Music of Silence

Pianist Xiaowen Shang has recorded a programme that spans three centuries of Spanish music as part of the Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary Series. Federico Mompou’s late utterance, Música callada (Music of Silence) is a cycle of meditative miniatures, distilling flamenco rhythm and ethereal ancient melody. Mompou’s visionary masterpiece forms the touchstone of the recital, combining Antonio Soler’s eighteenth-century flamboyant sonatas with piano transcriptions of the sixteenth-century sacred composer Antonio de Cabézon.

The visible embellishment of this noble instrument was enriched still more by the Spanish composers, who following the traces of his contemporaries. In the case of Fernando Sor, Haydn was his musical guide, where as Aguado, could establish himself with major vehemence, due its particular style, based in the notable right-hand articulation, eschewed the classical patterns, being able to print his own music a flamboyant and refined character.

The Habsburg Imperial Court was a melting pot of many different cultures in which the zest for living of southerners, the Slav melancholy, French formalism, Spanish courtliness and the original German-speaking Alpine cultural region intermingled. Together with his Ars Antiqua Austria ensemble, Gunar Letzbor occupied himself over a ten year period to produce this 10CD "Klang der Kulturen" box, a musical tour of the individual countries that formed the roots of and influences on the music of baroque Vienna, documenting them in live recordings, with each CD representing one country.