Download 1 CHAN 10819 – TURINA Turina: Orchestral Works One day in 1907

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CHAN 10819 – TURINA
Turina: Orchestral Works
One day in 1907 the young Spanish composer
Joaquín Turina (1882 – 1949) was given a
sound piece of advice by a distinguished
colleague. It was in Paris just after he had
taken part as pianist in the successful first
performance of his Piano Quintet in G minor,
Op. 1. At the time Turina was studying
composition under the direction of Vincent
d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum and had
suppressed the Spaniard in him to become a
second-generation disciple of César Franck.
Isaac Albéniz – who, having found his
inspiration in the folksong and folk dances of
his native country, had brought about nothing
less than Spain’s musical renaissance – was
present at that performance and was not
entirely pleased with what he heard. He
undertook to help Turina get his Quintet
published in spite of his own disapproval of its
stylistic derivation from César Franck. He got
him to promise, however, that he would never
write music like that again and would in future
base his art on Spanish folksong – specifically,
since he came from Seville, Andalusian
folksong.
Yet, it was only after his return to
Spain, on the outbreak of war in 1914, that,
following Albéniz’s advice, Turina was able to
draw his major creative sustenance from his
musical roots – which he was to do with such
conviction that, along with his friend Manuel
de Falla, he would become one of the two
leading Spanish composers of his generation.
His experiences in Paris in the meantime, not
least his encounters with the Spanish-friendly
music of Debussy and Ravel, had already
taken him a long way towards his goal.
La procesión del Rocío, Op. 9
Turina’s first orchestral score – written in
1912 and performed with encouraging success
in both Madrid and Paris – is unmistakably
Andalusian in both its setting and, in spite of
some evidence of his Parisian training, its
idiom. It was inspired by memories of the
Procesión del Rocío (Procession of the Dew)
which takes place every June in Triana, the
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gypsy quarter of Seville. The first section,
‘Triana en fiesta’, sets the scene: crowds
gathered for the procession dance soleares to
the lively rhythms that animate the opening
bars and seguidillas to the more lyrical melody
introduced by solo oboe a little later. A drunk
also appears on the scene, heard on solo
strings. The procession, bearing an image of
the Virgin Mary, begins with the entry of flute
and drum with material which recurs
throughout. The religious element of the
occasion is represented by an expressive
chorale which, quietly introduced by divided
cellos, is presented in full orchestral glory
amid chiming bells at the climax of the
procession. Trumpets add the Marcha real to
the celebration. The procession over, the fiesta
briefly resumes but dies away at the end.
Canto a Sevilla, Op. 37
The story of the evolution of the Canto a
Sevilla is long and complicated. The essential
fact, however, is that, whatever shape it took
between its origin as a cycle of four songs for
soprano and piano in 1925 and its present form
as a blend of orchestral songs and instrumental
movements, it was always a heartfelt tribute to
Seville by the leading poet of the city, Muñoz
San Román, and its leading composer, Joaquín
Turina.
The earliest orchestral version of Canto
a Sevilla, first performed in Seville in 1926,
was such a miscellany that Turina clearly felt
it would be wise to link the various pieces in
one way or another. The most effective means
to that end is an impressionistic ‘Preludio’
inspired by a spring evening. Beginning with
an expressive flute solo, it presents against a
Vivo background of minutely scored
Andalusian nocturnal activity a legato melody
sustained mainly by solo woodwinds. The
flute solo returns before an evocation of
distant, sensuously syncopated dance music
and a climactic recall of the Vivo material.
‘Semana Santa’, the first of the four
vocal movements, is set in Holy Week, an
occasion for street processions as, at an early
stage, a far-away sound of drums and trumpets
confirms. Román’s poem describes the scene
and introduces a saeta – traditionally, an
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unaccompanied devotional song performed on
a balcony on the route – for which Turina
relaxes the regular rhythm and sets the voice
free to shape an elaborately decorated line in
flamenco style. There is another, similarly
expressive saeta, this one unaccompanied,
before the procession disappears into the
distance.
