Vote for up to three of your favourite pieces out of the twelve from Albéniz's monumental and marvelous piano suite, Iberia. A work I am just familiarizing myself with through different means (original piano, guitar, orchestral).
Too early to say which are my own favourites, but many have made immediate impacts such as Rondeña, Evocación and El Corpus en Sevilla.
Feel free to share your votes and recommendations of recordings in any format (piano, guitar, orchestral or other transcriptions).
Of course I expected you to chime in
@ritter :)
Quote from: Franco_Manitobain on April 25, 2023, 08:16:40 AMOf course I expected you to chime in @ritter :)
My pleasure. And now you get me in full agitprop mode ;D : here go my personal recommendations.
I know it's very typical on GMG to say that the best recording of a work is one that is long OOP (and had very limited distribution to start with), but that unfortunately applies, in my case, to
Iberia. I've always been an admirer of French pianist
Claude Helffer (a man with a very varied repertoire, but who focused mainly on French and avant-garde music). His
Iberia was recorded by the obscure Club Français du Disque label in 1963, and reissued on CD on Accord (a French division of Universal) in 2005 (very limited pressing AFAIK).
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41JE6Q6G6KL.jpg)
Masterful phrasing, beautiful touch on that Steinway, superb use of dynamics. Wonderful! I know our
@Karl Henning knows the recording, perhaps he can give a more sober opinion of it than me! ;)
It's available on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=claude+helffer+iberia). Here's Book II (including the best
Almería I have ever heard).
Another long-time favourite is homegrown pianist
Rafael Orozco's 1992 recording on Auvidis (also OOP, alas):
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81Upa3kL4IL._SX522_.jpg)
This pianist died much too young just four years after this was released. In Spain, he is revered, and his recording very highly regarded.
The dark horse in my list of favourite recordings of
Iberia (in the original piano version) is
Olivier Chauzu Calliope. Another French pianist (of Spanish descent in this case) that does a great job in this masterpiece. This is easier to obtain.
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41KQxXJTgUL.jpg)
And then, there's the classic
Esteban Sánchez recording, originally on the Spanish label Ensayo (with so-so sonics), but reissued by Brilliant Classics, in a set containing other
Albéniz pieces played by
Sanchez, including a superb
La Vega):
(https://i.discogs.com/R2ygSv1Awpp5TUkEIbrYDIR2U-_TARiLenU0sRWOL-M/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:465/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTE5NDUx/NTUtMTI1NDE1NjU0/OC5qcGVn.jpeg)
I'm not crazy about
Alicia de Larrocha (but am clearly in a minority here). For recent recordings, I was very impressed by
Nelson Goerner on Alpha (sampled on YouTube). So much so, that I'm thinking of getting the CD (but do I really need an umpteenth
Iberia in my collection?).
For the orchestral version, my clear recommendation is
Jesús López-Cobos with Cincinnati on Telarc (a label that apparently has collapsed). It has the compete thing, the five pieces orchestrated by
Arbós, and the rest later by
Surinach).
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81z8OcsaJwL._SL1200_.jpg)
Jean Morel on Decca / Eloquence is fine (again, the whole suite), with a certain quaint charm, but the sonics are poorer and it's perhaps a tad too polite.
Interesting is the partial orchestration by Spanish avant-garde composer
Francisco Guerero (truncated by his premature death). It is available on a Glossa CD:
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41XugBEtfxL.jpg)
Note that the orchestral version on Naxos is yet another different orchestration. I was not impressed when I sampled it, and would avoid it.