Download Spanish Music Through The Centuries

SPANISH MUSIC THROUGH THE CENTURIES
Notes by Adam Kent
Tonight’s concert is dedicated to the memory of Alicia de Larrocha, who passed away on
September 25th. Alicia’s unique and comprehensive mastery of the Spanish repertory was a
constant source of inspiration to musicians throughout the world and set standards not
soon to be equaled.
“Spanish Music Through the Centuries” celebrates the development and interconnectedness
of Iberian music from the thirteenth to the twenty-first centuries. In many of the works
performed this evening, folkloric influences predominate, but so does an awareness of the
glories of Spain’s artistic past. Felipe Pedrell, the brilliant Catalan musicologist and
pedagogue who inspired the likes of Albéniz, Granados, and Falla, immortalized the links
between the early music of Spain and the country’s popular musical traditions in his fourvolume Cancionero musical popular español. Pedrell’s admonishment to a younger
generation of Spanish composers to find inspiration both in the country’s folklore as well as
in its artistic past laid the groundwork for Spanish composers of the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, and also described what had always been the unique strength of
Iberian music.
Canción y danza No. 10
Federico Mompou (1893-1987)
In his fifteen Canciones y danzas (Songs and Dances)—thirteen for piano, one for guitar and
one for organ—Federico Mompou often borrowed from the folkloric music of his native
Catalonia. The tenth of these works, however, is an exception, in that it derives its melodic
materials from two thirteenth-century Cantigas de Santa María. The Cantigas are a set of
over 400 songs in praise of the Virgin Mary, compiled at the court of Alfonso X el Sabio, ruler
of Castile-León from 1252 to 1284. The “song” portion of Mompou’s miniature is taken from
the 100th Cantiga, a straightforward hymn to Mary which likens Her to “the star of the day.”
The “dance” section harmonizes the 179th Cantiga, one of the extended stories of a miracle
attributed to the Virgin, in this case involving the healing of a crippled woman. In both parts,
Mompou provides a richly polyphonic harmonization for the originally monophonic
sources, dissonant at times, but always full of the points of imitation that characterize much
late medieval music.
Two Keyboard Sonatas
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
Although born to a musical family in Naples in 1685—the same year as J. S. Bach and
Handel—Domenico Scarlatti has been claimed by the Spaniards as one of their own, and is
often viewed as a patriarchal figure in the history of Spanish keyboard music. No doubt the
composer’s extended sojourn on the Iberian Peninsula—first as music master to the
Portuguese royal children and then, from 1729 until his death in 1757, as court musician to
Fernando VI and María Bárbara of Spain—played a part in this consideration. More
significantly, the over 550 keyboard single-movement keyboard sonatas Scarlatti produced
for the Spanish court are shot full of references to popular Spanish music, from imitations of
guitar strumming to approximations of searing Andalusian laments. Indeed, Scarlatti may
have been one of the first composers to capture the popular flavor of Spanish folk music in
his classical compositions.
The Sonata in F Major, K. 6, is from a set of thirty such works issued originally as “essercizi”
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(Exercises), the only sonatas Scarlatti published during his lifetime. Like the much later
Sonata in f minor, K. 519, the work is full of startling alternations between major and minor
modes, unexpected harmonic twists, irregular phrase lengths, and virtuosic outbursts. K.
519 is in the lively rhythm of a zapateado, or foot-stomping dance. Especially striking are
the persistent repetitions of diminished- seventh arpeggii and the sudden evocations of
distant horn calls.
Two Keyboard Sonatas
Padre Antonio Soler (1729-1783)
A native of Catalonia, Antonio Soler relocated to the austere monastery of El Escorial near
Madrid in 1752, when he became a monk of the Jeronimite Order. His spiritual vocation has
earned him the sobriquet of “Padre” Antonio Soler. Scholars believe that Soler came into
contact with Domenico Scarlatti during the Spanish royal family’s periodic residencies at El
Escorial, and that the older composer exercised considerable influence on his younger
colleague. Scarlatti’s imprint is easy to discern in Soler’s several hundred keyboard sonatas,
but so is the sort of phrase structure and harmonic rhythm associated with a slightly later
period of European tonality. The Sonata in d minor, R. 15, owes much to Scarlatti’s example,
with its proud guitar imitations, brilliant hand crossings, and daring harmonic progressions.
