The growing interest in the revival and new performance of the Latin American colonial repertoire is illustrated by the recent proliferation of recordings. Despite the difficulties encountered in accessing reliable versions of this repertoire, there are plenty of ensembles that have worked directly with the sources to make recordings.

Until just over five years it would have been hard to find two hundred CDs of colonial music, most of it of poor technical and musical quality, or taking a more modern approach that was too general. But this does not detract from the merit of these performers and researchers, who initiated and promoted the appearance of more rigorous groups. While it was common then to choose a varied repertoire without any particular logic, we now find it somewhat more difficult to accept lay, missionary, cathedral and parish repertoires in the same collection, furthermore originating in latitudes and altitudes thousands of miles apart and composed by anonymous or known composers such as Zipoli, Salazar, Padilla Gutierrez, Ceruti, Juan de Araujo, Sumaya, Torrejón y Velasco and Esteban Salas (just to mention a few).

But something is changing. Specialisation and the expectations of the public require performances better adjusted to the context in which the works arose, better prepared and, above all, better performed.

If we go back a decade we find that the growing awareness of the existence of a vast repertoire as yet undiscovered by the recording labels led to the emergence of some projects that have lasted until today. Although highly questionable in concept and of barely acceptable quality, it is worth recalling the work carried out by the Repsol YPF programme for Music of Latin America, which began in 1998 with the release of a box set with several titles with music from Cuba, Argentina, Guatemala, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico and Brazil.

Similarly the French label K.617 has released, as part of its Baroque Latin-American series, approximately forty monographic albums of colonial music. In this collection, the consistency of the criteria used to prepare the different albums is worthy of note.

In 2005 Bolivian Baroque released its first album, recorded by the Ensemble Florilegium led by Ashley Salomon, fruit of Piotr Nawrot’s research and publications. They have released three recordings so far, which display a certain tendency towards the creation of a stereotyped product with a Eurocentric treatment. Lamentably, the quality of the music has declined from the first album to the latest.

Recently, I was surprised by the quality of the music on a recording released by the Ensemble Caprice from Canada under the direction of Matthias Maute. However, once again, the choice of repertoire does not seem to follow any kind of logic that links the pieces together, apart from the mere fact of all coming from Latin America. Furthermore, it does not avoid the clichéd and idealised versioning of the repertoire, where the music has to grab the attention and possess obvious “Latin-American” traits.

Following in the footsteps of pioneers such as Robert Stevenson and Curt Lange, who initiated the revival of the repertoire and the study of the archives of the colonialist cathedrals, there are now specialists working hard all the world, such as Piotr Nawrot, Geoffrey Baker, Bernardo Illari, Miriam Escudero, Lauro Ayestarán, Dante Andreo and Javier Marín. The results of their research provide data that bring us closer to this music and draw attention to its idiosyncrasies. Some recent groups respect these idiosyncrasies by adapting their performances to the different contexts, periods, styles, genres and languages and by trying to produce more careful versions, though no less novel for being so.

La Capilla del Sol is a consolidated Argentinean ensemble that has taken a critical, unbiased approach to colonial music since its beginnings, in 2004. The musical excellence of its members, supported by the thorough research carried out continuously by its director, Ramiro Albino, has paved the way for several concerts by the group in Latin America. Recently, following a European tour (Slovenia, Czech Republic and Spain) the group received very good reviews.

Keeping a careful eye on the editions, using the original sources and taking a creative approach to performance has resulted in music that is alive and full of interest. By merging their specialized training in early music and the folk repertoire, the members give the group a distinctive sound.

The album titled Como pudieran en cualqueir catedral could never sound monotonous, not even to ears unfamiliar with Latin American colonial music. The contrast between the selected works lies in their functional differences, which are, in turn, reinforced by the musical re-creation. In this case there is a guiding principle that links the pieces: the hypothetical reconstruction of a Mass at the Jesuit Missions of Bolivia.

Emulating the procedure followed in the mission chapels, works were selected from missionary archives, which were then transcribed by the musicologists Piotr Nawrot, Sylvia Leidemann, Enrique Godoy and the director of the group, Ramiro Albino; all pieces that were part of repertoire of the Missions of the Chiquitos and Moxos.

