Yasuyo Yano FRANZ SCHUBERT Piano Sonatas Vol. 1

 

PIANO SONATAS VOL. 1

 

Stéphane Rougier / Sophie Teboul MOZART Violin Sonatas

VIOLIN SONATAS

 

Estellés / Iturriagagoitia / Apellániz / Rosado FIN DU TEMPS

FIN DU TEMPS

Orquesta de la Comunidad Valenciana / Joan Enric Lluna SOLERIANA

SOLERIANA

Antonio Galera PRÉLUDE

PRÉLUDE

Asier Polo / Orquesta Barroca de Sevilla / Andrés Gabetta VIVALDI - BOCCHERINI - HAYDN Cello Concertos

CELLO CONCERTOS

José Luis Morillas JEAN-MAURICE MOURAT

JEAN-MAURICE MOURAT

Claudio Constantini / Louiza Hamadi 20TH CENTURY TANGO

20TH CENTURY TANGO

Raquel Lojendio / Chiky Martín P'RA VOCÊ

P'RA VOCÊ

Vandalia / Ars Atlántica CANCIONERO SABLONARA

                                                      CANCIONERO SABLONARA

Orquesta Barroca de Granada / Íliber Ensemble / Darío Moreno SEBASTIÁN DURÓN La Guerra de los Gigantes

                                               LA GUERRA DE LOS GIGANTES

Pedro Rojas-Ogáyar RODRIGO Guitar Works

                                                                   GUITAR WORKS

Orquesta Barroca de Granada / Íliber Ensemble / Darío Moreno SEBASTIÁN DURÓN La Guerra de los Gigantes

Sebastián Durón is usually recognized as one of the leading Spanish composers of theater music, although this repertoire is barely performed nowadays, even in concert version. As far as we know, ten complete scores of Durón’s stage works have been preserved, four of which are entirely sung, a number that is higher than that found in theater music by other important Spanish musicians of the 17th and 18th centuries, such as Juan Hidalgo, Juan de Navas or Antonio Literes. The fact that, in his theater music, Durón uses both the conventions of 17th-century Spanish court theater and some elements of the dramma per musica has placed these pieces in a diffuse and poorly understood territory, unlike what happens with the works of Hidalgo and Literes, repertoire which has been studied better. For some scholars, the theater music of Durón is incoherent due to the introduction of elements that are unfamiliar to the Spanish court theater, in contrast to the great dramaturgy devised by Calderón de la Barca and Hidalgo. On the contrary, for other scholars, the music of Durón is remarkable for its openness to modernity, although it is a timid modernization against the determined Italianization that is observed in Literes and other later musicians. In our opinion, however, Durón’s theater work exhibits great originality and drama in itself, which is hardly understandable if we approach it with the abstract models that face tradition to modernity, or Spanish to Italian.

Xianji Liu LATIN GUITAR SONATAS

When Xianji Liu became the first Chinese-born winner of the prestigious Francisco Tárrega International Guitar Competition in 2016, a new star emerged in the world of the classical guitar.

Latin sonatas is a journey through the popular music of Brazil, Cuba and Puerto Rico, its rhythms, harmonies and colours, in a contemporary language breathing new life into the old form.

Alberto Urroz DOMENICO SCARLATTI Sonatas

The musical richness of Scarlatti’s sonatas has already produced memorable performances at the harpsichord as well as at the piano, and both options will remain open for sure in the future. Eva Badura-Skoda, in her recent 2017 book The Eighteenth-Century Fortepiano Grand and Its Patrons, underlines once more the option to consider both the harpsichord and the piano, even the modern piano, as suitable instruments to play Domenico Scarlatti’s sonatas. Just like Johann Sebastian Bach’s works for keyboard, Scarlatti’s pieces, Badura-Skoda says, can sound convincing in any instrument, provided that each performer may have the training, the taste and the sensitivity to recreate the proper language, sound and aesthetic for that music. Alberto Urroz, one of the most brilliant pianists of his generation, faces in this recording the challenge to explore his own selection and version of some of Domenico Scarlatti’s sonatas, inviting us to enjoy a repertoire that is always attractive and inspiring, from which every great performer knows how to extract new nuances, subtleties and perspectives. (Maria Gembero-Ustárroz)

Stéphane Rougier / Sophie Teboul MOZART Violin Sonatas

The Sonatas for piano & violin, K. 378, 454 and 526 represent the pinnacle of Mozart’s creativity for keyboard and string ensemble. Their composition is inscribed in the artistic and personal life of Mozart and mark a stage in his development at decisive moments of his life: remarkably, they were not specially commissioned. They were composed in a free style yet the music speaks of the musician’s internal tension at the time when he decided to break free from his links to Salzburg and from the burdensome tutorship of his father to take control of his own creativity.

