Spanish Moreno

The repertory of the Spanish vihuela from the 16th century remains little investigated, partly because few original instruments exist; when vihuela works appear on recordings they are often played on the lute or guitar. This is a shame, for the instrument has its own sound and a repertory (albeit one that often claimed playability on various instruments) that exploited that sound. The vihuela is large, with six pairs of strings running up a large body and long neck, and the music on this album exploits the instrument's rich sonority and capability for ornamentation rather than the rapid runs, called redobles in Spanish, that are characteristic of music for other plucked stringed instruments.

José Miguel Moreno (Madrid, 1955) is a Spanish specialist of historical plucked string instruments, such as the vihuela, lute, theorbo, and guitars. In 1977 he won the First Prize of the Incontri Chitarristici di Gargnano (Italy) and later many awards for his recordings. He has undertaken recordings and live concerts with the renowned ensemble "Hesperion XX" and Jordi Savall as well as with his own formations La Romanesca and Orphenica Lyra - after the book Orphénica Lyra (1554) of Miguel de Fuenllana. He is also, with his brother violist Emilio Moreno, co-founder of the Spanish classical music label Glossa Music.

After his latest recording, devoted to Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas in his own arrangement, Franz Halász returns to Spanish music with this recital devoted to Federico Moreno Torroba. The composer of many of the best-known zarzuelas, Moreno Torroba did not initially seem destined to specialize in guitar music. It was his symphonic poems that caught the attention of the legendary guitarist Andrés Segovia, who commissioned Moreno Torroba’s first compositions for guitar despite the composer’s unfamiliarity with the instrument. The compositions gathered here showcase a composer who, although deeply rooted in the Spanish musical tradition, was attuned to what was being done elsewhere, including the music of Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky, and who created a personal language marked by impressionism that would later influence guitar music throughout the twentieth century, from Heitor Villa-Lobos to Leo Brouwer.