There have been a couple of recordings of El amor brujo in its original, two-act chamber version of 1915, but this one is as fine as any and just might be the best around. Conductor Angel Gil-Ordóñez chooses ideal tempos, the members of the Perspectives Ensemble play beautifully, and everyone seems genuinely involved in projecting Falla’s characterful instrumental parts with just the right combination of precision and warmth. Cantaora (singer) Esperanza Fernández sings with fervor and her voice, while raw and “popular,” at least remains in tune. She lacks the artistry and sensitivity of more professionally trained singers such as the incomparable Nati Mistrál on Decca, but in these surroundings it hardly matters.

The original version really is a different work: longer, with a slightly different plot that need not concern us, and despite using much of the same music often quite different in sound and texture. You can compare the two in the sound clips below. The revised version for full orchestra sounds more mysterious, more “impressionistic” if you will, while the original is leaner in outline but also definitely more rhythmically persistent and sinister. The only disadvantage to the original, in my opinion, is the generous amount of spoken dialog, which must be irritating even to native speakers when the music is so beautiful. You wish Fernández would offer less talk and more music.

Speaking of talk, Master Peter’s Puppet Show has a plot straight from Cervantes’ Don Quixote, and consists of wonderful musical bits connected by long stretches of recitative narration. The scoring is extremely imaginative, with the chamber ensemble featuring a harpsichord (played by Wanda Landowska at the premiere), and colorful parts for brass and percussion. What singing there is comes off quite well, with Jennifer Zetlan doing her best with the ungrateful part of the narrator. The plot, in case you don’t already know the original, is simplicity itself. At a roadside inn Master Peter puts on a puppet show set in the time of Charlemagne about the rescue of a damsel in distress. Don Quixote becomes thoroughly confused and takes the whole thing rather too seriously. Chaos ensues. That’s it.

Once again the performance is excellent from all concerned, and both pieces are very well recorded. Provided you have time to sit down and follow both not-terribly-long works booklet in hand, in this case thoughtfully containing texts and English translations, this release earns an easy and well-deserved recommendation.

– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

DUKAS: LA PÈRI FALLA: THREE-

As the central figure of Spanish music in the first half of the last century, de Falla (1876-1946) came to define the sound of Spain for listeners beyond its borders. Folk music, romanticism, neoclassicism, modernism: all the prevalent styles of his time were assimilated and absorbed within a personal idiom that advanced the work of notable predecessors such as Albeniz and Granados in establishing a distinctively Spanish idiom for art music, making him a worthy contemporary of other composers outside the central European mainstream from Vaughan Williams in England to Bartók in Hungary and Sibelius in Finland. Falla’s cycle of Seven Popular Spanish Songs is a perfect synthesis of artsong and folksong, performed here in Luciano Berio’s orchestration by Marta Senn and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela under the baton of Eduardo Mata, the Mexican conductor renowned for his dynamic interpretations of Hispanic repertoire. The songs return in their instrumental guise as the Suite populaire espagnole, with the cellist Timora Rosler accompanied by Klára Würtz. Rafael Puyana is a uniquely sympathetic soloist in the Harpsichord Concerto which gave the instrument new life beyond its Baroque associations. Benita Meshulam is widely recognized as the inheritor of Alicia de Larrocha’s mantle with her superbly atmospheric recordings of Spanish piano music.

REVIEW:

Manuel de Falla Collection is an honest title, since the five CDs present only a selection of his works, including well-known ones such as Nights in Spanish Gardens, El Amor Brujo, and The Three-Cornered Hat. The recordings with the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra from 1981 convey particularly well the intensity of Spanish emotional worlds that Central Europeans like to assume. The round is opened with El Amor Brujo in a striking and lively performance. The interpretation of the Seven popular Spanish Songs, as well as Homenajas let the listener dive into Spanish worlds. The three dances from The Three-Cornered Hat in the version for orchestra will be joined by others in the piano version on a later CD.

For the recordings made in Venezuela, the conductor Eduardo Mata certainly holds the orchestra together and inspires it to effective performances. One could well imagine more sensitivity here, the nocturnal sultriness of the tango instead of the midday heat, so to speak, but there is little more to offer in the way of fire and color. More delicacy without sacrificing the technical quality of the recording is offered by the oldest recording.

In Nights in Spanish Gardens, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra performs under the judicious direction of Günther Herbig. The singers go along with the emotional South American approach, not without delicately savoring the music.

The two pianists offer mature quality. Benita Mehuslam, who has also recorded the complete works for piano by De Falla on the label, is featured here with excerpts, Dances from the The-Cornered Hat and Spanish pieces. In the only chamber work, besides the piano music, Klara Würtz accompanies cellist Timora Rosler on the piano in the Suite Populaire Espagnole. The two artists, who have also won awards as a duo, give the top dance of sensitivity and European noblesse, so to speak, with their interpretation that concludes the collection. Harpsichordist Rafael Puyana from Colombia can show all the registers of his skills in the harpsichord concerto. Here and also in El Retablode Maese Pedro as well as in Psyche the Solistas de Mexico play, again conducted by Eduardo Mata. Those who want to experience this composer intensively will find in this compilation a good opportunity to be infected by the joie de vivre of the music.

