES POPULAR

OFRA HARNOY COLLECTION VOL 4 -

THE HEIFETZ COLLECTION VOL 31

SALUT D'AMOUR ANNE AKIKO MEYE

From the sixteenth century to the present day, fantasias have developed from improvisatory and virtuosic works for lute, to extended and elaborate works for ensembles, solo keyboard instruments and full orchestra. The dazzling array of works featured in this album showcases how composers have delighted in allowing their creativity and imagination to take precedence over conventional styles and forms.

*** This title is a reissue of a Korean release with liner notes in Korean. ***

The Rodrigo concerto (double woodwind, 2 horns, 2 trumpets and strings) needs real virtuoso playing—it is one of those works which are harder than they sound—but is most skilfully written. The cheerful first movement, starting up with typical Iberian belatedness from apparently idle introductory strumming, may make the most immediate effect, but undoubtedly the finest part of the work is the introspective Adagio, which shows that in the right hands even such seemingly cliché-bound elements as melancholy cor anglais solos and quasi-flamenco fiorilure can still be moving. Williams's reading differs somewhat from Bream's (which I still think superb): he takes the first movement a thought slower and just misses Bream's élan, but gives the finale actually more bite: he plays the slow movement sensitively, less dramatically and more dreamily than Bream (and incidentally changes the notes of the final arpeggio). It is a throughly musical performance, a worthy rival to that by his distinguished fellow-countryman.

-- Gramophone [7/1966]
reviewing Concierto de Aranjuez on LP

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This is not a record for purists, but never before on disc have I heard a performance of the vividly atmospheric Falla ballet anything like so involving as this. Stokowski may indulge in some souping up of the texture in the haunting "Pantomime", but I confess that that is how I have always wanted to hear it, and the brisk songs and dances (not just the "Ritual Fire Dance") have a dramatic bite that conveys the freshness of excitement that must have attended the first appearance of a ballet which so patently extended from Russia to Spain the new and exotic medium developed by Diaghilev. Diaghilev himself certainly appreciated its potential quickly enough with the ensuing Three Cornered Hat.

Shirley Verrett makes a superb soloist, characteristically rich-toned most of the time but from time to time flinging at us impressive imitations of raucous flamenco chest-tone. The recording, larger than life, dates from the early sixties, but it is still impressive, rich and atmospheric.

-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone
reviewing El Amor Brujo on LP

Classical Music

There’s always room for another terrific Falla collection, though there’s certainly no shortage of them. Indeed, The Three-Cornered Hat has already been very kind to Chandos: Tortelier’s Philharmonia version is excellent (coupled with Albeniz’s Iberia in the Arbos orchestration). This one is just as fine, maybe even better. Juanjo Mena certainly gets the BBC Philharmonic to wake up from its usual bland, business-as-usual attitude and deliver tangy, idiomatic results. Listen to his perfectly judged rhythmic accents in the Dance of the Miller’s Wife, or his riotously brilliant final Jota. These zesty and energetic sections are more than offset by the poetic stillness of Raquel Lojendio’s lovely offstage soprano solo in Part Two. It’s just an excellent performance, about as good as it gets.

This is just as true of the other works on the disc. Homenajes receives a nicely contrasted interpretation that gives the piece a wider expressive range than usual–the tribute to Debussy is particularly atmospheric. Nights in the Gardens of Spain is marvelous. Bavouzet, as has become clear over the past couple of years, is a very major artist, and his performance has an especially noteworthy vitality and sparkle. So many performance of this work wallow in a sort of droopy, soggy “impressionism.” Certainly Mena and Bavouzet capture the music’s many moods, and they don’t stint on its mysterious, nocturnal tints, but they do it with a welcome rhythmic focus and firmness of outline. For a typical example, consider the vibrant Poco più animato at figure 5 in the first movement. This is great stuff, and the sonics are as bold and tactile as the interpretations.

– ClassicsToday.com

SOMM Recordings is pleased to announce a release devoted to the singular 20th century Spanish composer and pianist, Manuel de Falla, with three late-Romantic scores that capture the very essence of Spain: The Three-Cornered Hat, Nights in the Gardens of Spain and Seven Spanish Folksongs. Against the backdrop of the First World War, Falla found fame and recognition in Spain as not only a leading composer, but one with a growing international reputation. This status was confirmed when Sergei Diaghilev commissioned the ballet, El sombrero de tres picos, for the Ballet Russes to perform in London in 1919, with stage designs by Pablo Picasso. The ballet, like the novel by Pedro Antonio de Alarcon that inspired it, incorporates Spanish storytelling that conjures up everyday village life, and Falla's music is rich in echoes of traditional Spanish folk tunes. Following a musically enriching sojourn in Paris from 1907 to 1914, Falla returned to Spain with the completed Siete canciones populares espa�olas and sketches for what would become Noches en los jardines de Espa�a. Subtitled 'symphonic impressions for piano and orchestra,' Noches en los jardines de Espa�a is a three-movement portrayal of the sounds and sights of Falla's native Andalusia rendered magical under the cover of darkness. Following the premiere in Madrid in 1916, Falla himself was the soloist for the work's first performance in London in 1921. While El sombrero de tres picos and Noches en los jardines de Espa�a were Falla's imaginative evocations of Spanish folk music, both the texts and the melodies of Siete canciones populares espa�olas were traditional, although Falla's original arrangement for soprano and piano added much to the effectiveness of these songs from different regions of Spain. This work is one of Falla's most arranged compositions; the orchestrated version here is by Luciano Berio. This recording features the Ulster Orchestra with their Principal Guest Conductor, Jac van Steen. The soloist for Noches en los jardines de Espa�a is the London based Brazilian pianist, Clelia Iruzun, one of SOMM's long-time collaborators and treasured artists. She is undoubtedly amongst the finest pianists in South American and Iberian repertoire currently performing in Europe, and several composers have dedicated works to her. The prize-winning Irish mezzo soprano, Sarah Richmond, is making her CD debut in Siete canciones populares espa�olas. Jac van Steen's previous SOMM releases include acclaimed recordings of Mozart piano concertos with Peter Donohoe and Valerie Tryon (SOMMCD 278-2); The Deeper the Blue, an intriguing exploration of colour and timbre in music featuring Vaughan Williams, Ravel, Dutilleux, and Kenneth Hesketh (SOMMCD 275); and the International Classical Music Awards-nominated pairing of concertos by Albeniz and Mignone with Clelia Iruzun (SOMMCD 265).