A pianist of keen musicality and sweeping virtuosity, Xiayin Wang returns to solo repertoire with this fascinating exploration of works by Enrique Granados, revealing a technically challenging and complex musical language, yet full of color and emotional intensity. Perhaps because the source of their inspiration was so close to the composer’s heart, the Goyescas piano pieces are the most liberated examples of the genius of Granados. “I have written,” he said, without exaggeration, “a collection of great sweep and difficulty,” which Xiayin Wang addresses with complete mastery. Across the repertoire featured here, this album reveals the genius of Granados, a composer of wide contrast whose music deserves to be heard more often. While the brilliance of Granados as a composer of piano music in a more conventional idiom is convincingly exemplified in the Allegro de concierto and in Zapateado, inspired by Andalusian flamenco, the Ochos Valses poeticos are unique and uncharacteristic in that they are neither virtuosic in their piano scoring nor Spanish in style.

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REVIEW:

Both books of Goyescas are essentially sensual and/or passionate love poems, something that she conveys with sensitivity and obvious affection.

– Gramophone