Garcia Lorca

George Crumb has long been America’s celebrated ancient voice of children of all ages. Once the voice of flower children, he set texts by Lorca in 1970 for soprano, boy soprano and the ethereal bent notes of an exotic percussion ensemble, abetted by harp, oboe and musical saw. It proved a quicker, surer, safer magical mystery tour than drugs (although they were then a common helpmate at Crumb concerts anyway).

Jesús Legido, one of the greatest composers of contemporary Art song in Spain, is portrayed here in this first recording of a selection of his voice and piano songs, which draw inspiration from folklore and his poetic influences (like Antonio Machado and Federico García Lorca). Renowned Spanish soprano Raquel Lojendio, accompanied by pianist Irene Alfageme, invites us to this marvelous voyage through love, death and life, the three pillars of Legido’s poetic and powerful language.

The three Italian choral works on this album cast new light on pre-existing musical material. Corrado Margutti’s Missa Lorca fuses the words of Federico Garcia Lorca with an evocation of Monteverdi’s polyphonic textures to create fascinating sounds, as the two movements from the Mass reveal. Pizzetti’s Messa di Requiem, the first of his great choral compositions, offers a wealth of expressive detail notably the use of Gregorian chant in music of huge range and richness. Lorenzo Donati’s Sicut Cervus fittingly concludes this selection as it threads music from Palestrina into his piece illuminating the past with vivid new colours.