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The I Organ Course ‘Julián de la Orden’, organised through the Cuenca Religious Music Week, began on 3 September and lasts until 11 September. Students of eight nationalities are attending classes of baroque organ taught by Brett Leighton and Andrés Cea, with a manualiter repertoire from the XVI-XVIII centuries; and a seminar given by David Catalunya, with a keyboard repertoire from the XIV and XV centuries.

As the opening act of the course, on 4 September a concert for two organs was given at the Cathedral of Cuenca by two of the teachers, the organists Andrés Cea and Brett Leighton, with a didactic character and specially addressed to a family audience, with the children being guided between oral explanations and musical examples in order to show them the technical possibilities and potential sound spectrum of these instruments.

Andrés Cea was born in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz). He studied in France and Switzerland, where Brett Leighton was a fellow student. He currently lives in Seville and teaches at the city’s conservatory. He has given concerts all over the world and recorded numerous albums, also performing with orchestras and other ensembles. Brett Leighton is Australian. He came to Europe for his organ studies and currently resides in Austria. He teaches in the city of Linz. He has performed numerous concerts on the most famous organs in Europe. Both organists had already played separately in the Cathedral of Cuenca and this was the first time they have given a concert together.

Among the activities during this course, the students have visited the archive of the Cathedral of Cuenca to view the musical documents kept there and also the musical instruments in its possession, and had the opportunity to get to know the organ in the church at Villar de Cañas. And on September 8, it was the students on the course who showed their expertise in a concert at the Cathedral.

On September 9, at 21.00 h. there will be a final recital in the Cathedral with the medieval music ensemble ‘Canto Coronato’ conducted by Professor David Catalunya.

Source: Voces de Cuenca

• Listen to Andrés Cea playing the organ

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The subject of this article is the Colombian conductor Alejandro Posada. The inclusion of this conductor in the series “Our conductors” is a special case because Posada is the principal guest conductor of the Orquesta de Castilla y León, an ensemble that has itself worked closely on several occasions with the Cadaqués Orchestra in different concerts and on various recordings for the Tritó label, such as those we present today: two albums well worth listening to, among other reasons thanks to the eminent soloists who play on each one, the flutist Clara Andrada and the violinist Ara Malikian.

Alejandro Posada has been principal guest conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León since 2002 – you can see the details of his extensive career on his web page – and has done important artistic work for many years all over Europe and Latin America. He has conducted more than sixty orchestras in over twenty countries. In Europe he has conducted a long list of ensembles including the Belgrade Philharmonic, Sarajevo Philharmonic and Chamber Orchestra, Lower Austria Symphony Orchestra, Pro-Arte, the Vienna Residenzorchester, Szeged Symphony Orchestra from Hungary, the Vienna Mozart and the Mitteldeutsche Kammerphilharmonie (Berlin). Elsewhere, he has conducted ensembles such as the Washington and the Taiwan symphony orchestras and the major orchestras of Central and South America, where in addition to having conducted all the Colombian orchestras he collaborates frequently with the Simon Bolivar (Venezuela), Orquestas Sinfónicas Nacional and Concepción (Chile), the Orquestra de Costa Rica, the Nacional from El Salvador, and many others.

In Spain he has conducted important symphonic ensembles on numerous occasions. These include the Sinfónica de Galicia, Sinfónica de Tenerife, Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, Nacional de España, the Ciudad de Barcelona y Nacional de Cataluña,  the Sinfónica de Madrid and, as mentioned above, the Orquesta de Castilla y León.

One of the recordings made by Alejandro Posada for Tritó is the CD titled “Spanish Romantic Violin Concertos“, with pieces by Bretón and Monasterio performed by the brilliant and prestigious Lebanese violinist Ara Malikian. This CD is part of a project that Malikian himself initiated in conjunction with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León to revive and record concertos for violin and orchestra by Spanish composers. By the way, this recording is specially recommended by the reviews Audioclásica and Scherzo

The second recording has resulted in one of the most sold CDs in the Tritó shop: the flute concertos by Arturo Márquez, Xavier Montsalvatge and Joan Albert Amargós, performed by the flutist Clara Andrada. Each of these works has its own story: Montsalvatge’s concerto was composed for the current conductor of the Cadaqués Orchestra Javier Martín, Amargós adapted the original version of his concerto for recorder to the transverse flute, specially for Clara, and the piece by Márquez was a contribution suggested by Alejandro Posada himself. You can read a review in Spanish of this CD here.

• Listen to audio samples from the violín concertos conducted by Alejandro Posada
• Listen to audio samples from the flute concertos conducted by Alejandro Posada

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After the fantastic recent premiere of the opera in four acts, “Yo, Dalí”, by Xavier Benguerel, which was performed last June by the Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid and the Coro del Teatro de la Zarzuela conducted by Antonio Fauró, the reduced version is now avalable from Tritó. The same as another reduction that we published this summer, The Magic Opal, by Albéniz, you can rent the full score of the opera or acquire this version for voices, choir and piano.

On continuation we would like to offer a short news item televised by RTVE on the occasion of the premiere, where you can listen to Benguerel himself discussing his work.

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This August has seen the issue of three unpublished sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti: the sonatas for harpsichord in A, in E and in F, with a study carried out by the musicologist and lecturer at the university of Valladolid Águeda Pedrero-Encabo.

