The Reverón Piano Trio’s main goal is to introduce audiences to underrepresented music from Latin America alongside contemporary and standard repertoire. These artists are active promoters of Latin American music through their work as performing artists, scholars and entrepreneurs, and they have devoted their careers to the discovery, cataloging, performance, editing, and recording of this rich repertoire. In addition, the trio continues to commission new works, and is in the process of creating the Sphinx Catalog of Latin American Piano Trios. The three composers of this album, Villa-Lobos, Turina and Ponce were born within 5 years of each other. Manuel Ponce’s Trio Romántico, Joaquín Turina’s Piano Trio No. 1, and Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Piano Trio No. 1 were composed within fifteen years of one another in the first quarter of the twentieth century, and representing Mexico, Spain, and Brazil but also outside influences.

This integral represents a great journey through the artistic career of the distinguished Andalusian composer Joaquín Turina. From the romantic flavor of the Trio in F, a youthful work, but it already shows a commendable panache. The Trio no.1, dedicated to Her Royal Highness the Infanta Dña. Isabel de Borbón, awarded at the Spanish National Music Competition. The Trio No. 2 was composed in 1933. Its premiere took place on November 17, 1933 at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) by the Dutch Trio. And the last, Trio Círculo, a work that has always conquered both the public and the performers: it describes the evolution of the day from dawn to twilight. The players are international soloists, as well as members of RTVE Orchestra, professor in Conservatory Superior of Sevilla and Musikene.

It should come as no surprise that an instrument with the horn’s peculiar sound potential and its attractive combination with two such devices as the violin and the piano has seduced classical composers such as Brahms or Ligeti. In this context, it is necessary and tremendously opportune that Escauriaza, Colom and Pascal have asked Sierra for a new work that updates the genre and enhances the virtuosity and expressiveness of the trio from today’s perspective. Thus, this disc proposes a journey from the past to the present through the last three centuries and by means of three works linked by history.

Ligeti refers to Brahms, and Sierra to both: three essential and inseparable links. Miguel Colom is concertmaster violinist in the National Orchestra of Spain. Manuel Escauriaza is hornist in the National Opera Orchestra of Paris. Denis Pascal is a famous international pianist, professor in Conservatory Superior of Paris.

Charles Koechlin had a very personal style and was inspired by a wide variety of motifs, as nature, the mysterious Orient, French folk songs ... Sometimes, he came close to musical Impressionism, as in Au Loin. Hindemith’s composed the Sonata for the english horn in 1941, by which time he had moved to the United States, where he was teaching at Yale University. The Sonata for cor anglais and piano of Dirk Michael Kirsch is a very intimate homage to the composer’s homeland (Westerland/Sylt, Germany), in which he musically evokes colourful images of landscapes and souls. The work of Ander Perrino combines several ideas that I wanted to try out and that has a very strong connection to popular music. Following the initial idea, each movement is independent as if it were a story, hence the name of Five short stories. Maria Lindo collaborated with symphony and opera orchestras such as the Kammerakademie Potsdam, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Budapest Festival Orchestra. María is the artistic director of the company Linien Soundkraft, which realises projects fusing music with other art forms.

In a world like today’s, in which everything moves but almost nothing changes, and in which music, in particular -both in its different aesthetic lines and in the programmes in which it is presented- has long seemed to be at a standstill, finding a driving force as intense and genuine as the figure of Fabián Panisello (Buenos Aires, 1963) is a rare occurrence. His miscellaneous profile as a composer, conductor, teacher and prolific entrepreneur of all kinds of musical projects, both in Spain and abroad, reveals such a dynamism characterising him so strongly that, if one had to say something which could encompass him and his work in all these areas, indeed it could be his fundamental trait: being always on the move, pulling forward, favouring movement at all times.

On this CD we present arrangements commissioned by the Moonwinds group (with the obvious exception of Una cosa rara), in continuation of the Harmoniemusik tradition, with the aim of expanding the Spanish, and specifically Valencian, wind ensemble repertoire. We have taken the title, En estil popular (“In the popular style”) from what might be considered the central work of the recording, which we have called Suite en estil popular, based on the string quartet Quartet en estil popular by the great composer Manuel Palau. The version for wind instruments brings a new dimension to the work, which is why we wanted to differentiate it from its original title, labelling it a “Suite” rather than a “Quartet”.

