The transcription of the Goldberg Variations took place within a context of total respect for the original text. No change of notes or rhythms. The transcription is based on an “orchestration” of the text for four string players. As in an orchestra, all the instruments in the string quartet are not systematically required simultaneously: variations for two, three, or four instruments follow in succession. This redistribution of the material enables new lines to be heard that are often di cult to hear within the uniform sound context of the piano or harpsichord. The Goldberg Variations are a model of polyphonic writing, a synthesis of Bach’s art and contrapunctal mastery: the fugue, the canon, the French overture … Nevertheless, the work cannot be reduced to some mere austere exercise: the dances that permeate the cycle confer a superior dimension of accomplishment to the twilight of the baroque era. (Franc?ois Mei?moun)

With this recording Sofya Melikyan introduces us to composers who seem marked by some historical design in which the momentous events of their countries of origin, and the magic of figures, have somehow crisscrossed and interwoven. As such, these three women represent countries that underwent tremendous upheavals a century ago. Kaija Saariaho’s native Finland gained its independence in 1917, which was the same year and with almost the same historic circumstances that shattered the social foundations of Russia, Sofia Gubaidulina’s country of origin (although she was actually a Tatar), in that case resulting in the October Revolution of 1917. The third composer, Geghuni Chitchyan’s country is Armenia, which achieved its first period of modern independence in early 1918, also as a result of the dramatic events that shook that part of the world in 1917. These three women are joined by a young Venezuelan, Raquel Quiaro, who settled in Spain over twenty years ago, and is one of Kaija Saariaho ‘s most outstanding pupils.

Viktor Ullmann arrived in Theresienstadt on 8 September 1942. He was 44 years old, a Jew and a former officer of the Austrian army. Being an accomplished composer, well known for his organizational skills, he was immediately solicited by the Freizeitgestaltung to organize concerts and conferences, to write musical reviews (he authored 26 such texts), and to compose. In fact, during the two years before his transport to Auschwitz, he wrote several instrumental and vocal works, including song cycles for baritone and piano, one sonata for violin and piano, his third string quartet, three piano sonatas (numbers 5, 6 and 7) as well as an opera in one act on a libretto by the young poet Peter Kien Der Kaiser von Atlantis oder die Tod-Verweigerung (The Emperor of Atlantis, or the Disobedience of Death). Ever since his arrival in the ghetto, Ullmann seems aware of the precariousness of his future, as is shown in the quite openly ironic remark on the manuscript of his piano sonata nº 7, dated 22 August 1944: “The performance rights are reserved by the composer until his death”, so, not for long.

REVIEW:

In the three or four generations since composer Viktor Ullmann wrote his opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis with librettist Peter Kien, in the Nazi ghetto-prison Terezín (Theresienstadt) in 1943/44, humanity hasn’t progressed very far. To anyone in today’s world who even pays the slightest attention, this work’s themes and characters–for instance, its “Kaiser” is a demented, tyrannical dictator who launches a massive, unprovoked war–will be all too familiar, and real.

Death and Harlequin are sitting together reminiscing, Harlequin lamenting how life is no fun anymore; Death decrying the loss of the glorious nature of dying as in the old days. Neither finds satisfaction or meaning in a world that has lost its ability to laugh or to properly die. But then Emperor Overall announces that “we have decided in our infallible, all-penetrating wisdom, to declare…the great, beneficent War of all against all.” Every person, whether child, woman, or man (“whether crooked or straight”) will take up arms, everyone against everyone. And, Overall declares, it will all be led by “our old associate, Death.” However, upon hearing this, Death takes offense at the presumption, breaks his sword, and refuses to cooperate. Death goes “on strike”. (The subtitle of the opera is “oder Die Tod-Verweigerung”, or the Disobedience of Death.)

What follows–including the confrontation between two seeming enemies who choose love rather than fighting–concerns the (ultimately chaotic) consequences of a world without death, and, importantly, of removing the instrument of death from a ruler’s arsenal. If death is no longer at his service, then the Emperor no longer has his power. Ultimately Death returns to his work, restores his necessary function, taking Overall with him.