The Sonata in D Major, R. 84, follows the tonal layout of a basic Classical-era sonata form,
but—in typical Baroque fashion—limits itself to a single type of figuration and texture.
Here, much of the harmonic adventurousness is reserved for a brief developmental section.
Mediterrània from Hesperia, Op. 4
Anna Cazurra (b. 1965)
The twentieth-first century is represented on tonight’s program by a work by the
Barcelona-based Anna Cazurra. Writing of her four-movement suite Hesperia, Ms. Cazurra
relates:
Hesperia was the name which the ancient Greeks used to refer to the Iberian Peninsula, considered at
that time the western-most territory known to them (η Έσπερία in Greek means “Western”), “the
land where the sun hides himself at the end of the day” (εσπέρα, “afternoon”). Greek mythology
relates this word to the Hespérides, the daughters of Hespero, the personification of Venus as the star
of the afternoon. These nymphs of the Sunset, known also as daughters of the Night, were the ones in
charge of watching the garden of the Hesperides, where the tree that had the essence of immortality
and produced fabulous gold apples grew. However, the word Hesperia suggests not a concrete
geographic place to me but a much more complete concept: the result of the fusion of the cultures
that have developed in the western Mediterranean, including the Iberian tradition and the Arab
influence. This is indeed the characteristic that unifies the collection of four pieces for piano that I
present in this edition.
Of the fourth number, Mediterrània, Ms. Cazurra explains:
In Mediterrània (“Mediterranean”) we can ear the voice of the East in the most western end of this
sea that saw the birth of the oldest civilizations of humanity. The piece presents two contrasting
subjects characterized by specific rhythmic elements, the first one based on the alternation of ternary
and binary meters, the second on the use of syncopation. The open and spontaneous character of the
first two themes lead the way to the provocative and arrogant air of the central section. In the end,
the main themes reappear with enriched and elaborated textures, and the piece concludes with a
brilliant coda and a final evocation of the first theme.
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Dos Sonatas de El Escorial
Rodolfo Halffter (1900-1987)
The brothers Rodolfo and Ernesto Halffter were among the most prominent composers
associated with the Spanish “Generation of 1927,” the generation of artists and intellectuals
in Spain who flourished briefly in the years just prior to the Spanish Civil War. Federico
García Lorca, Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí, and Rafael Alberti are among the better-known
artistic figures of this group, all of whom formed part of a vibrant intellectual community
centered around the Residencia de Estudiantes of Madrid. The Halffter brothers were
associated with the so-called “grupo de los ocho,” a group of eight Madrid-based composers
of the period who counted Manuel de Falla as their primary artistic mentor and whose work
was frequently guided and supported by the Spanish critic Adolfo Salazar.
Rodolfo Halffter’s diminutive Dos Sonatas de El Escorial date from 1928 and were the
composer’s first published compositions. As the title suggests, these works pay homage to
the keyboard style of such great eighteenth-century Spanish composers associated with
Phillip II’s monastery as Scarlatti and Soler, albeit in a more dissonant harmonic idiom.
Especially striking in both works are the many instances of bitonality.
Danza de la pastora and Sonata per pianoforte
Ernesto Halffter (1905-1989)
Ernesto Halffter’s Danza de la pastora (Dance of the Shepherdess) was written as a solo
piano piece in 1927 and then incorporated in orchestral form into the composer’s ballet
Sonatina one year later. This nifty two-part form is also a tribute to the world of the Spanish
Baroque and quotes the folktune “Me casó mi madre”. The composer’s Sonata per pianoforte
dates from 1932 and represents a far more elaborate single-movement sonata form,
complete with a fugal development section. The influence of Igor Stravinsky is frequently
apparent in the constantly shifting additive rhythms and the fragmentary handling of small
characteristic motives. The sense of pomp and fanfare seems quintessentially Spanish,
however.
