Albeniz & Ravel Iberia (complete) & Rhapsodie Espagnole

Omega Records has lovingly restored and transferred this legacy recording of the Cento Soli Orchestra Of Paris headed by Ataúlfo Argenta. Listeners can now listen on high-fidelity digital formats to the venerable performers as they present a programme of Ravel works!

Alexandre Bloch juxtaposes two French composers on this disc. First of all, Maurice Ravel, with the Rapsodie espagnole, his first major work for orchestra alone, written at the age of thirty-two, and La Valse, premiered thirteen years later and which he himself described as a ‘fantastical and fatal whirlwind’. And then Benjamin Attahir, born in Toulouse in 1989, one of the most gifted and prominent composers of the new generation. Commissioned by the Orchestre National de Lille and recorded here for the first time, it is a concerto for serpent that showcases the splendid sound of this low wind instrument, a member of the brass family even though it is made of wood covered in leather.

The Barcelona Symphony Orchestra (OBC) and Music Director Ludovic Morlot – renowned specialist in French repertoire with four Grammy awards – release the complete orchestral works of Maurice Ravel in six CDs between April 2024 and December 2026. The first volume of the collection, recorded at the Pau Casals Hall of L’Auditori with Mike George and Stephen Rinker – producer and sound engineer of the BBC and Chandos label – includes three iconic works by the composer from Ciboure (French Basque Country).

In 1878 Édouard Lalo wrote to the Spanish violin virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate: ‘Your arrival in my life has been my greatest artistic opportunity… without you, I would have continued to write insignificant odds and ends’. The three works gathered here all spring from this arrival, beginning with the Violin Concerto, composed in 1873. The melodious and charming concerto held a great significance for the composer, who regarded it as his first work truly worthy of the name. In the eye of the public it was soon to be overshadowed, however.

Continuing their exploration of Ravel’s output, François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles offer us two works linked by his love of Spain. Alongside the famous Bolero, which regains its original flavour here on period instruments, is Ravel’s first opera, which flirted with libertinism: though its outstanding cast consists entirely of native French-speakers, this caustic ‘Hour’ remains quintessentially Spanish!

Claudio Arrau (1903-1991) is a pianist fully deserving of the epithet ‘legendary’. His rigorous intellect and sense of the sublime found expression in his transcendent technique and sumptuous, yet lucid sonorities.

The Canadian-Mexican pianist Arturo Nieto-Dorantes is an impetuous virtuoso who ignites the stage the second he merges with his instrument.

Manuel M. Ponce is the precursor of Mexican nationalism, but his music is not based on the fictional recreation a Pre-Hispanic narrative, nor the dazzling modernity of the post-Revolutionary Mexico. A piano student of Martin Krause, who, in turn, was a pupil of Liszt, Ponce’s piano lineage comes directly from Beethoven but his musical soul is deeply rooted in the nostalgia of rural Mexico, the love stories and nostalgic longings of the inhabitants of Zacatecas and Aguascalientes. Like Bartok he collected folk songs, but he also composed songs that reflect so expressively the music of the late 19th century rural Mexico that the lines become blurred. When we examine what he created and what he collected is hard to tell them apart.

In 1928 Maurice Ravel described the violin and the piano as “essentially incompatible.” Yet, by then, he had already composed for those instruments two sonatas (one of which was published posthumously), Tzigane, and the Berceuse sur le nom de [Gabriel] Fauré - a miraculous output for a supposedly mismatched duo.