Ullmann’s music is a fascinating assortment of styles, owing to influences of Schoenberg (with whom he studied) and to several of the more popular forms of the period (Weill’s “cabaret” music is often mentioned), whose juxtapositions–and the fact that it’s all very “singable”–sustain musical interest while ensuring no loss of dramatic momentum. Here are elements of the colorful, somewhat experimental, developing world of music theatre in “between-the-wars” Central Europe, mixing the tonal and atonal, the humorous and the grotesque, irony and the plainly serious, while, in Ullmann’s hands, always mindful of a necessity for structural formality.

Instrumentation–undoubtedly determined by what was available in the camp–is a colorful mix, a 13-piece chamber orchestra that includes strings and winds, but also harmonium, saxophone, banjo, and harpsichord. Throughout there are quotations, both in the libretto and music, from other works that would have carried particular meaning for the audience. Among them: the very first notes of the opera are the Angel of Death motif from Czech composer Josef Suk’s “Asrael” Symphony; there is an effectively distorted rendition of Haydn’s “Kaiser Lied” (which had become the German national anthem); and at the end of the opera comes the famous chorale tune “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott”.

Because of the circumstances of the work’s creation and its ultimate fate–it was never performed in Terezín; its premiere wasn’t until 1975–there is no definitive version. Ullmann and most of the other artists involved in the production were deported to Auschwitz in October, 1944, and before he left, the composer gave his manuscripts to Terezín’s librarian for what he hoped would be safekeeping until after the war. Ullmann was killed on arrival at Auschwitz. The scores survived but were only discovered years later in London. [Note: for a detailed account of the musical lives and activities in the Terezín concentration camp, including those of Viktor Ullmann and many other musicians, please see Joza Karas’ seminal work on the subject, Music In Terezín 1941-1945 (Pendragon Press).]

The existing score was much annotated, marked up with changes made during rehearsals. In some instances Ullmann himself provided alternate choices or leaves uncertain notations that are equally likely options. However, careful study has been undertaken and serious efforts made to discern Ullmann’s intent as closely and clearly as possible and to produce a score based on these findings and educated assumptions. This is the version we get here, and it’s excellent, from the singing to the instrumental work. And don’t forget the first rate notes and the inclusion of the complete libretto in four languages.

The music itself is more than worthy of serious attention; this is a sophisticated, consistently engaging dramatic work that impresses, in the words of annotator Bruno Giner, “not because it was composed in Theresienstadt, not as an emblematic parable of totalitarianism…but indeed because it is an accomplished and artistically successful work.” There are no stand-alone arias in the traditional sense, nor grand, show-stopping moments; it doesn’t require singers of extraordinary technical capabilities (not that the ones here aren’t capable of such!). It’s just a hair-raising story, ingeniously characterized, plotted, and scored; one that makes its points very effectively, one you will remember. The singers and instrumental players assembled for this recording are all first-rate–the singers’ voices exactly right for these roles; the chamber orchestra in command of the style and always supportive and assertive where required.

And, speaking of singers–and the “all too familiar”: In the notes you will read that this recording, which was made in March, 2015, is dedicated “to the memory of our comrade Wassyl Slipak, whose voice never left us.” A baritone at the Paris Opera, Slipak, who here sings the role of Death with impressive vocalism and commanding presence, left his position there in 2015 to join the fight against Russian separatists in his native Ukraine. He was killed by a sniper in June, 2016. And so it goes.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Vernier)

Three years after Granados premiered his Trio in Madrid, his admired friend, Joaquín Malats, whom he had known since they were fellow students in Barcelona, premiered his Trio in B-flat at the Madrid Athenaeum. Music of exquisite, elegant, and fresh refinement, constant in flight and resounding in inspiration, condenses in its three movements all the creative potential of a musician who died prematurely at 40 years of age. Pedrell himself confesses in the first person his weakness for Chopin in his first period as a composer: “In the year 1872, the chronic nocturnitis from which I suffered, and which was influenced by Chopin and Field, worsened, and I published, almost at the same time, two Nocturnos (in G minor and A major). After a month of intense work, the Trio in C Major op. 50 of Enrique Granados premiered on 22 February 1895, at the Salón Romero in Madrid, the favorite haunt of Madrid’s chamber evenings, as the culmination of a programme dedicated entirely to the music of Granados that included his Quintet and several pieces for piano.” The present recording has been made using exclusively the manuscript of the Trio in C Major op. 50, held in the Museum of Music of Barcelona. The difference with the existing editions of the work and with the recordings based on those texts is more than notable.