Mahler’s 4th Symphony and the lieder of Des knaben Wunderhorn are symphonic scores with a hue similar to that which can be found in chamber music. This is due to the fact that Mahler’s orchestration is not too dense. Domínguez-Nieto’s conception of the work, recorded here for the first time, exploits, with utmost respect for the composer’s original orchestration, its chamber music overtones to its maximum. Gustav Mahler’s 4th Symphony, as well as the song cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn), is based on Arnim and Brentano’s collection of children’s stories of the same name. The fantasy that emanates from this piece of literature finds in Mahler a natural catalyst, who manages, with each musical impulse, articulation, nuance, glissando, harmonic or any other of the myriad of details that inhabit his scores, to transport us to the dreamy and magical world of children’s stories, thus developing a fragile balance between utter fiction and overwhelming reality. With his 4th Symphony, Mahler brings to an end his so-called Wunderhorn period, marked by the reverie and imagination which can be found in such tales.

Harmoniously united, music and literature were combined throughout Argentina’s cultural history on numerous occasions. A wide repertoire of vocal compositions was configured in the format of chamber song with piano and, as such, participated in the formation of identities –national, regional, local– strengthening the relationship between culture and society. Whether as single pieces or grouped in the form of real cycles, it is an extensive corpus that still remains almost unexplored, were it not for contributions such as the one present, characterized by an avoidance of the commonplaces of conventional discography. In fact, two composers born in the second half of the 19th century are combined with three others born around 1910 —the year of the 100th anniversary of the May Revolution— whose works came to fruition in the 1940s. Thus, the Santa Fe-born Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000) opens this record; after him, the focus is on the Buenos Aires-born Gilardo Gilardi (1889-1963); this is followed by a sample of the work of composers Lía Cimaglia Espinosa (1906-1998) and Emilio Dublanc (1911-1990), and ends with the Italian immigrant Arturo Luzzatti (1875-1959).

A student of Ligeti, Roberto Sierra is the most prominent Latin American composer on the international scene. If the Piezas Íntimas were for me the concentrated version of Roberto’s language, the Aphorisms are 28 fragments that live up to their name, each of them being a short sentence proposing what for me are Roberto’s compositional principles in their purest and most concise version - each of them exploring the dynamic and sonic range of the instrument in a matter of seconds. His Sonatas, as I began to study them, opened me up to a world full of completely fresh sonorities, structures and approaches. The Sonatas span a world from Central Europe, where their structure strengthens in the second half of the 18th century, to the region of Latin America and the Caribbean in the 20th and 21st centuries, where sonata movements contained Afro-Caribbean elements linked to sudden appearances of elements as different from each other as flamenco, salsa, pasodoble or tango, followed by slow movements that seem like improvisations (despite the exactness with which they have been written), filled with nocturnal music, an aria da capo that loses its original rhythm and becomes “out of balance”.

This album allows us to appreciate the versatility of the young performer Anna Urpina, whose goal has been to approach each score from a historically informed perspective. The compositions of c. XVII and XVIII (Castello, Biber, Corelli and Telemann) are recorded with Baroque violin (with gut strings) and bow next to the harpsichord. In addition, the tuning is half a tone lower (415 Hz) than is usually used in the current repertoire (442 Hz). Period techniques have also been put into practice, as well as Baroque flexibility in ornamentation and improvisation. Summoning a single key instrument to give life to the basso continuo allows us to compare in a more direct way the works belonging to the two historical periods, since the scores of c. XX and XXI (Webern, Pärt, José Luis Turina and Guix) are performed with modern violin and piano. In fact, following this idea of highlighting to the maximum the contrasts and constants that relate the eight compositions, the pieces have been ordered by combining one of each period instead of following a chronological order, thus generating quite a stimulating hybrid narration. An original proposal which highlights the sophisticated sound and artistic potential of the “four-chord lyre”, as Biber used to call the violin.

This is a novel document based on commitment and solidarity. Its most perceptive protagonist is the young pianist Luis González Lladó who, guided by the desire to be coherent with his time, proposed to a heterogeneous group of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American composers the creation of a nucleus of piano works based on the formal model of the prelude, freely reflecting their conception of the aesthetic time in which they were immersed. That proposal formulated in 2017 fostered a significant collective response, to which this phonographic document aims to attest in the first instance with the works and authors selected by the pianist Luis González Lladó himself. The free creative expression and the unique technical and stylistic design that each author has stamped on his work are formulated as paradigms of the created fact, the pianist being the authentic interpreter of its contents and assuming responsibly the profiles that all interpretation implies as a recreating fact. It is the composers themselves who describe their works, all of which are dedicated to the pianist who performs them.

