Latinoamerika Danza de Fiesta (199_)

Four years after her boundary\-breaking album Bach Unlimited, pianist Lise de la Salle presents an extremely personal odyssey inspired by her love of the dance and her fascination with the period 1850 to 1950. More than just a question, Lise de la Salle’s ‘when do we dance?’ is an invitation to a voyage, ‘one that explores the different ways in which dance takes possession of the body’. A voyage in time, through a whole century (1850\-1950) with the accent on modernity; a voyage over the oceans, from North America to Eastern Europe, crisscrossing Argentina, Spain, France, Hungary and Russia; a voyage to the very core of rhythm, that essential anchor point for the dance as for music in general, that enlivens the ragtimes of Gershwin and Bolcom, Bartók’s folk dances, a waltz by Saint\-Saëns and a tango by Stravinsky.

There is no shortage of recordings of Manuel de Falla's El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat) and El amor brujo (Love, the Wizard), with more on the way, thanks to the centenary of the former in 2019. Even casual listeners may reflect that this delightful work has never, despite plenty of changes in taste in music of the interwar period, fallen out of style. It was on the cutting edge when it was premiered, and yet its fusion of flamenco influences with growing French neoclassicism is irresistible for general symphonic audiences.