Arcángel / Stefano Scodanibbio / Roberto Fabbriciani / Ensemble Residencias MAURICIO SOTELO De Oscura Llama

 

DE OSCURA LLAMA

 

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.

Trio Arbós SPANISH PIANO TRIOS

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 Madrids 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.