Roberto Aussel writes: "Paths, encounters, surprises, joys, sorrows, gratitude and an infinite space for research have been the components which led me to express in the present recording the feelings this music conveys to me. Europe, Buenos Aires and La Pampa it is a tribute to Astor Piazzolla by a European composer. The music from Buenos Aires and La Pampa harmonize in this record to express the soul of music. As Atahualpa Yupanqui said, a journey is made of endless arrivals. Discovering each of these pieces has given me an enormous motivation to learn and follow new paths, like a true channel telling a musical story. It is as if it were a very long trail. When you walk through it from a point to another to know and explore it, you find rest, you long to walk again to reach a new resting point and to start again."

Now I have this conscientious and exquisite work in my hands, Pr�lude, which contains a series of musical pieces inviting us to define the pianist both for his selection and for his interpretation. If we listen to them attentively, we are revealed the performer's personality. Here is the delicate spirit that is born from the respect for compositions and the art of combining it with a passion which is increasingly evident in him, a more determined and mature, almost daring. The playing of these notes in the hands of Antonio Galera is not based on an exhibition of skills that are no longer questioned but on the talented flow of music, which turns simplicity into poetry and passion into what is most difficult in it's development. (Elvira Lindo, journalist and writer)

In their last recording project Handel Tribute, L'Apoth�ose pays homage to the great composer by performing six chamber music top pieces chosen from his op. 2, op. 5 and solo instrument with basso continuo repertoire. Mozart is reputed to have said of G. F. H�ndel (1685-1759): Handel understands affect better than any of us. When he chooses, he strikes like a thunderbolt. L'Apoth�ose is considered as one of the reference groups in the historical interpretation in Spain. In recent years the ensemble has won 12 national and international awards including the First Prize at the 2019 York Early Music International Young Artists Competition (United Kingdom), First Prize at the G�ttingen H�ndel Competition 2017 (Germany), Second Prize at the prestigious International Van Wassenaer Competition 2018 within the Oude Muziek Festival in Utrecht (Netherlands) and the Second Prize at the Concours International de Musique Ancienne de Val de Loire 2017 (France) chaired by William Christie. All these merits have brought L'Apoth�ose to become "Ensemble in Residence" of the 2019/2020 season of the CNDM (Centro Nacional de Difusi�n Musical) in Spain and to the main international and national venues.

IBS Classical presents a new monographic release dedicated to Roberto Sierra, the Grammy-nominated and Latin Grammy-winning Puerto Rican composer whose music is regularly performed by leading orchestras and ensembles worldwide. This album features Piano Sonatas Nos. 13 and 14 alongside the Transcendental Etudes (after a reading of Liszt), performed by American pianist Matthew Bengtson, a long-standing artistic collaborator of Sierra and one of today's most compelling interpreters of his piano works. Sonata No. 13 offers a bold "fragmented sonata," a mosaic-like structure that reimagines Beethoven's legacy through a distinctly contemporary lens. Sonata No. 14, inspired by the Moonlight Sonata, explores musical memory as a sonic specter, where fragments appear, dissolve, and transform. The Transcendental Etudes pay homage to Liszt while remaining unmistakably Sierra: virtuosic, rhythmically vibrant, infused with Afro-Caribbean energy, and rich in harmonic color and pedal resonance. Critically acclaimed as a "musician's pianist," Matthew Bengtson enjoys an international career as soloist, chamber musician, scholar, and educator. Widely recognized for his interpretations of Scriabin and Szymanowski, he has performed throughout Europe and the United States, including appearances at Carnegie Hall. A dedicated advocate of contemporary music, he has premiered numerous works and maintains a particularly close artistic partnership with Roberto Sierra. Bengtson is Associate Professor of Piano Literature at the University of Michigan and a Steinway Artist.

