 |  | Alicia is Excellent, but Marylene Dosse is the world's master of Granados! |  |
Alicia is a wonderful pianist, and I enjoy her renditions of Granados. Her performance of the Goyescas on this CD is world-class. However, I wanted to make you aware of a little-known Franco-American pianist, Marylene Dosse, who has won awards for her complete recordings of Granados's music. It's a little hard to find, a four-CD set. Her playing of the Goyescas is truly magical--well beyond even what Alicia is capable of. Dosse is the grandmaster of Granados and all Spanish classical piano music! What separates her is her absolute clarity and control of tone, and her ability to maintain a driving rhythm regardless of the complexity. Other pianists playing the same passages (including Alicia in certain passages of the Goyescas), will slow down, losing some of the song's vitality. Another distinction: some pianists impress by their virtuosity: Marylene Dosse by her expression. You will be deeply touched, listening to her Goyescas!
May 2, 2006| | | Her most celebrated and reminded album! | |
Published in 1906-1909 this is the undeniable composer's masterpiece Iberia exhibits in various degrees all the characteristics of Albeniz's art. The music itself has multiple hues, due its implicit expressive richness, density and kaleidoscopic tunes. Its twelve pieces -distributed in four volumes- are all based on Spanish scenes and landscapes.
Evocación is one the most beloved pieces of the first volume and nobody has been able to reach the Spanish ardor as William Kapell did it. Corpus en Sevilla accuses Liszt's Hungarian rhapsodies influence.
In the second volume are worth to mention both works: Ondeña and AlmerÃa are written in free variation form. The third volume is the most perplexing of the set.
Finally the last volume keeps for you the most mature of the set : Jerez, Eritaña and Málaga conform among others a true compilation of the cream of the cream Spanish music ever written.
In Granados ' Goyescas we perceieve La Rocha in very good shape, with a convincing digitation, involvement and sublime rapture requested By Granados.
August 20, 2005| | | The CD I couldn't live without | |
The title for my review may sound hyperbolic, but of my entire collection, this is the one. I purchased this CD knowing Alicia de Larrocha's playing from two concerts I had seen, one at the tender age of six and another in my teenage years, at which point I was fascinated with the music of Joaquin Turina. A bit of research on the Albeniz work she performed at that later concert, "La Vega," led me to the name of Iberia. The pairing of Iberia and Goyescas certainly represents one of the most ambitious 2-cd collections of piano music I know, and Ms. de Larrocha not only manages the enormous technical challenges of Albeniz's greatest work, parts of which he himself nearly destroyed as unplayable (Lavapiés, CD1, track 9, according to a biography.) Her interpretation sparkles from the first muted bars of "Evocación" to the last triumphant chords of "Eritaña", as she shows us the rich colors of this music without ever seeming to get bogged down in a mire of notes. I am not sure which deserves greater admiration - Albeniz's compositional genius or de Larrocha's interpretative flair, so I will say that they are inextricable parts of a glorious whole. Admittedly, on first listen, I thought "What's the big deal with Iberia?" Four or five years later, it is still an album I pull out to listen to - in its entirety. Save 85 minutes sometime to listen to all of Alicia's Iberia, but be warned that this can be a pleasantly addictive habit. For the curious, Albeniz's suite was organized into four books of three pieces each - the first two books were written for Blanche Selva and the last two for the more technically gifted Catalan pianist Joaquin Malats. The recording engineers should have left more time to marvel at the achievement of "Eritaña," Debussy's favorite in the collection - Albeniz felt compelled to draw lines between the staves in the score merely to allow the pianist to follow his melodic line through this piece, but as a listener, just sit back and marvel at what one of the greatest living pianists brings to this work.
Regarding "Goyescas," I can't say I know as much, but its lush, rich texture and its careful building upon themes sprinkled throughout the work (unlike separate movements of Iberia) make for a beautiful complement to Iberia. Granados, born seven years after Albeniz and one of his closest friends, wrote one of the most important piano pieces of the twentieth century in "Quejas, o la maja y el ruiseñor" (Laments, or Beauty and the Nightingale), the high point of the Goyescas collection for me. The third piece in Goyescas is a delight as well, and the power and beauty that de Larrocha brings to this entire work is tremendous.
To summarize: Run, don't walk, to buy this CD, one of the greatest in the annals of recorded classical piano.
June 10, 2005| | | The Queen of Spanish Music | |
The music of Albeniz and Granados is so good that one wonders why many pianists seem to regard it as mere salon music. I suppose that it has too much color, rhythmn and sheer gorgeousness to be considered truly serious. These composers had the good fortune to be the inheritors of a popular musical tradition that goes back a thousand years and encompasses Byzantines, Moors and Gypsies, among others. Alicia De Laroccha's only rival in this repertoire was Esteban Sanchez. Her playing is nearly perfect. Long may she flourish.
February 4, 2005It's kind of weird, my being an 18 year old, to say a classical piano cd is my favorite. But, I'm a classical pianist, and a huge fan of Albeniz (and spanish music in general) and this is the best performance of these two incredible works you will find. Alicia de Larrocha makes this seem easy, never repetitive, and her technique is amazing without losing any of the expressiveness needed to play this music. Wow.
July 10, 2001More reviews at Amazon.com ...
