Dos Continentes

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DOS CONTINENTES • Leticia Gomez-Tagle (pn) • URTEXT 184 (60:59) CHOPIN 4 Scherzos. GINASTERA Danzas Argentinas. PIAZZOLLA Invierno Porteño. GADE Celos. NAZARETH Odeón. LOYOLA El...


DOS CONTINENTES • Leticia Gomez-Tagle (pn) • URTEXT 184 (60:59)


CHOPIN 4 Scherzos. GINASTERA Danzas Argentinas. PIAZZOLLA Invierno Porteño. GADE Celos. NAZARETH Odeón. LOYOLA El Tecolote. OTEY Arabesque. GOMEZ-TAGLE No me dejes jamás


This is a hard disc to categorize; as so often these days, its title, Dos Continentes, is fairly meaningless. Its main musical substance, the four Chopin scherzos, enter a very crowded field indeed. But it’s the remainder of the disc, most of it with no competition whatsoever, that will be chief attraction for many.


The young (-ish) Mexican pianist Leticia Gomez-Tagle’s technical fluency is immediately apparent in her fearless assault on Chopin’s First Scherzo. However her challengingly fast tempo leaves little breathing room; Abbey Simon (Vox), Pollini (DG), and Pletnev (live at Carnegie Hall/DG)—to choose three fairly recent versions—all adopt a slightly slower pace, enabling a subtlety of voicing and plasticity of phrase shaping that elude Gomez-Tagle. The B-Major Polish Christmas-carol Trio is effective in its plainspoken way, but without the kind of artful varying that Pletnev, for one, brings to its many repetitions. (The close-up recording, while excitingly vivid, is also partly to blame for ironing out much of the dynamic contrast she’s putting into her playing.) The Third Scherzo similarly suffers from a tempo slightly too fast for comfort (with a few more missed notes than one expects from a modern studio recording), and the D?-Major Trio’s chorale, with its “waterfall” figuration, ideally needs more variegated coloring—Katsaris (Warner Apex), at a slightly more leisurely pace, has all the time in the world for the kind of richly kaleidoscopic nuances of voicing that make all the difference. Still, at their best Gomez-Tagle’s performances have real fire, a volatile nervous energy that is very exciting in its way: all of the Second Scherzo, and the coda of the Third. The Fourth is also impressive, with a nice rhythmic spring to the crisp high-speed passagework, even if her Trio can’t quite equal the best versions in conjuring, through its long melodic lines and harmonic shifts, the sense of vast distances or depths (again, Katsaris excels here).


No such reservations apply to the Latin-American part of the program (with a Danish tango by Gade thrown in for good measure). The music is all quite delightful, the playing clean, zesty, and possessed of a native-born idiomatic command. The only comparison I have at hand is Barbara Nissman in Ginastera’s dances (Newport). Gomez-Tagle is snappier, tangier, Nissman weightier, more romantic in expression; both are very effective. I hope we’ll get more such fare from Gomez-Tagle in the future. Where does this leave us? Not a first choice for the Chopin, but overall an attractive disc I can certainly recommend to the adventurous.


FANFARE: Boyd Pomeroy


Product Description:

  • Release Date: January 26, 2010


  • UPC: 600685101841


  • Catalog Number: JBCC184


  • Label: Urtext


  • Number of Discs: 1


  • Composer: Chopin, Ginastera, Piazzolla


  • Performer: Leticia Gomez-Tagle