‘Las fuentecitas del Parque’, beginning
with a solo violin version of the opening flute
solo and recalling the impressionistic poetry of
the ‘Preludio’, evokes the beauty of the
fountains in Seville’s Park – ‘this Eden of
souls’, according to Román’s verse. In direct
contrast is the purely instrumental movement
‘Noche de Feria’, vividly alive with sevillana
dance rhythms, a sentimental farruca and
instrumental echoes of flamenco singers,
including a solo bassoon at the end of the
slower middle section. Chillingly introduced
by muted strings and celesta, ‘El Fantasma’ is
an atmospheric setting of a poem about a ghost
that haunts the streets by night – a figure,
Román tells us after a subdued but grotesque
march, said to be Love in disguise.
Set in brilliant daylight, ‘La Giralda’ is
a tribute to the bell-tower that dominates the
Seville skyline. Except in a religiously
aspiring middle section, it is vibrant with the
rhythm of the fandanguillo and ends with a
flamenco-style vocal cadenza. The last
movement, ‘Ofrenda’, is Turina’s fond
offering to Seville, which, beginning slowly,
rises gradually in tempo while recalling earlier
moments in the work, notably the sustained
woodwind melody from the ‘Preludio’, and
finally slows down for a monumental ending.
Danzas gitanas, Op. 55
As a committed devotee of ‘sevillanismo’ –
the culture of Seville and the surrounding
region of Andalusia – Turina had written many
gypsy dances before the Danzas gitanas, Op.
55 (1930). He could scarcely have avoided it:
gypsy music and Andalusian folk music are
inseparable. These gypsy dances, however, are
rather different from the highly coloured,
extravagantly rhythmic examples found in
most works of this kind. Set in Granada rather
than Seville (though still, of course, in
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Andalusia), they seem at times to emulate
Manuel de Falla’s Noches en los jardines de
España (Nights in the Gardens of Spain) in
their poetry.
First of all there is the slow
introduction. Though very short, it features the
solo violin that has a reflective role to play
elsewhere in the work, as in the ‘Zambra’
which otherwise has the rhythmic vigour
characteristic of the dance. The ‘Danza de
seducción’, beginning with an exotic flute
solo, has something in common with a
seductive scene in Falla’s El amor brujo,
while the ‘Danza rituel’, which includes
another violin solo, is far from the display of
elemental vitality that one might expect of a
ritual dance. As for the ‘Generalife’, which is
set in the same place as the first movement of
Noches en los jardines de España, it shares
with that Falla piece the presence of a piano in
the instrumental colouring. ‘Sacromonte’,
which evokes the atmosphere of a gypsy area
of Granada, releases the energy at last.
The Danzas gitanas are more often
heard in a piano version which was so
successful that Turina wrote a second set (Op.
84) for the same instrument four years later, in
1934.
Rapsodia sinfónica, Op. 66
The Rapsodia sinfónica, one of Turina’s last
orchestral works, was completed in 1931 and
represents a rather more mature and more
reflective composer, less interested in the
precise evocation of a certain place and the
physical exhilaration of a specific dance form
than in a more generalised flamenco
atmosphere.
While inevitably limiting the range of
colour available, the scoring of the Rapsodia
sinfónica for piano and strings alone
encourages an intimate relationship between
soloist and orchestra. The extended slow
introduction (Andante) begins with a firm
statement from the strings and dramatic
gestures on the piano but at an early stage they
are both engaged in a nostalgic improvisation
on Spanish themes, the textures enriched by
decorative keyboard effusions and the
sentiment intensified by a poignant comment
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from a solo violin or expressive exchanges
between upper and lower strings. The shorter
and quicker Allegro vivo section, the start of
which is signalled by a vigorous rumble on the
piano as it assembles its energy, has a clearer
purpose. Basically, it is a matter of extracting
maximum interest from the contrast between,
on the one hand, two brief but lively dance
tunes and, on the other hand, a more
developed lyrical melody introduced by piano
and immediately answered by solo violin.
Although Turina applies local colour with
restraint here, the Andalusian inspiration is
both unmistakable and irresistible.
© 2014 Gerald Larner