Andrés Segovia Archive

Andrés Segovia Archive Spanish Composers Works by Vicente Arregui, Pedro Sanjuán, Gaspar Cassadó, Padre Donostia, Jaume Pahis sa, and Federico Mompou (see end of review for track-list) Roberto Moronn Pérez (guitar) rec. 28-30 November, 2010, Holy Trinity Church, Weston, Hertfordshire, UK REFERENCE RECORDINGS FR-705 [70:32] French Composers Works by Raymond Petit, Henri Martelli, Pierre de Breville, Henri Collet, Raymon d Moulaert, Raoul Laparra, Pierre-Octave Ferroud, and Ida Presti (see end of rev iew for track-list) Roberto Moronn Pérez (guitar) rec. 3-5 March 2013, Holy Trinity Church, Weston, Hertfordshire, UK REFERENCE RECORDINGS FR-709 [62:29] Andrés Segovia was a great guitarist, one of the best ever, and he was also a man of good taste. Mostly. He had a habit of picking out interesting composers, comm issioning high-quality pieces, and then performing them once or never. Roberto M oronn Pérez is trawling through the Segovia collection and presenting the highligh ts in themed recitals. From the hundreds of commissioned works, Pérez has selected about fifty to record, broken down thematically by ethnic origin. Here we ll cons ider the Spanish and French albums. The booklet to the Spanish album complains that Segovia had a habit of playing o nly some of the commissions he received, leaving the others to collect dust. Nei ther booklet-writer nor guitarist can hear a major difference in quality; nor ca n I. I do though have a rival theory: there just wasn t enough time to play all of this stuff and still have room in recital for earlier guitar music. Segovia had bit off more than he could chew. We have all profited from his ambition, though. This music is mostly fantastic. The Spanish album starts with four works by Vicente Arregui, an almost totally u nknown name who turned to guitar music in the 1920s but carried on the colourful romantic tradition of Albéniz. His music is tuneful and unmistakably Spanish. Jau me Pahissa, who moved to Argentina in his maturity, is represented by a sheaf of pieces Segovia barely knew about at all. They re all among the catchiest works pr esented on the CD. Diálogo is the best, and maybe the most radio-ready track on th e album, a simple, plain-spoken tune of aching prettiness. Gaspar Cassadó is more famous as a cellist and the composer of Pablo Casals favouri te encore. He apparently dabbled in guitar for a while, and though he didn t play it for long, wrote some good pieces. The Catalanesca is a little cheery, a littl e self-serious; the Canción de Leonardo is an elegy for his deceased son. The othe rs are, to me, very Spanish in sound but not very distinctive. The two best pieces on the album are by the two most famous composers: Federico Mompou and Padre Donostia. The monk s work, Errimina, is a seductive fantasy, base d on a repeated bass figure, spanning cultures and maybe continents. Mompou prov ides the encore, a dance livelier than almost all his piano music, though still with the same polish and elegance. Next we have the French (and a Belgian) album. When I first looked at this, I th ought, Wow, I ve never heard of any of these composers! but it turns out that all of them are trivia answers of some kind. Henri Collet was friends with Albéniz, Gran ados, and Falla; Raoul Laparra studied with Massenet, and Pierre de Breville stu died with Franck. Pierre-Octave Ferroud was decapitated in a car crash in his th irties, depriving the world of an interesting composer whose first symphony was much-liked by Prokofiev. Ferroud s death inspired his friend Francis Poulenc to wr ite Litanies à la Vierge Noire.

In other words, a lot of these composers are surprisingly good. Henri Martelli s F our Pieces is a spectacular little suite, paying homage to baroque forms. In fac t, Martelli s nostalgia sometimes digs even deeper: the slow movement sounds like something an Italian would write for lute in the early 1600s. The suite is just ten minutes in total, and Pérez is right to call it a real guitar masterwork . Not every composer was looking back in neo-baroque or neo-classical forms. Raymo nd Petit, Raoul Laparra, and Henri Collet turn south for inspiration, Collet s Bri viesca a borderline Spanish work that was close to rewritten by his editor after Segovia pronounced it unplayable. The booklet does not say, but I assume Pérez re corded the second version. Laparra s Pueblo castellano is especially atmospheric and enjoyable, bringing to mind Albéniz. Raymond Moulaert, the album s token Belgian, contributes the biggest piece, a 19-m inute Suite. The first movement takes a couple minutes to get going, because it starts with a classic guitar flourish, then proceeds with a few more flourishes. This continues until you think the music can t possibly get more grandiose. The p iece is capable of intimacy, too, and also a little darkness, like the finale s ne ar-quotes of Dies irae and abrupt ending. Ferroud s piece is the most modern; you might think of Roussel or Poulenc. Pérez hea rs Stravinsky and jazz jazz most obviously in the syncopated rhythms of the midd le section, and wonders if Segovia was not the right recipient for this piece . Seg ovia was absolutely the right recipient of Ida Presti s work, or at least I hope h e was, because she called it Segovia. It s more or less perfect: virtuosic, with a long-breathed melody spun over challenging accompaniment. It s like a Chopin noct urne in mood, technique, and formal perfection. Roberto Moronn Pérez never puts a foot wrong in his admirable recitals, and occasi onally you wonder if mediocre material is being really sold by his excellent del ivery. Not so with especially great discoveries by the likes of Pahissa, Donosti a, Presti and Martelli. Pérez deserves great credit for unearthing much of this mu sic. The recorded sound is close but not aggressively so, and sometimes on the S panish album there is a splashy reverb that is not to my taste. I do have one co mplaint about Reference Recordings work here: the booklet essays in both CDs proc eed in a totally random order, so you have to flip back and forth to read about the next track. What an excellent series this is proving to be.