As might be expected, the interpretation and recuperation of the sources in an edition and the preparation of a new version requires specific training. In the case of the reconstruction of the colonial repertoire, the performers run into the difficulty of having to “clothe” the music. Some seemingly simple pieces turn out to be extremely difficult to recreate without deep analysis. Other pieces have only survived as fragments and the musicologists chose to reconstruct the missing parts and use additional documentation to obtain further details on the use and ways of the percussion and other instruments, on the natural register of the voices and on how to adorn the music.

Likewise, they have to imagine its possible hybridization with local rhythms, instruments and ways of playing. One of the good points of this album is that there is no sign of contrivance or of an excess of imagination. Nothing seems arbitrary and at the same time the works are imbued with their own character, which distinguishes them from works with a similar structure and function composed in Europe.

It is a real pleasure to listen to this technically polished, high-level recording, with a quality still difficult to find in CDs of colonial music. The similarity in the timbre of voices and their perfect union, and the naturalness of the instrumental performances, gives the pieces a fresh atmosphere that I consider very appropriate if the aim is to reconstruct the spiritual and symbolic context. There are no clichés that fuel the expectations of the listeners; neither is the discourse simplified to bring it closer to the audience. Quite simply, this is a well thought-out, solidly argued and technically sound product.

Capilla del Sol

I hope this work by the Capilla del Sol is only the first in a series of recordings where we will be able discover other repertoires and the associated new approaches, so that they obtain the international acceptance they deserve. Colonial music is consolidating its place in concert programmes everywhere, seeking to re-establish the cultural bond that has united Europe and America for centuries.

CD “Como pudieran en cualquier catedral”

CAPILLA DEL SOL

Adriana Sansone, Silvina Sadoly, Soledad Molina, Isabel Barrios (sopranos) / Cecilia Pahl (mezzo-soprano) / Paul Tavaglino (alto) / Diego Zorah (tenor) / Alicia Moran, Virginia Llansa (violins) / Maria Jesus Olondriz (cello) / Evar Cativiela (guitar, vihuela) / Federico Ciancio (harp) / Cristina Garcia Banegas (organ) / Eduardo Rodriguez (bassoon) / Sergio Bazán (percussion) / Ramiro Albino (flute and direction)

Buenos Aires, 2010

This CD was produced with no profit motive in mind and its distribution is free.

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Dove of Peace. Homage to Picasso Hill will be premiered on 19 May at the Cornerstone, Hope Everton, Great Hall of Liverpool, by the clarinettist Nicholas Cox and the Ensemble 10/10 under the baton of Clark Rundell.

This work, which is his chamber concerto nº 1 for clarinet and chamber orchestra, is fruit of a commission from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. The fact that the date of the premiere coincided with the celebration of a major exhibition devoted to Picasso at the Tate Liverpool prompted the composer to envisage his work as a homage to the much-admired Spanish artist.

With this piece, the author once again explores one of his passions, which has become a constant in his oeuvre, and this is the dialogue with other artistic languages, poetry and literature, and especially painting, whose echo we can recognize in pieces like Alter Klang, Impromptu for orchestra after poems by Paul Klee (2006) or Four Darks in Red, based on the work of Rothko, and recently premiered in New York..

This work is Casablancas’ first incursion into the concertante genre.

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Alicante 1851 -  Madrid 1909

Ruperto Chapí orn in Villena, Alicante, came from a humble family background. Thanks to the family love of music, which had been passed down through several generations, he began his musical education at a very early age. He began his playing career in his hometown as a band musician and would later go on to the Conservatorio de Madrid. There, Ruperto and his friend Tomás Bretón studied with Arrieta.

His career as a composer was benefited by the award of a first prize for composition in 1872. This success enabled him to take up residence and study for four years in Rome and Paris. Although he was interested in music for the stage from an early age (at the age of twelve he had composed the zarzuela Estrella del Bosque), it was during this time that he managed to establish himself in the lyric-dramatic genre. In this period he composed and premiered his first opera, Abel y Cain, in Madrid, and this was followed by Las naves de Cortés and Vasco Núñez de Balboa. His first piece at the Teatro Real was La hija de Jefté, a work that the composer wrote during his stay abroad and which was premiered when he was only twenty-five years old.

