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TRIBUTE TO ALICIA...
Alicia de Larrocha was one of the most important Spanish pianists of the 20th Century. As a musician of immeasurable talent, De Larrocha’s recordings and performances of the entire piano repertoire prove her genius at the keyboard. Perhaps one of her most important contributions to music history was her duty as an ambassador of Spanish music abroad. Her repertoire regularly included great Spanish masters like Soler, Albéniz, Granados and Falla, and her performances of the works of her contemporaries, such as Montsalvatge, Mompou, and Esplá, were crucial to the formation of their international reputation. All in all, her masterful labor as a brilliant pianist put Spanish music in the international scene at a time when it was deeply obscure.
The following program aims to serve as a modest tribute to one of Spain’s most beloved pianists. The project begun as a radio broadcast on WQXR in New York City. Her daughter, Alicia Torra de Larrocha, and the former music critic of The New York Times, Robert Sherman, were organizing a tribute to De Larrocha to be broadcasted on May 2019. I had the honor and good fortune of being selected as an invited artist in WQXR where I performed an entire program of Spanish music that included works by Soler, Esplá, Mompou and De Larrocha.
Antonio Soler is among the most important Spanish composers of the 18th century. He was an extraordinarily prolific composer whose output includes over 500 compositions. The two Sonatas of the present album are among his best known works for keyboard. De Larrocha kept throughout her lifetime multiple of Soler’s Sonatas in her repertoire, playing them in concert halls all around the world. Her recordings of the sonatas are among the best interpretations of these works.
Oscar Esplá is, along with Manuel de Falla, the most important Spanish composer of the 20th century. Ironically enough he is also one of the most forgotten musical geniuses of our country. A man of diverse interests and immense intellectual capacity – he had an extensive formation in engineering and philosophy – his musical trajectory begun in Spain and proceeded later in Europe. Esplá’s contributions to Spanish music are of colossal magnitude. He reconceived Spain’s folklorism by incorporating folkloric elements from Castile and Levante at a time when Andalusian regionalism dominated the national musical scene. His Spanish Sonata Op.53 was a commission by UNESCO to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Chopin’s death. De Larrocha recorded this Sonata in 1956. Two years later, in 1958, she writes a letter to her beloved teacher Frank Marshall narrating the overwhelming impression that her performance had on the composer, who “cried of happiness” to put in her own words.
Federico Mompou was also among the most important Spanish composers of the 20th century. His relationship with Alicia de Larrocha was of intimate friendship, and he dedicated the Fourth Book of his Música Callada to her. Música Callada, (or Silent Music) is a collection of short piano pieces divided into 4 volumes. The title itself poses an oxymoron since music is anything but silence. One could say that the pieces in Música Callada are not concert music per se. They lack the boisterous virtuosity and the extended narrative of solo concert works. These enchanting little gems are almost like brief, intimate confessions, coated in a counterpoint that shares its tradition with composers like Satie, Debussy or Scriabin.
A tribute to our beloved Spanish pianist would be incomplete without including several of her pieces from Pecados de Juventud. These pieces are a novelty to most of us since they were published posthumously by her daughter in 2014. The four selected works, Jota, Aiguablava, Burlesca and Estudio, were composed in her teenage years, being the Jota composed when she was only 14, and the rest at age 19. These works exhibit a formidable compositional technique and the sensitivity of a mature musician. In them one can appreciate a strong influence of the French school, with the focus on rich harmonic colors of Debussy and the perpetually morphing contrapuntal lines of Fauré. In these four pieces De Larrocha takes us from bitter farewells and uttermost nostalgia, to folkloric exhuberance, pianistic virtuosity, and witty dances.
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