Excerpts from Cantos de España and Iberia, Book III Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909)
Just as his life spanned both nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the music of Isaac Albéniz
also embodied characteristics of both epochs. It has become fashionable to deride Albéniz’s
early piano music composed in the 1880’s and 90’s as inconsequential and salonish,
especially in contrast to the unique achievement of his Iberia suite. This assessment fails to
recognize Albéniz’s pioneering achievement as a Spanish nationalist composer. In the
charming short pieces of his Suite Española, the Cantos de España, and numerous other
collections, Albéniz defines himself as something of a Spanish Grieg, a composer who
captured the flavor of his country’s folk traditions in short, lightly scored, but harmonically
interesting and melodically endearing piano works. The five pieces of his Cantos de España
date from 1891-94, although two numbers—“Preludio” and “Seguidillas”—had already
appeared verbatim in his earlier Suite Española as “Asturias” and “Castilla”. “Bajo un
palmar,” with its enticing Habanera rhythms, evokes the vanished world of colonial Spain
and is heavily indebted to “Cuba” from the aforementioned Suite Española. “Córdoba”
alludes to the Andalusian city once the capital of the Islamic world outside the Middle East.
In its dramatic juxtapositions of hymn-like chordal progressions and Phrygian-tinged
laments, the piece seems to describe the city’s legendary mosque, eviscerated by the
Catholic church implanted in its center by Carlos V. The festive “Seguidillas” captures the
high spirits of the traditional Castilian folk dance, effectively mimicking the rattle of
castanets alternating with lyrical coplas.
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Isaac Albéniz subtitled his suite Iberia “Douze Nouvelles Impressions,” and the Frenchlanguage reference gives some indication of the composer’s aesthetic orientation. Albéniz
had been living in France for more than a decade when he began his magnum opus in 1905,
and the hazy sonorities, frequent recourse to whole-tone scales, and coloristic handling of
dissonance bespeak an immersion in the sound-world of contemporary French composers.
Indeed, French musicians from Debussy to Messiaen have been awestruck at Albéniz’s
achievement in the Iberia suite, as the following quote by Debussy suggests: “Never has
music achieved such differentiated, such colorful impressions, and the eyes close as if
blinded by these pictures all too vivid in hue.” At the same time, the twelve pieces of Iberia
each suggest the indigenous music of the peninsula, full of references to the Phrygian or
gypsy mode, droning pedal points, and frequent approximations of guitars, castanets and
other conventional Spanish folk instruments. Throughout the collection, Albéniz structures
his music along traditional sonata-like lines, and part of the compositional miracle is the
inherent folkloric quality he is able to impart to such a time-honored structural procedure.
The title of the work may allude to the peninsula in its totality, although in reality, eleven of
the twelve pieces evoke places and scenes of Andalusia. Although born in Catalonia, Albéniz
always maintained a special affection for the music of this southern part of Spain, fondly
proclaiming “Soy un moro” (“I am a Moor”). The finger-twisting thickets of notes
characteristic of much of the writing have been a source of complaints from many
interpreters over the years. Albéniz’s retort to the French pianist Blanche Selva, the
dedicatee of Book II, gives some indication of his playful spirit: “J’ai écrit cela pour voir tes
petites mains blanches bibeloter.” (I wrote that to see your little white hands work like
knick-knacks.”)
The third book of Iberia is dedicated to the Catalan virtuoso Joaquim Malats, one of
Albéniz’s pianistic heroes. “El albaicín” refers to a gypsy quarter of Granada and features
guitar-like figurations in its main theme and expressive approximations of cante jondo-style
vocalizations in its secondary material. In the autograph score, Albéniz explains that “El
polo” refers to a popular type of Andalusian song and not the English game! In Albéniz’s
hand, “El polo” becomes an hypnotic, insistent evocation of a mournful vocal form,
seemingly sobbing and hiccupping throughout. Although the composer develops two
distinct theme groups, the underlying insistent rhythm permeates the entire piece.
“Lavapiés” is a joyous evocation of a popular district of Madrid. Chiming bells and a
confusion of echoing imitations characterize the knuckle-breaking first thematic area. The
second theme is essentially a chotís, a dance form current in turn-of-the-century Madrid,
frequently referenced in zarzuelas of the period. The work ends with an eccentric coda, in
which Albéniz directs the pianist to play “mischievously,” “lightly mockingly, even very
mockingly”!
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