When he returned to Spain he consolidated himself in the zarzuela genre and composed a sizeable number of works of which the majority are included in the standard repertoire of zarzuela companies: La Tempestad, La bruja, El rey que rabió, La zarina, El tambor de granaderos, Las bravías, La revoltosa, Las hijas de Zebedeo, El milagro de la Virgen, El duque de Gandía and Curro Vargas.

Vocal works

Among his compositions for stage there are some that aroused greater interest during the last century and are still often performed.

Música clásica was one of the works in the genre of Spanish operetta that won most acclaim from the public. A peculiarity of the storyline is that it exposes the problematic relationship between zarzuela and classical music, a controversy in which the composer was directly implicated. The work was premiered in 1880 at the Teatro Comedia de Madrid. The publication of the score has been planned to mark the occasion of the centenary of the composer’s death.

La tempestad was premiered in 1882 at the Teatro de la Zarzuela. It made a considerable impact because of the elaborate orchestral treatment. It was the most important zarzuela in the decade of the 1880s and helped to establish large-scale zarzuela.

La bruja, was premiered in 1887 at the Teatro de la Zarzuela de Madrid. Set in the popular atmosphere of 17th century Pamplona the work is closer to opera than zarzuela as regards its technical requirements and the length of the instrumental sections. Nevertheless, the large amount of comic numbers and scenes depicting customs and manners unquestionably gives it the characteristics of zarzuela. This may well be the vocal piece by the composer that displays the greatest Germanic influence, as much in the use of orchestral resources as in the technique used in the creation of the motifs.

Perhaps Las hijas de Zebedeo is not one of Chapi’s most transcendent works but it is extremely interesting for its content. This comic zarzuela in two acts was premiered in 1889 at the Teatro Maravillas in Madrid. The storyline revolves around the figure of Luisa whose ignorance and poor memory lead to an endless series of comic situations.

El rey que rabió, zarzuela in three acts and seven scenes, was premiered at the Teatro de la Zarzuela de Madrid in 1891. The libretto of this satire was accused in its time of being a plagiary of “Un roi de vacances”. Chapí and his colleagues had to deal with this type of situation fairly often. Despite the controversy the premiere of the work was the biggest success of the year in the theatre world.

La revoltosa, zarzuela in one act which was premiered at the Teatro Apolo de Madrid in 1897, was an instant success and has continued running until the present day thanks to the adaptation of the musical discourse of the libretto.

The incorporation of stylistic resources typical of the music listened to in Madrid at the end of the 19th century was a sure-fire guarantee of success.

El puñao de rosas was premiered at the Teatro Apolo de Madrid in 1902. With a storyline that focussed on the popular atmosphere in the mountains of Cordoba, it won instant acclaim from the public. One oddity was that the librettists decided to adapt it to the language and the pronunciation of this Andalusian region in order to help reconstruct the local atmosphere.

Instrumental works

Although his music for the stage reached a wider audience Chapí also composed symphonic music and cuatro cuartetos (four chamber quartets). The composer had to cope with the public’s lack of interest in symphonic music. Nevertheless, he made transcendental contributions to the development of symphonic music and received a positive reception from the foreign public. All his instrumental works have been published by the ICCMU during the last decade and have been the subject of some very interesting recording projects such as the Brodsky Quartet’s version of the four quartets.

The composer’s first instrumental work was the overture Zanzé written in 1865. This was followed by Fantasía Morisca (Corte de Granada) composed during the same period. He also wrote a symphonic poem that he called Escenas de capa y espada.

The Scherzo (Combate de Don Quijote contra las ovejas) composed between 1869 and 1870 was a descriptive piece written for the orchestra of the Circo Teatro de Price. Both Chapí and Bretón were members of this orchestra and it gave then the opportunity to try out some of their own works.

The Symphony in D was written in 1877 in Paris and later premiered in Madrid following the creation of  a concert society. The work was a study in orchestration written by the composer in his student days and has a clear structure based on the prevailing German models at that time.

Los gnomos de la Alhambra was premiered in 1891 by the orchestra of the concert society. This work was followed by La marcha de recepción in 1895.

The quartets were written between 1893 and 1897 in the keys of G mayor, F mayor, D mayor and B minor. At the time, a female string quartet, La Bretoniana, was devoted to popularising the chamber music of both Chapí and Bretón, a contemporary of Chapí. The public enjoyed comparing the productions of the two composers and taking sides with one or the other.