Ana María Alonso ALTO MYSTIC

The title chosen for this document, Alto Mystic, reflects what the violist Ana María Alonso and the Ibs-Classical label wanted to suggest as the universe enclosed in an instrument full of secrets such as the viola, an instrument that has transcended from the orchestral ripieno scene to a solo virtuosity in a relatively short time. The accurate reference to the etymological origin of the term (from the Greek mystikós whose first meaning is about something arcane and mysterious) not only reveals the intention of discovering the timbre and expressive effects of the viola but to inducing composers to penetrate into their mysterious world through the works composed for this occasion. In this sense, interpreter and composers have achieved their purpose, without a doubt; Ana María Alonso discovering the subtleties of the viola´s timbre through a technical and expressive refinement of the highest instrumental conception, and the ten composers, each from their creativity, constructing an enriching musical poetic discourse, not only for the violistic repertoire, but for the music itself.

Moonwinds / Joan Enric Lluna / Cristina Montes SALVADOR BACARISSE Le jour de l’an

Jesús Bal y Gay (Lugo 1905 – Madrid 1993) and Salvador Bacarisse (Madrid 1898 – Paris 1963) were two musicians and intellectuals who belonged to the group known as the Generation of ‘27. Having received their education in Spain, they went into exile as a consequence of the atrocities of the Civil War that Spain suffered between 1936 and 1939.

Written in 1942 and performed for the first time in 1946, the Divertimento for Woodwind Quartet is structured in 4 movements. Some aspects attest to the clear influence of Falla, and the use of rhythmic and harmonic pedal notes owes an obvious debt to Stravinsky, charting an aesthetic line close to Neoclassicism. The four movements demonstrate careful, unfussy composition, with few rhythmic complexities, a clear texture that is almost classic in style, melodically avoiding the excessive leaps of the dissonant harmonies of the new melodic concepts of the 20th century, with a counterpoint inherited from Classicism and an entirely traditional instrumental syntax. It is also possible to hear echoes of traditional Galician music, such as the constant purring of the last movement evocative of the drone of the gaita, the typical instrument of Bal y Gay’s native province of Galicia.

Is thought to have been composed in 1955 for clarinet and piano. Bacarisse went on to produce two new versions of the work for violin and piano, and for cello and piano, respectively. In both cases the title was changed to Introduction, Variations and Coda. The manuscript of the first version has been lost, so Joan Enric Lluna took on the challenge of trying to reconstruct the work for clarinet, tailoring the music to the instrument’s particular idiosyncrasies while adhering as closely as possible to the composer’s other versions for violin and cello. Knowing the capabilities of the Valencian clarinettist and conductor, and hearing the resulting sound, we must applaud this work for its fidelity to the style and aesthetic of the Madrid composer. Of a similar aesthetic are the two pieces for solo harp, and harp and wind instruments. The Concert pour le jour de l’an, Concert for the Day of the Year, for Harp and Woodwind is an expanded version of the Concerto in E flat that Bacarisse wrote in 1954 for the same combination of instruments which was subsequently reorchestrated in 1961 under the same title Concert pour le jour de l’an but in this case with the orchestration increased to for Harp and Orchestra. There is no record of the first version having ever been performed.

Pablo Barragán / Juan Pérez Floristan / Andrei Ionita BRAHMS Complete Clarinet Sonatas & Trio

It is clear and undisputed that the Sonatas belong to the outstanding clarinet music-literature. Brahms succeeds in his two “Sister Sonatas” to show the full sonority of the woodwind instrument while treating the piano as an accompaniment, but equal chamber music partner. Clarinet and piano always stay together – in support and in dialogue. The composition in all of these works can be experienced as a contribution to any understanding of expression and inter-musical relationships: this becomes clear on an inter-musical level of the composition and on an inter-humane level of the interpreters. It is especially this aspect which makes Brahms still experienceable in performance and interpretable today. In this ‘performativity’, the works experience their raison d’être; and in their performance, the intimate dialogue of friendship becomes reality. It is hard to find such a well-balanced and creative union between three artists, whose solo careers speak for themselves, but whose collaboration evoke the true essence of music-making. The most notable element perhaps, which brings Pablo Barragan, Juan P. Floristan, and Andrei Ionita together is their common vision of the communicational power of chamber music, its capacity to inspire and transform and its importance for their professional and personal development.

Silvia Márquez CHACONNERIE

Chaconnerie is a recording that deals with repetition. Chaconnerie illustrates that particular principle of Art that seeks to combine elements over and over again to achieve balance and unity. Chaconnerie encourages us to undertake a voyage in which sounds –through the centuries– build upon an insistently repeated, or imaginatively varied, scheme. Repetition has been a major element of humankind’s artistic manifestations and expressions ever since the time of the moais on Easter Island up to the drawings of Max C. Escher. Repetition is rhythm, pulse, and life, and life overflows in the chaconne, a dance whose origin Lope de Vega attributed to the American Indian (“from the Indies to Seville / it has come by post”) and whose character Miguel de Cervantes describes as lascivious and immoral. With its accent on the second beat and its variations on a harmonic scheme, this dancing base – together with sarabandes, folias, and passacaglias – was conducive to improvisation on chordal progressions, a novelty that had a crucial impact on Baroque music in Europe.