ELEMENTUAK marks the debut album of Expressio Duo, the Basque accordion partnership of Maria Zubimendi and Garazi Navas. Conceived as a journey across three centuries of music, the programme explores the art of transcription as a creative dialogue between past and present, revealing the extraordinary expressive range of the modern accordion. From the refined elegance of the French Baroque to the evocative sound world of early 20th-century Basque nationalism, ELEMENTUAK highlights the instrument's versatility in repertoire originally conceived for orchestra and keyboard. Works by Jean-Baptiste Lully and Jean-Philippe Rameau unfold with clarity, colour and rhythmic vitality, while Jean-Fery Rebel's visionary Le Cahos from Les elemens acquires striking modern intensity through the duo's rich harmonic textures and dynamic control. The programme concludes with music rooted in Basque identity. Aita Donostia's Acuarelas Vascas evoke landscapes and traditional dances with impressionistic delicacy, and excerpts from Jesus Guridi's El Caserio and Amaya celebrate folkloric energy transformed into symphonic brilliance. Recorded at the Manuel de Falla Auditorium in Granada, this release affirms Expressio Duo's artistic depth and positions the accordion as a powerful mediator between tradition and reinvention in today's classical landscape.

Kammersymphonie presents a compelling journey through the fractured soundscape of early 20th-century Europe, brought to life by the acclaimed ensemble Fin du Temps. This release brings together three landmark chamber works by Arnold Schoenberg, Hanns Eisler, and Paul Hindemith, composers who each responded in radically different ways to a period of intense artistic, political, and social upheaval. At the heart of the programme lies Schoenberg's Kammersymphonie, Op. 9, heard here in Anton Webern's refined chamber arrangement-a masterpiece that condenses symphonic thinking into a single, highly concentrated movement and marks a decisive step toward musical modernism. Eisler's Vierzehn Arten den Regen zu beschreiben, Op. 70, conceived originally for experimental cinema, offers fourteen sharply etched miniatures of striking expressive power, balancing lyricism, irony, and political awareness. Completing the disc, Hindemith's Quartet for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano reveals a contrasting aesthetic: rigorously constructed, communicative, and rooted in an expanded sense of tonality. Recorded at the Auditorio Manuel de Falla in Granada, this album combines intellectual depth with exceptional sonic clarity and interpretative authority. Kammersymphonie is an essential release for listeners interested in modern chamber music, historical context, and performances of the highest artistic calibre.

Metaludios vol. III marks a major new chapter in the acclaimed Metaludios cycle by Spanish pianist and composer Gustavo D�az-Jerez, one of the most original voices in contemporary piano music. Bringing together Books VI and VII, this album continues D�az-Jerez's exploration of the intersection between music, science, technology, and imagination, confirming the series as a reference point in 21st-century repertoire. Each work is rooted in a precise conceptual process: artificial intelligence models trained exclusively on the composer's own music, sonifications of natural and cosmic phenomena, image-to-sound transformations, mathematical sequences, and algorithmic structures. These materials are shaped through a highly personal musical language that balances structural rigor with expressive depth and poetic resonance. Highlights include Long Short-Term Memory, created using Google's Magenta AI framework; Fuzzball, derived from a mathematical sequence of 10,000 data points; and Perseus' Lament, based on NASA's sonification of pressure waves emitted by a supermassive black hole. Other works draw inspiration from visual art, historical memory, spoken language, and physical phenomena such as Schumann resonances. Recorded at the Auditorio Manuel de Falla and released by IBS Classical, Metaludios III offers distributors a distinctive catalogue title that appeals to contemporary music audiences, technologically curious listeners, and piano specialists alike, while reinforcing Gustavo D�az-Jerez's international profile as both composer and performer, one of Spain's leading pianists and composers, internationally acclaimed for his performances of contemporary and core repertoire. He has appeared worldwide and premiered major works with orchestras such as the London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

