Xavier Montsalvatge: Concierto Breve, Sinfonia de Requiem & Joaquin Rodrigo: Zarabanda

On this, the largest set ever compiled of one of the last century's most popular composers, we may not only renew our familiarity with the Concierto de Aranjuez, or perhaps with one of the other ever-melodious guitar concertos that sustain his reputation with audiences, but also discover chamber, instrumental, choral and especially vocal works which testify to a creative imagination confident in the formation of its style but never satisfied with repetition, one which responded directly to poetic and lyric inspiration, and transformed its ideas with unfailing skill and respect for the idiom under consideration.

Apart from his popular Canciones negras, written more than half a century ago, the compositions of the now 87-year-old Montsalvatge (in 1999) have made little impact on the musical public in general: many of his works remain unrecorded – the opera Puss in Boots, the Indian Quartet, the five Invocaciones al Crucificado and the virtuoso Harpsichord Concerto, to name only four. But there are two Montsalvatges – one with a more traditional manner, and a later more trenchant, experimental and individual. From his earlier period comes the Sinfonia Mediterranea, composed three years after the Canciones negras; its lack of fashionable ‘modernity’ tempted him at one time to consider rejecting it completely. I’m glad he didn’t, for it’s an attractive (if slightly overlong), warmly romantic work that includes melodies of a popular cast.

Cool yet sensuous, aristocratic yet playful, the piano music of Spanish composer Xavier Montsalvatge, now in his late 90s, is a constant delight. Whether playing with Spanish motifs, as in the sexy habaneras sketch and the second of the Three Divertimentos, or with French-perfumed Impressionism, as in the pieces for left hand, Montsalvatge demonstrates a gift for elegant melody and delicate piano sonority. Especially ingratiating are the children's pieces, the Sonatine and Noah's Ark set, exquisite miniatures that are playful but sophisticated. Benita Meshulam, a champion of this music, makes a seductive case for it, as does the crystalline recording.

When guitarist Jacob Kellermann and conductor Christian Karlsen devised the programme of this recording, one inspiration was the legendary jazz album Sketches of Spain on which Miles Davis performed arrangements of Spanish folk music, along with a version of the Adagio from Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. Rodrigo’s work is a re-imagining of times past and of courtly life in the gardens of the Royal Palace of Aranjuez, and as such it is the perfect opening to Kellermann’s and Karlsen’s project, intended to conjure up Spain ‘as if through a prism – as a concept rather than a place’. In order to achieve this they have enlisted the help of Francisco Coll and Pete Harden, who have each contributed a concertante work for guitar and ensemble.

Joaquín Rodrigo is best known for his Concierto de Aranjuez, but the fame of this great work has hidden a prolific and courageous artist who struggled against blindness and hardship, and whose luminous, optimistic music is captured here in rarely heard works for violin that span almost his entire life as a composer. The timelessly beautiful Adagio from the Sonata pimpante is indeed comparable to that of the Concierto de Aranjuez, and all of these pieces are captivating in their intense lyricism and profound originality, from the Dos ezbozos expressing childhood memories of the Parterre Gardens in Valencia, to Rodrigo's only piece for solo violin, the Capriccio, and the vivacious and nostalgic Set cançons valencianes.

Nothing could be more appropriate in celebrating Victoria de los Angeles’s 75th birthday than this extensive conspectus of her recordings of Spanish song over 40 years. It’s hardly possible in a brief review to do justice to such an astonishing achievement on the part of the Spanish soprano; indeed had she sung nothing else her place in recorded history would be assured.

Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez is performed and recorded more than all the other guitar concertos put together, and the outer movements are full of Spanish warmth and color, framing a central adagio that builds in intensity like a poignant prayer. This recording is justly famous for "Bonell's imaginative account of the solo part" and "an exceptionally clear, atmospheric recording".

Expressing his own cultural identity, guitarist Thibaut Garcia combines Rodrigo's archetypally Spanish Concierto de Aranjuez with a declaration of l'esprit français: Alexandre Tansman's neoclassical Musique de cour, inspired by the court of Louis XIV. Garcia's heritage is Spanish, but he is French, born in the city of Toulouse, where this album was recorded with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse and the young British conductor Ben Glassberg. It is completed by four solo pieces by Regino Sáinz de la Maza, the guitarist who gave the premiere of the Concierto de Aranjuez in 1940.