Josep Kilian

Through his life, Piazzolla’s passion was the music of Argentina, which meant the tango, and through his development of tango nuevo he made “respectable” what originally was urban dance music of the working classes in Buenos Aires. Of course, he did this by taking the very elements that gave this music its earthy appeal–excited, swirling, sensuous melody, pulsing ostinato, syncopation–and recast them in more sophisticated forms, particularly regarding rhythm (including polyrhythmic structures and irregular divisions) and harmonies derived from jazz and classical styles.

A year after the two hundredth anniversary of Gaetano Donizetti's birth (1797) and 150 years after his death (1848), the Teatro de la Maestranza de Sevilla chose to open its 1998-9 operatic season with four per­formances of Alahor in Granata, an almost for­gotten opera by the composer. This is an event al a huge historical importance since it marks the first time that the opera has been performed in the XXth century. Alahor in Granata was first performed in the Teatro Carolino in Palermo on the 7th of January 1826 but, alt­hough the opera was again staged in the same city in 1830, it later passed into oblivion and has never been performed ever since. Up until now, as was the case with many of Donizetti's works, a hundred and seventy two years after its pre­miére, we had very little news about this beauti­full masterpiece's original fate.

Juan García de Salazar was a Spanish Baroque composer from the Basque country who spent most of his career working at Zamora Cathedral; he is so obscure the entry for him in the New Grove doesn't even include a list of his works. Musicologist Manuel Sagastume Arregi has pulled together a number of Salazar's extant movements related to the Vespers service with additional material to create Juan García de Salazar: Complete Vespers of Our Lady in Naxos' Spanish Classics series. It is performed by the Basque ensemble Capilla Peñaflorida and features the period wind group Ministriles de Marsias and the fine baritone of Josep Cabré. There are no stars here, though – everything on Juan García de Salazar: Complete Vespers of Our Lady is done to the service of the music, which is outstanding. Sagastume Arregi's realization of García de Salazar's Vespers service incorporates appropriate plainchant sections taken from a Basque hymnal dated 1692, organ music by García de Salazar's contemporaries José Ximenez and Martín Garcia de Olagüe, instrumental arrangements of García de Salazar's motets, and an arrangement of Tomás Luis de Victoria's Vidi speciosam probably made by García de Salazar himself.

It's great to see the music of Nino Rota getting so much attention. He was a wonderful composer, and the ballet suite from La strada may be his orchestral masterpiece (just a quick note: the French language title identifies this as a suite from the eponymous film; it is in fact the more familiar arrangement of the later ballet). There are now four competitive recordings of this piece, the least interesting of which is on Chandos with the Teatro Massimo orchestra: not bad, but not as well played or recorded as either Muti's slightly stiff version with the excellent La Scala forces, or Atma's brilliant recent release featuring the Greater Montréal Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin. All of the couplings differ in various ways, though Muti also has the dances from Il gattopardo (The Leopard).

Enrique Granados' famous opera 'Goyescas', first performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1916, derives from the piano suite premiered in Paris two years previously. At the head of a BBCSO in top form and a handpicked cast, Josep Pons clearly much enjoyed conducting this sparkling new production in London. Many scenes in the opera draw their inspiration directly from paintings by Goya, which listeners will also have the pleasure of discovering in the booklet of this rare and precious album.

Patricia Petibon's album Melancolía: Spanish Arias and Songs is a result of the soprano's lifelong fascination with the music and culture of Spain, with a special interest in the ways Spanish and French influences have cross-pollinated. She has put together an exceptionally attractive selection of songs and arias from zarzuelas, most of them likely to be unfamiliar to general audiences. Petibon is known for her light, silvery coloratura, and her gift for inhabiting her roles, both dramatic and comic, with great spirit and penetrating insight.

The century was only twenty-one years old, and so was Ernst Krenek, when his Serenade op. 4 was premièred on 31 July 1921 at the newly launched “Donaueschingen Chamber Music Performances for the advancement of contemporary music.” The event soon came to be known as Donaueschingen Festival, now one of the oldest specialized music festivals worldwide: Krenek’s music has occasionally been heard there since then – albeit as a series of utterly contrasting works one would hardly ascribe to the same composer.

Probably the most important Catalan Classical piano work, Frederic Mompou’s Música callada, performed by the most eminent Catalan pianist of our time, Josep Colom.