Enrique Granados Complete Piano Works

Thomas Rajna completed his cycle of Granados’s solo piano music within a year – 1976. As if to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of their original appearance on CRD LPs Brilliant Classics has returned the cycle to the market-place. It’s in one slim box containing six nicely filled CDs and with extensive notes from Bryce Morrison. Nothing could be finer. Rajna was an expert advocate for Granados’s music and though recordings since have come – and gone – his have maintained an honoured place in the memory; and now, thankfully, in the disc drawer. And this is all the more so as so few are performed in public with any great conviction, beyond the obvious Goyescas and maybe Escenas Poeticas and Escenas Romanticas.

Douglas Riva is an American pianist and a scholar of Spanish music. He studied with with Alicia de Larrocha and worked with her in producing a complete edition of Granados' works. Ms. de Larrocha is a master of this music, and her CDs are available on more expensive record labels. But Mr. Riva plays beautifully, with virtuosic technique, and with sensitivity to this highly-charged romantic score.

The familiar declaration that Enrique Granados’s suite Goyescas—Los Majos enamorados (The Majos in Love) and Isaac Albeniz’s Iberia form the twin peaks of Spanish keyboard music is accurate as far as it goes, but it does not go far. The good intentions behind this declaration ultimately parochialize, if not to say diminish, Goyescas as well as Iberia by qualifying them in relation to other piano works by composers from the Iberian peninsula, not in relation to the varied topographies of all piano works. From an international or cosmopolitan perspective, the Goyescas suite may be suituated between Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (1874), a memorial to the work of the artist Victor Hartmann, and Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin (1917), a memorial to both Couperin “le Grand” (in particular, the French Baroque keyboard suite) and friends of the composer who died in the Great War.

A Catalan contemporary of Scarlatti, Manuel Espona (1714-1779) is known now, if at all, as the teacher of Antonio Soler, one of the fathers of Spanish keyboard literature. Melani Mestre’s recording, the only modern album dedicated to this composer, reveals that Espona was a fine composer in his own right.

There are two points concerning the piano music of Sibelius that I feel need to be kept in mind. One is that the piano was not a natural instrument for Sibelius to communicate his musical thoughts. The other is that his ability to write appealing music extended to his piano compositions. Merging the two points results in attractive music that does not reflect the masterful orchestral works and symphonies that Sibelius composed. Sibelius wrote most of his piano music in response to financial requirements, while his strongest concentration was saved for his large-scale works. The variable quality of the piano music is apparent in any recorded program, ranging from disjointed and rambling pieces to music of dramatic substance and pieces that delight and sparkle. However, you will not find any hidden masterpieces, as the works do not plumb deep emotional issues or offer the structural coherence found in the works of outstanding composers for the piano.

Limited Edition 41-CDs set presenting Alicia de Larrocha’s complete Decca & American Decca recordings.
Including previously unreleased recordings of Grieg and Albéniz.
Includes discs of bonus material: 2 CDs of de Larrocha’s early Hispavox (EMI/Warner) Madrid recordings of piano encores.
Includes recordings with Pilar Lorengar, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, André Previn, Sir Georg Solti, Riccardo Chailly, Zubin Mehta and David Zinman.

Limited Edition 41-CDs set presenting Alicia de Larrocha’s complete Decca & American Decca recordings.
Including previously unreleased recordings of Grieg and Albéniz. Includes discs of bonus material: 2 CDs of de Larrocha’s early Hispavox (EMI/Warner) Madrid recordings of piano encores. Includes recordings with Pilar Lorengar, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, André Previn, Sir Georg Solti, Riccardo Chailly, Zubin Mehta and David Zinman. Greatly respected by her peers, not least Arthur Rubinstein, Gina Bachauer, Van Cliburn, Claudio Arrau and Vladimir Horowitz, if you wanted to witness a Who’s Who of New York City-based keyboard luminaries gathered in one place, you simply had to purchase a ticket for an Alicia de Larrocha recital..