The Estudios rítmicos y sonoros (Studies in Rhythms and Sonorities) of Roberto Sierra, harken back to the grand virtuoso tradition of piano pieces by Chopin and Liszt. Without question, the Estudios continue to push the envelope of technical demands for the performer, as important Etude composers had always done in the past. They demand the utmost not only in a player’s physical technique, courage, and sheer velocity, but also in their intellectual capacity. One must internalize the cross rhythms like a jazz drummer accurately enough to reveal the idealistic conception of the notation. The mysterious landscapes of the Piezas Líricas serve as a foil to the bustling excitement of the Estudios. The resonance and clarity of the acoustic in Auditorio Manuel de Falla offers the perfect ambience for these pieces, lending them the spiritual breadth they require. The inspiration of the Alhambra seems even to lend them a special aura of timelessness and mysticism. Album for the Young offers a striking contrast to both the turbo-charged virtuosity of the Estudios and the high-art sophistication of Piezas Líricas. The Album offers directness, charm, and even naïveté. The musical material represents scenes and ideas of childhood or family life, with folk-like simplicity. Unlike the well-known models, it is derived primarily from Latin-American musical elements. Critically acclaimed as a “musician’s pianist,” Matthew Bengtson has a unique combination of musical talents ranging from extraordinary pianist, to composer, analyst, and scholar of performance practice, and thus is in demand as both soloist and collaborator. An advocate of both contemporary and rarely performed music, he commands a diverse repertoire, ranging from William Byrd to György Ligeti and numerous contemporary composers.

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)

In the player’s own words, this is not a dialectical album. That is, it is not conceived against someone. Instead, it is devotional, votive, a hymn of sorts, or better, a sonorous love letter to the great Haydn, to what he represents for me in music and in life, and to what it means to intertwine myself with him, to blend with him and with his scores. This album does not pretend to be the “last word” in Haydn scholarship or performance, or something that breaks “new interpretative ground”, or something pretending to discover the musical Mediterranean, or to present a “Haydn” purified of ideological “crusts”, “accretions”, “stylistic prejudices”, or of the much-feared “ghost” of “subjectivity”. The controversy is served... Josu de Solaun is a First Prize winner of the XIII George Enescu International Piano Competition in Bucharest, the XV José Iturbi International Piano Competition and the First European Union Piano Competition, held in Prague, Spanish pianist Josu De Solaun has been invited to perform in distinguished concert series throughout the world.

This is the second volume of Franz Schubert’s Sonatas for Fortepiano in which Yasuyo Yano chooses two of the greatest sonatas: No. 19 in C Minor and No. 7 in E-flat Major. The Sonata in C minor, D. 958 is characteristic of Schubert’s feeling of retreat. Towards the end, the movement rushes ever more quietly towards silence, before two brute final chords conclude this grandiose sonata. The Sonata in E-flat major, D. 568, begins with a thoughtfully cautious Unsiono. This rapturous mood is soon interrupted by a brisk transition, only to culminate in a swaying waltz-sweetness composed with supple chromaticism. The themes and their lively interplay always reveal a melancholy mood. Yasuyo Yano tells of her encounter with the Fortepiano: “In Venice, in 2001, I played the complete Mozart sonatas for violin and piano together with the violinist Giuliano Carmignola. Andrea Marcon, another eminent Italian musician, told me after one of these concerts that I should consider playing Fortepiano. I took his advice, and I am today still thankful for it, because working with the Fortepiano has opened up entirely new dimensions for me. On the one hand, the Fortepiano enables me to imagine and hear how the music must have sounded back in those days, and on the other hand, the Fortepiano is quite different to modern pianos, offering a large spectrum for creative leeway with a rich palette of sound colors, a wide range of dynamics and the delicate response of the keyboard to touch. I had not expected all of this! But it was quite a long journey to master the instrument so that I was able to reveal these characteristics – a journey with a wonderful reward as it has lead me to Schubert.“