-- Pizzicato

Manuel de Falla's richly evocative music erupts in a riot of color in this vibrant new recording from Kazuki Yamada with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande for Pentatone. Works included are the ever popular Noches en los jardines de Espana and El sombrero de tres picos as well as movements from La vida breve and El amor brujo. The sultry warm atmosphere of an Andalusian night is almost palpable in Falla's spellbinding Noches en los jardines de Espana. With its shimmering, sensuous harmonies, exquisite orchestral colors and exuberant melodies and rhythms, it's perhaps Falla's most impressionistic work. Using a large orchestral canvas on which he paints with deft, luminous strokes, Falla skillfully integrates a virtuoso piano part to create lovingly evocative music, full of captivating beauty. Elsewhere with the sensational ballet El sombrero de tres picos, Falla conjures up music steeped in Andalusian culture which is boisterous, full-bloodied, and urgent. It's impossible not to be swept along by the drama in this orchestral showpiece. By turn slyrical, sensuous, or dramatic, the meticulously written score is full of surprises and the work positively bristles with wit, energy and exuberant intensity. Yamada's previous recordings with the OSR for Pentatone have been widely praised - "Exquisite and passionate...grace abounds" (BBC Music Magazine), "tastefully refined" (Gramophone). For their more recent release of music by Roussel, Debussy and Poulenc, HRAudio.net noted Yamada's "exuberant performance" and the OSR "playing...[with] tremendous vitality and enthusiasm, as if their very lives depended on it." The pianist Mari Kodama has established an international reputation for profound musicality and articulate virtuosity and has recorded extensively for Pentatone. Her most recent release with her sister Momo Kodama, a sizzling account of Tchaikovsky ballets, was praised by The Guardian for its "sparkle and style" and described by Artamag as "... a very exciting recording, a 'labour of love' by two extraordinary pianists."

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REVIEW:

The orchestra performs both works with great refinement and play with virtuoso understatement throughout. Yamada’s nuanced approach suits Noches uncommonly well. Falla’s finegrained shifts in colour and sonority are immaculately judged, textures clean yet sensual.

– Gramophone

Folk music and dance have always been a fount of inspiration for art music, keeping it in touch with the soul of the people. However, the tendency of composers towards a universal musical language has considerably diluted the character of ethnic elements that they include, a phenomenon particularly noticeable in Europe. During the 18th century an artistic trend arose bringing out exotic color and charm. Composers began drawing on foreign folklore to spice their works with unfamiliar sounds, as for example the Rondo alla Turca in the sonata for piano in A major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. At the same time, a rise in nationalism was also gradually taking place politically, with every country, even ethnic group, aspiring to distinguish itself from it's neighbors by it's own particular music. This movement is often the expression by oppressed peoples of a desire for emancipation. The canons of classical music, firmly standardized up to that time, had now to integrate the characteristics of folk melody and rhythm, be it in tonality, meter or structure. If this emergence of popular inspiration can be correlated with social developments, it can also touch the listener more directly. In addition, it gives the possibility to composers, sometimes far from their homeland, to remain connected to their cultural roots, as we shall see with Alberto Ginastera.

“I imagined a 360 degree discovery voyage of the cello, with the intention of showcasing the full range of its possibilities through a varied and contrasting repertoire. Beginning with great pillars of the cello repertoire like Haydn's C major Concerto, which enhances the virtuoso possibilities of the cello with its classical language, and Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations displaying maximum romanticism, it passes by fiery early twentieth century Spain, and approaches the world of contemporary music with Childhood, composed by Enrico Melozzi. Childhood, a work dedicated to me, explores in particular the entire range of timbres the cello has to offer, from the lowest octave to the most daringly high registers. I always think that the cello is the human voice of the performer and it is for this reason that the idea arose to include instrumental versions of works for voice. In Giovanni Sollima's reckless version for cello and orchestra of "Una voce poco fa" from The Barber of Seville. I adore the irony Rossini uses in the role of Rosina. The melancholy of a Persian melody, a popular theme passed down orally by my Iranian grandfather, orchestrated by Enrico Melozzi, devours the cello with its poignance and sensuality.” -Leila Shirvani

The album Falla 1915 offers us the opportunity to experience a composer reborn through two of his masterpieces. In Siete canciones populares espanolas, the orchestral imagination of composer Francisco Dominguez enriches the original piano accompaniment without losing any folkloric substance. The first version of El amor brujo rediscovers a title that was created to be much more jondo [deeper], rawer and with more gypsy soul than the ballet it later became. Passion and spirit, sensuality and color come together to highlight what Falla loved and defended most: the preservation of our memory and our cultural heritage.