AMETSAK places the listener at the heart of an intense and highly evocative listening experience. Devoted to the music of Gabriel Erkoreka, one of the most respected voices in contemporary Spanish composition, the album offers a journey through the realms of the mind, memory, and the perception of time, articulated through a musical language that is both sophisticated and immediately engaging. Performed by Zahir Ensemble under the direction of Juan Garc�a Rodr�guez, AMETSAK brings together seven works composed between 2001 and 2023. At it's core lies the Ametsak cycle, inspired by the dream state, in which sound becomes a flexible substance and time is experienced as a subjective dimension. This approach results in an immersive and emotionally resonant listening experience that appeals not only to contemporary-music specialists but also to curious listeners seeking new sonic perspectives. The programme combines landmark works such as Trance with pieces of strong symbolic and narrative character (Izaro, Orreaga, Tomba del tuffatore), creating a coherent and varied album with clear artistic identity. Recorded in Seville in 2024, AMETSAK stands out for it's artistic depth, sonic clarity, and communicative power, making it a strong and attractive release for audiences interested in meaningful, exploratory contemporary music.

Opposing the deprecatory view of a backward and isolated Spain that has prevailed until recently, Brunetti's music shows that what was composed in the rest of Europe was widely and intensely welcomed in Madrid. Cayetano Brunetti was born around 1744 in Fano, a city located on the Adriatic coast. We know that in 1760, aged 15 or 16, he already lived in Madrid with his parents. Due to their unusual instrumentation, the six Sestetti a due violini, oboe, due viole e violoncello stand out within Brunetti's work. According to the manuscript scores, the sextets were composed per divertimento di S.M.C (for the amusement of His Catholic Majesty), which means that they were originally written for the concerts that the musicians of the Royal Chamber would perform for Carlos IV. Lightness, emotion, brilliance, and complexity is what gives these sextets their peculiar beauty, which is hardly found in chamber music written during the second half of the 18th century.

Maitena (1909) was a further step towards achieving the ideal of Basque opera linked to that of its own lyric theatre. For the critic and musicographer Francisco Gascue: “Colin has written a score that is as far from Wagnerian complications as it is from orchestral poverty; it is accessible without being poor or rudimentary. Colin has shown the same exquisite taste in the handling of the orchestra as in the choice of melodies”. He also singles out the duet between Domingo and Maitena at the beginning of Act I, the tenor and baritone duet that follows, the quartet in Scene VI, the melody sung by Chaadiñ at the beginning of Act II, Batista’s couplets and for its effect and simplicity the Angelus scene. He ends by noting the appropriate treatment of the chorus.

“Imitar col canto chi parla” (“imitating in song one who speaks”): that ideal, expressed by Jacopo Peri in the preface to his setting of Euridice, heralded a veritable revolution in vocal music, beginning with the experiments, towards the end of the sixteenth century, of the Florentine Camerata – a group of intellectuals and musicians led by Count Giovanni de’ Bardi, who aimed to revive the glorious art of ancient Greek tragedy. According to written accounts, the latter was sung, or spoken, in such a way that the words, while remaining intelligible at all times, were emotionally heightened. The members of the Camerata wished thus to break with the polyphonic madrigal tradition of the Renaissance and turn to accompanied monody, recitar cantando, thereby returning to the pre-eminence of the word as the means of conveying human emotions, with the music, henceforth subordinate to speech, serving to magnify and amplify it.

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) is without a doubt, one of the most revolutionary composers of the 20th Century. Among his achievements, completing a sonata for each of the orchestral instruments shows how versatile this composer was. As an acclaimed violist himself, he dedicated to the viola an extended part of his complex and unique composing literature. These four monumental sonatas for viola solo represent the backbone of the viola repertoire, which also demonstrates a synergy of compositional language rooted in the Baroque, representing the technical, structural and philosophical evolution of this German composer. Thirty-year-old Spanish violist Jesus Rodolfo Rodriguez is widely recognized for his performances, which combine the spontaneity and fearless imagination of youth with the discipline and precision of a mature artist. He has been praised by the New York Times, Digest, as "... Jesus Rodolfo is a start whose light transcends the stage...”, his authority over the most complex technical demands of the repertoire as well as for the depth of his musical insight made his stand among the top young musicians in the world.

