La ciencia vuelve a España: Iberia, Libro I

[Todd]

Pola Baytelman goes for a super-slow Evocación, with rich tonality and a close microphone enhanced scale.  A languid approach married to so-so rubato and limited dynamic contrast leads to a somewhat enervating listening experience.  El Puerto is swifter and more vibrant, but the too close recording exposes the limits here.  Put the pianist in a medium size venue with distant microphones, and the sound would be small, and the delivery undernourished.  Corpus Christi en Seville finally kicks things into gear, in relative terms.  If one pulls out the recording randomly, it's fine, but in a survey it suffers.  D tier.

[Todd]

Rafael Orozco in his later career, if it can truly be described that way, had moved away slightly from his leaner, meaner younger years a bit and it shows.  His Evocación is clear, never veering into especially dreamy or impressionistic territory, but his rubato, his attention to detail, his leisurely tempo, and his control combine to create a sound that just about as Spanish as can be.  Reminders of his more youthful style inform El Puerto, where vigor and incisiveness meet fluid tempo fluctuations and energy.  Corpus Christi en Seville sees Orozco ramping things up and hitting the keys rather harder in the loudest passages, while never sounding hard or aggressive – or at least too aggressive.  It's just the right amount.  Every time I listen to an Orozco recording, I lament his early passing.  A tier.

[Todd]

Guillermo Gonzalez offers up a reasonably paced Evocación, with nice rubato, nice dynamics, and nice everything else.  It's nice.  Gonzales comes alive in El Puerto, showing a penchant for more vibrant playing, with rhythm and dynamics wholly satisfactory.  Corpus Christi en Seville blends nice playing and vibrant playing.  Overall, nice.  C tier.

[Todd]

Angel Huidobro is somewhat like Gonzales, with less interesting rubato, and in less appealing recorded sound.  It's not terrible.  It's there.  D tier.

[Todd]

Gabriele Tomasello, online content creator and pianist of very wide-ranging enthusiasms and hideous album covers, got the nod because I wanted to try one real pianist who releases potentially questionable "recordings".  The recorded sound in Evocación is suffocatingly close and the piano tone is unbalanced and off.  The overall tempo is not fast, but the playing sounds rushed, and the rubato and dynamics sound either outright artificial or enhanced.  I guess the tone, as real as it is or is not, is not harsh.  El Puerto is so dynamically constricted that the whole thing becomes a musical blob with rhythm.  Corpus Christi en Seville is much the same.  The sound is so off that it sure seems like this ain't no real piano or piano recording, but for the purposes of this survey I will accept that it is one.  So, yeah, it sucks.  D tier.

[Todd]

Aldo Ciccolini is a well-known pianist who shows that an artist can be famous and deliver poor recordings.  His Evocación is quick, bright, clear, with meh rubato and rhythmic pulse and falls flat.  Fortunately, it does so in a hurry.  Perhaps he was going for a guitar like style, perhaps not, but either way, it does not result in listening enjoyment.  El Puerto, as is typical in faster approaches, fares better, but here that means it sounds too aggressive, cutting, and kind of annoying, though Ciccolini's phrasing occasionally catches the listener's ear in an intriguing and wholly unidiomatic way.  Corpus Christi en Seville then comes off ugly and pointlessly emphatic.  D tier.

[Todd]

This survey started with a long-established S tier recording, and it ends with one, too.  Evocación has a conventional timing, but Block makes much of it sound slower than it really is, with supremely refined rubato, the most delicate of diminuendi and his special time suspension techniques.  This is atmospheric, impressionistic but not really, and always lovely playing.  The way he sort of sings with the left hand and lets the right hand meander almost aimlessly sounds swell.  El Puerto has ample boogie, with swiftly, almost violent change ups in rhythm, all delivered with a weighty, lovely tone.  In  Corpus Christi en Seville , Block shows off his virtuosic bona fides in the gnarliest music, but then quickly reverts to his unique time suspension approach fluidly.  And yes, with this recording, the only thing to do is let all four books play through.  S tier all the way.

[Todd]

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