Some examples of Ruperto Chapí’s music can be heard in recordings made by the Orquestra de la Academia del Gran Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona. A clear and concise performance accompanied by essential liner notes in Catalan, Spanish and English.

Modern-day repercussions

Owing to a dispute over copyrights with the publisher Florencio Fiscowich (the publishers acted as middlemen between the theatres and the composers at that time), Chapí founded the Sociedad de Autores in 1899 together with other composers and librettists. Fiscowich’s aim was to have control of all the zarzuela librettos and scores and he did all in his power to achieve this goal. The composer’s flat refusal to cooperate prevented the editor from carrying out his business plan. It was then that Chapí decided it was necessary to set up an organisation that regulated composers and authors’ copyrights and he contributed his own personal store of works to put the idea into practice.

For those who are interested in learning more about the life and work of Ruperto Chapí, Luis G. Iberni has completed a detailed, basic analytical study of his figure. Another less disseminated work, but not for this reason any less interesting, is Miradas desde el Arte a la Música de Ruperto Chapí, the catalogue of the exposition held in homage to the composer in October 2008.

To mark the occasion of the centenary of the death of Ruperto Chapí, one of the most important composers in the ambit of Spanish music for the stage, several homages are being organised.

At last, the previously unpublished scores of some of the composer’s works that have been performed and included in recordings will see the light of day. As well as the recently published Scherzo, Fantasía Morisca, Polaca de Concierto, Marcha e himno de la hija de Jefte and Escenas de capa y espada and Música clásica (score and reduction) will be published. For the time being some other stage works and zarzuela reductions that performers would like to see available will remain in the pipeline.

The new recordings include live performances of El rey que rabió and Roger de Flor, on DVD and CD respectively. A CD of vocal and instrumental works recorded by the Ensamble de Madrid and a box set containing historic recordings of complete versions of zarzuelas by Chapí will also be released.

Lastly, there will be an itinerant exhibition dealing with the life and work of Chapí, which will visit Villena and Valencia among other places. The exhibition counts on musicological assessment by Javier Suarez Pajares and Victor Sanchez Sanchez.

Works

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The Cadaqués Orchestra conducted by Gianandrea Noseda presents the complete symphonies of Johannes Brahms in a double CD.

This symphonic cycle, despite being one of the least extensive, is one of the keys to understanding the transition from classicism to romanticism and orchestral music from the 19th century to the present day.

The ODC ensemble, smaller than usual for this repertoire, becomes a brilliant tool in the hands of the Italian conductor, who knows every nuance of the score and brings out the best in each of the musicians with a splendid labour that results in masterly performances.

Simphnony no.1 Un poco sostenuto – Allegro

Simphnony no.2 Allegro non troppo

All the symphonies were recorded at the Auditorio de Zaragoza after a tour of various Spanish cities.

The Orquesta de Cadaqués accepted the challenge of making the first recording of this complete set by a Spanish ensemble, with a magnificent result that is on a par with the key recordings of this repertoire. A recording that was an important undertaking in both its artistic and technical aspects and which will surprise and please both the connoisseurs if this repertoire and those who are listening to it for the first time.

Simphnony no.2 Adagio non troppo

Simphnony no.3 Andante

Simphnony no.3 Allegro

Further information at www.trito.es

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With the figure of the composer Xavier Montsalvatge we are launching a series of biographies of some of the most famous Spanish composers of all time, which will be published periodically in this blog.

Xavier Montsalvatge is the first because he is the publisher’s principal composer and almost the totality of his work has been published by Tritó. Montsalvatge will be followed by Isaac Albéniz in view of his evident importance on the Spanish music scene together with Enrique Granados.

You can access the series by clicking on Biographies.

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Although Isaac Albéniz did not compose for the guitar, the transcriptions for this instrument of his music constitute an important oeuvre and were numerous even during the composer’s lifetime. Francisco Tárrega’s transcriptions for performers like Andrés Segovia have contributed to the renown of Albéniz’s piano works.

Some of Tárrega’s transcriptions are included on the recording La guitarra soñada, along with others by the guitarist Javier Riba, who on this CD offers an elegant and solid performance backed by a profound grasp of Albéniz and the guitar idiom. Included on the CD is a selection of some of the best-known works by the Catalan composer: Iberia, Suite Española, España and Pavana.