This recording has selected almost all of the piano-voice songs by Ángel Barja, based on ancient Galician folklore, where the melody tames a very accomplished popular style, slenderized in a subtle and coloristic piano accompaniment that scrupulously observes the conventions of popular roots voice writing. Barja preserves the syllabic nature of the melodies and insists on maintaining the accentuations against the verse. He alternates in them the strophic song, with turns and repetitions, with the simplicity of the popular tune, in many cases with medieval roots, as happens in the Cantiga “Those who know how to love” with a 13th century melody. Another bloc groups exuberant Christmas songs and, last, a third and eclectic group, assembles songs of different styles and subjects. The poetic anthology used by Barja in his songs is very successful regarding the rhythm and musicality of these verses. It is no coincidence that, despite the apparent aesthetical and geographical remoteness of Galicia and Granada, our composer chose Federico García Lorca to compose five of his songs. José María Pemán was the poet chosen by the composer to set two of his most beautiful and brilliant songs. This sample of the best of his legacy clearly showcases his music, his talent as melody composer, and his mastery to combine sonorities and tradition.

This album aims to compile the most emblematic works of the end of the twentieth century while seeking to give more recent music a leading role because, fortunately, some of today's creators are of the same quality as the most firmly-established figures of the previous period. This is not work about the flutter-tonguing "traditional contemporary saxophone", display of the shallowest virtuosity, an accumulation of slaps or "strident multiphonics" used as effects, and which have been made an example of our feeblest "clich�s". Quite the contrary, the intention has been to select a programme where various styles coexist while seeking to keep in common the use the individual composers make of the saxophone, of course using E.T.s, although never as techniques themselves but rather with the aim of offering a message, part of the differentiated language of each. This is the main feature of the current panorama, the quest for a sonic language original to each composer, using the saxophone as the medium, never as the beginning or end of the composition.

Femmes d’Espagne (Spanish Women) is a tribute to eight composers, most of whom are also pianists, who made Andalusia their musical homeland and spread it all over the world. Just as she usually does in her piano recitals, the versatile Paula Coronas has united in this record acclaimed authors with others not yet much known and in need for a revival of their music, thus emphasizing her unwavering personal commitment to Spanish music of the last two centuries. The interpretations of the malagueña (a traditional flamenco variety from Málaga), forged from the extensive knowledge of the foremost works of piano literature, dignify and update these pages. This recording means a contribution for future generations to gain an understanding and to become aware of the historical relevance of those figures that ennobled the meridional folkloric music styles and turned them into a distinctly Spanish pianism: a genuine and extraordinary music art.

Here is a recording that combines the aesthetic value of music together with the musical works’ historical underpinnings. The pianist Josu De Solaun offers us his interpretation of two of the most significant pieces of the Romantic period: Davidsbündlertänze (1837) by Robert Schumann (1819-1856), the Spring and revolutionary high point of a first Romanticism, and two works by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), heterodox and conflicting protagonists of an autumnal kind of Romanticism: the Intermezzi op. 117 (1892) and the Klavierstücke op. 118 (1893). At the same time, the performer proposes a title that, on the one hand, supports his interpretative ideas and, on the other, aims to be a guide for our understanding and comprehension of how many singularities articulate the content of the recording: DIGRESSIONS, a title suggesting a kind of reflection that sets in during the flow of the musical works themselves.

From the elated dream to the bitter reality: to provide a proper rendering of Franz Schubert’s music, with its enormous range of expressions including all the intermediate tones, the instrument of choice must be the Fortepiano, if only for its similitude to the pianos used during Schubert’s lifetime. The model used in the present recording is based on the grand piano of the Viennese master Conrad Graf, an instrument that Schubert himself owned. Its six pedals allow Schubert’s music to be played with multifaceted pliancy and depth. The skillful use of all these pedals, which in modern instruments have been reduced to two or three, opens up a multitude of sound facets, similar to doors that open up to a multitude of rooms, each decorated in its own particular way and with its own particular style.

