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Cande Y Paulo’s debut album, recorded and produced in LA alongside multi-Grammy award winning Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell, Herbie Hancock), is a beautiful collection of re-worked songs including, ‘I Fall In Love Too Easily’, ‘Summertime’, ‘Treaty’ ‘The Thrill Is Gone’, ‘Sugar Mountain’, ‘Tuyo’ and of course, the song that started it all for the duo, ‘Barro Tal Vez’.

This doble CD contains the opera Ifigenia in Aulide by Vicente Martín y Soler (1754-1806), a Spanish opera composer whose European recognition rivalled that of Mozart —in 2004 the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birthday was celebrated. The libretto is based on a classical tragedy named after the Greek heroine Ifigenia. The action takes place in Troya in 1100 B.C. and among the characters are Ifigenia, Aquiles, Agamenón, Ulises, and Arcadia. The author of the libretto was Luigi Serio. This opera had not been represented since its premiere at San Carlo theatre in Naples in 1779. Its premier in Úbeda-Baeza was an important landmark in the first years of the Festival, due to the complexity of the production and the excellent artistic results.

Mozart's affectionate quotation from Martín y Soler's Una cosa rara in the Don Giovanni dinner music suggests he admired his Spanish contemporary, whose music was praised by others as 'sweet' and 'graceful'. Such descriptions remain apt for a charming and brilliantly executed performance that's essential for anybody curious about late 18th-century opera beyond Mozart.

Vicente Martín y Soler, nicknamed ‘the Valencian Mozart’, was as famous in his own day as his Austrian contemporary. The ‘very rare thing’ depicted in his biggest success, the opera Una cosa rara, is the combination of beauty and honesty, in the person of a charming peasant girl! The work was arranged for wind ensemble by Johann Nepomuk Wendt, and Mozart quoted from it in Don Giovanni. This programme is completed by premiere recordings of three divertimenti.