This is what Walter Aaron Clark, an Albéniz scholar, has to say about the quality of these transcriptions: “But I had always felt that a solo guitarist could not do justice to this music. The guitar virtuoso Javier Riba, an artist of the first order, has proved the falseness of that claim, for which we should all be grateful.”

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A previously unpublished symphony by Josep Pons (1770-1818) has been included in volume 6 of the Collection “Compositors valencians”, published by Tritó in conjunction with the Generalitat Valenciana. It has been classified as No. 10 so as to respect the numbering of the catalogue initiated years ago by Joám Trillo and José López-Calo.

The task of the publication of this symphony in A major fell to Josep Dolcet, who located the manuscript in the Biblioteca Històrica of Madrid City Council, among the archives that came from the old Teatro de la Cruz.

It was found together with other overtures and symphonies by Pons and by Sor (published and recorded), Pablo del Moral and Francisco Javier Moreno, and also works by Haydn, Pleyel and Mozart, and lesser-known European composers (Rosetti, Winter, Witt, Méhul, Paër, Paisiello, Salieri, Sarti, Spontini, Mercadante, etc.)

In fact, this is the first time symphonies and overtures by Pons have been found in archives coming from theatres, and this shows that apart from the use of his music in religious acts, which implies its conservation in cathedral archives, it also sounded in concert halls or as the introduction to theatre works performed at the beginning of the 19th century.

The edition also includes an updated biographical study of Josep Pons, carried out by the musicologist and conductor Ramón Ramírez i Beneyto, author of a doctoral thesis on this composer.

Symphony no.10, Allegro

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Volume 7 of the Collection “Compositors valencians” has been released. It is published by Tritó in conjunction with the Generalitat Valenciana and contains the Complete repertoire of chamber music composed by the brothers Antonio and Joaquín Nicolás Ximénez Brufal, in an edition prepared by the Valencian musicologist Miguel Ángel Picó Pascual.

This researcher has reconstructed the lives and historical and family background of these two composers and violinists who practised their profession at the collegiate church of Alicante and in the courts and concert halls of Madrid, London and Paris, like the other musicians in their family.

The edition contains twelve works, with score and parts. The six sonatas for violin and basso continuo by Nicolás Ximénez, composed totally in the Galante and Rococo style typical of the post-Baroque period, were first published in London in 1772. On the other hand, the sonatas and trios by his brother, published in Paris in 1789, are totally in the international style of Classicism.

It should be mentioned that the trios in Opus 1 by Antonio Ximénez are for guitar, violin and bass (cello). One would expect these pieces to be well received by guitarists, on the look out for the scarce repertoire of chamber music for guitar.

Sonata I in G

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Internet has facilitated access to the digitalised collections of many archives and libraries around the world. However, there are still many titles, not only in Spain, that are unavailable through the web but which can be obtained in book format.

This is the case of Reglas de canto plano è de contrapunto è de canto de Organo (Rules for plainchant and counterpoint and polyphony) by Fernando Esteban, which, with a first edition dating from 1375, constitutes one of the essential sources of theory for specialists in the reconstruction of theory and thinking behind Spanish music.

Although this facsimile edition with its accompanying typed transcription was published over 30 years ago, today it has special value because it provides specialists with difficultly accessible material of great interest.

The volume begins with a synthetical introductory study by the musicologist Mª Pilar Escudero Garcia. The organisation of the contents (facsimile on even-numbered pages and transcription on the odd numbers) makes reading them easier and allows the reader to contrast the original source with its interpretation.

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“Fantasia for Tuba and piano” by Bartolomé Pérez Casas, probably one of the earliest works ever written for these two instruments, is now available from the Tritó catalogue. The project to publish this landmark work for the tuba entailed a major research effort by both the publisher and reviser Miguel Moreno Guna, from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid, to find the composer’s original manuscript as well as the historical documentation essential for the best possible recreation of the score.

Bartolomé Pérez Casas was a leading figure in Spanish music in the first half of the twentieth century, as director of the Royal Lancers Corps Band, professor of harmony at the Royal Conservatory in Madrid, founder and director of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Madrid and director of the Spanish National Orchestra between 1942 and 1947. His knowledge of wind instruments and his music teaching skills make this an essential piece in the tuba repertoire.

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