In May 2016, I went to the Royal Palace of Aranjuez right after I was awarded the best interpretation of Joaquin Rodrigo Concertos (Special Award to the best interpretation of Fantasia para Gentilhombre granted by the Victoria and Joaquin Rodrigo Foundation). I was walking along the palace when the most ecstatic part of Concierto de Aranjuez came to my mind. I tried following the footprints of Joaquin, feeling what he might have felt at his time, experiencing a combination of Spanish historical architectures and classical music, and dreaming about playing the famous concerto at this very place someday. Joaquin Rodrigo completed his greatest masterpiece “Concierto de Aranjuez” in 1939 in Madrid, which brought him great fame as one of the greatest representatives in Spanish music spectrum, along with I. Albeniz, E. Granados, M. Falla, J. Turina. And his works helped raise the classical guitar to a historic high recognition. The two concertos in the album mean quite differently to me. It was through performing Fantasia para un Gentilhombre that I further understood Joaquin Rodrigo, as a performer myself for the first time. (Xianji Liu, winner of the 50th Franciso Tárrega International Guitar Competition in Benicàssim)

This recording covers approximately five decades of literature for violoncello and orchestra- the fifty years between the two concertos by Vivaldi (ca. 1720), Haydn (ca. 1763) and Boccherini (publ. 1770). The Concerto for violoncello and strings in C minor RV 401 by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) is a beautiful and enigmatic work. The autograph is written on an unusual type of paper, and virtually all the features of the document stand out from the rest of the 27 concerts for cello written by the Venetian author. Its dating around 1720 is still a hypothesis, as well as its purpose. Even more uncertain is the origin of the Concerto for two cellos and strings in G minor RV 531. The accumulation of low instruments could make us assume that Vivaldi would choose high tessituras for soloists, something feasible and regularly used in several of his concerts for cello. Nevertheless, Vivaldi abandons this possibility. Both soloists play in the central register of the instrument and, as in the case of other double concertos by the author, the speech is articulated with transparency through third parallel voices, imitations and unaccompanied episodes. What relationship could there be between the Concerto in C major Hob VIIb 1 by Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), a work written around 1763 in his secluded residence of Eisenstadt (about 60 km. from Vienna), and the Concerto in D major G. 479 by Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805), edited in 1770 in Paris by a composer who was already living in Spain serving as a chamber musician and composer to the Infante Don Luis de Borbón? Unexpectedly more than we could imagine…

Pianist Antonio Oyarzabal takes us on a journey through the work of thirteen different female composers, most of them pianists. Their pieces have been a real source of motivation and inspiration for him. Here he pays tribute to the names and work of these women, unfairly and sadly neglected, in the shadow of compositions written by men. It is a musical journey that takes us on different paths: from Jacquet de la Guerre’s French Baroque style to the avant garde proposals of Ruth Crawford Seeger in the beginning of the XXth century; from Lili Boulanger’s languor to Germaine Tailleferre’s constant joviality; or from the more popular Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn to the almost completely unknown Mana Zucca or Lucija Garuta. All of this is expressed by the extraordinary sensitivity of a performer who, through long and intense research, has dived deep into the life and historical context of these thirteen unique artistic voices, in order to provide them with the relevance they deserve.

Between 1874 and 1878, the young Antonín Dvorák received help from the Austrian government to compose musical works. At that time, he was a promising composer who, having been brought up in Bohemia, not only spoke German but also demonstrated a profound knowledge of the Central European musical tradition. The composer, with all this, very quickly faced reality: in the Vienna of that time what they wanted of a Czech composer was music that sounded Czech, not German. Of the works he wrote in those years, the one that caught the publisher´s and Brahm´s attention was his song cycle, Moravian Duets. They particularly stood out if we keep in mind, as mentioned by Michael Beckerman, that to the Bohemian composer the Moravian culture was as foreign as any other. This is how history, with its selective forgetfulness, has prolonged for years the European rule that has been to label Dvorak a nationalistic Czech composer and author of various worthy symphonies. That he left more than a hundred songs written, that his inspiration went far beyond Bohemian folklore and that he was one of the most prolific Opera composers of his time are irrelevant questions. This recording from Spanish mezzosoprano Marta Infante and pianist Jorge Robaina gives us an opportunity to hear some songs that seem to have been written out of their time.