Two of the three sonatas that make up this edition (the Sonata in E and the Sonata in A) were presented for the first time in a free transcription made by Enrique Granados in 1905 for piano and which Joel Sheveloff used to reconstruct the possible originals for harpsichord, as these were thought to be lost. However, this researcher concluded that the transcriptions made by the Catalan composer were not taken from works by Scarlatti, for which reason these sonatas have always been regarded as “dubious.”

Later, M. Ester-Sala discovered the supposedly lost manuscript – M1964 – in the Biblioteca de Catalunya. She published the two sonatas in a facsimile edition, leaving their analysis to other researchers, some of whom, such as Walter Aaron Clark, concluded that the sonata in A is not by Scarlatti but by Courcelle, and that the sonata in E was the work of an anonymous composer.

The present publication is intended to be a critical edition of the original scores of the sonatas in A mayor and E mayor, which makes it possible to study them directly, given that they possess enough of Scarlatti’s traits to suggest they are originals.

As always, we would like to have your opinion: Do you agree that they are by Domenico Scarlatti? Take a look at the Sonata in A and let us know what you think.

• More about these sonatas by Doménico Scarlatti
• See more works by Domenico Scarlatti

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As many of you will already know, the Donostia-San Sebastián Musical Fortnight has just taken place, an event with a wide-ranging programme where a large number of performers gather together at what is the oldest festival in Spain, dating back to 1939. It offers symphonic concerts, ballets, early music, chamber and contemporary music in diverse venues such as churches, the Palacio de Miramar, and the splendid Auditorio Kursaal, designed by Rafael Moneo.

Precisely in the chamber music hall at this auditorium, the Cuarteto Arriaga gave a concert on 24 August. The group presented an eclectic programme that included both classical and 20^th century works, performing pieces by the composer from Vitoria, Jesús Guridi (Quartet nº 1 in G Major), Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga (Quartet nº 2 in A Major), the virtuoso Italian celloist Luigi Boccherini (Quartet G159 in C minor, Op. 2, Nº1), and also Vistas al mar, a composition with a marked Mediterranean flavour, by Eduard Toldrá. This composer was an essential model for the Catalan music of the last century and he and Guridi were close friends. The programme was performed a second time on 26 August in the Parque Lamuza in the town of Llodio in Alava, as part of the “Quincena Andante”.

Consisting of the violinists Aitzol Iturriagagoitia and Rodrigo Bauzá, the violist Miguel Ángel Lucas and the cellist Damien Ventula, the Cuarteto Arriaga brings together four key figures in the world of European chamber music and their wide international experience is confirmed by the concerts they give all over Europe.

Escucha aquí audios de Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga

The Cuarteto Arriaga

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Even in August, Tritó continues working for Spanish music. So this last month we edited and published the reduction for piano of the opera The Magic Opal, a fantastic story in two acts with pirates, ghosts and impossible loves made possible by art of magic on the coast of Karatol, composed by Isaac Albéniz in his London period. And in this work we discover the composer’s personal style mixed with typical elements of Victorian opera.

Therefore, as we were saying, this opera, which up till now you could only obtain in its full version or rent, is now also available as a reduction for solo voices, choir and piano at a launch price of just 31.20 euros.

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In this fourth entry we continue our overview of the conductors who have recorded with Tritó. On this occasion, we call to mind Sir Neville Marriner, who has been principal guest conductor of the Cadaqués Orchestra since 1992.

Sir Neville Marriner studied violin at the Royal College of Music in London and the Paris Conservatoire. In 1949 he joined the Martin String Quartet and founded the Jacobean Ensemble with Thurston Dart and the Virtuoso String Trio, and worked with legendary directors such as Toscanini, Furtwängler, Cantelli and Karajan.

In 1959 he founded the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, where he was concertmaster and later chief conductor. He has also conducted the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra.

He has been decorated twice for his work on behalf of music: he received a CBE in 1979 and was knighted in 1985. In addition, the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields with Sir Neville Marriner has received the Queen’s Award for Export Achievement in recognition of their accomplishments as concert performers.

Sir Neville Marriner’s most prolific period in terms of recordings with the Cadaques Orchestra and Tritó was when he was chief conductor, releasing albums with works by Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga, with the voice of Ainhoa Arteta, such as the Obertura de los esclavos felices, works by Fauré and Gounod, and a CD with three fantastic compositions by Stravinski, Montsalvatge and Prokofiev (Pulcinella Suite, Sortilegis and the Classical Symphony respectively). In addition, he has recorded Pulcinella in its full version in a concert for which David Nel·lo wrote and narrated a tale of imagination set in the city of Tifna, with princesses, good and bad characters, and elephants.

Sir Neville Marriner has conducted works by Mozart with the Cadaqués Orchestra on numerous occasions, resulting in three albums: the Sinfonias concertantes, a double CD with four concertos, for flute (K.313), for oboe (K.314), for clarinet (K.622) and for bassoon (K.191, and, lastly, the Concertos 1 and 2 for flute and the Concerto for flute and harp on a CD which has just been re-released with a more modern design. On this latter album, the solo flutist is Jaime Martín, currently chief conductor of the Cadaqués Orchestra, and the harpist is Bryn Lewis. In the case of another great composer, Beethoven, Sir Neville Marriner has recorded his Symphonies 1,2,5 and 6 with Tritó on two fantastic CDs.

Last but not least, the three Sinfonias Concertantes by Danzi, Fernando Sor’s Overtures and Symphonies and the works of the contemporary composer Joan Guinjoan, Sincrotó and Alba, are the three other recordings that the period when the Cadaqués Orchestra performed under the baton of the brilliant English conductor has left for posterity.

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