While I avoid my duty to finish the Hyperion Romantic Piano Concertos series, I decided to start a new listening project: the Basque Music Collection. Many CDs are now sold out and streaming only. There are only 15 volumes. Full listing here (https://www.claves.ch/fr/collections/euskadiko-orkestra-sinfonikoa).
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/69/36/0829410603669_600.jpg)
Jesús Guridi might be the most famous name in the series, since he has also been featured on several Naxos discs.
Diez Melodias Vascas (Ten Basque Melodies) is sort of like an orchestral, wordless equivalent of Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne, based on folk melodies in a variety of moods. Some are catchy, some nostalgic, all colorful. I love the dance of No. 1, the Spaghetti Western soundtrack feel of No. 3, and Hollywoody glamour of the final No. 10. The orchestration is terrific, and I love the short little glimpses of trombone and tuba we get at times.
But if you thought that was Hollywood, just wait! The next track on the disc is called Homenaje a Walt Disney! It's a 24-minute fantasia (hah) for piano and orchestra, starting with a gloomy, quiet, cello-and-bass introduction. The piano enters around 2'. I wish the liner notes were published online, because I feel like there's a storyline I don't know here. It isn't a series of quotations of Disney cartoon music. It isn't in their style, really. Instead, there are moments (9:25) that sound a bit like Ravel, moments that are a bit modernist and even temporarily atonal (17'), and some outright slapstick (9:45). If I had to guess, it's telling Disney's personal life story, from humble beginnings to fame. Maybe he falls in love around 15'?
Next we have a 12-minute tone poem called An Adventure of Don Quixote. It is, once again, very colorful, somewhat like a film score, and gently entertaining. There's a little bit of Dvorak to the shape of the (oft-repeated) main melody (scherzo of Piano Trio No. 3).
Finally, we have a three-movement suite, Eusko Irudiak (Basque Images). The first movement is a very sunrise-y impressionist image, with a faraway offstage choir barely audible at the end. The choir moves up to its traditional placement for the second and third movements, the second featuring men and third featuring women. The ladies sing over an insistent, folksy beat. Like some of the other works here, it's not terribly individual or personal, but is very pleasing.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/65/15/0829410611565_600.jpg)
José Maria Usandizaga has a memorable surname and is represented by a collection of shortish works (6-14 minutes each). He died of tuberculosis at age 28, only 10 years after studying with d'Indy, so he never had a chance to develop fully as a composer, and his best-known works are an opera and a zarzuela.
First up is Dans la mer, a short tone poem where the influence of d'Indy can be heard. Impressionism Lite. Lite could also describe the fluffy, charming dance from Hassan y Melihah (it sounds like Rimsky-Korsakov at times), and a Rapsodia on Basque folk songs: cheery, somewhat generic, with a lot of suspended cymbals. There's a short overture on a folk melody (provided by the cor anglais) and a very gentle, sometimes boring Suite in A that seems to also take some folk inspirations.
One track stands out from the rest. The Fantasia for cello and orchestra is gloriously tuneful and fun, and Asier Polo really sings his part. This is a real basket of churros con chocolate.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/66/49/0829410504966_600.jpg)
The main course on this collection is Jesús Arambarri's ballet Aiko-Maiko, presented in a 50-minute long suite. There are a lot of influences here; I detect some of the French ballet greats, like Daphnis and Cydalise. It's not overtly nationalistic Spanish in the manner of Falla, though the music does acquire some country peasant dances in its second half. It is almost all sunny, optimistic music, brightly scored. Clarinet parts are especially memorable. One thing that the finale reminded me of: certain folk traditions in far northern Spain actually have a lot in common with those of Ireland and Scotland. I remember hearing the sound of bagpipes "in the wild" while hiking the Camino de Santiago. There's a tune in the third part here that reminds me of that connection.
Before we get to Aiko-Maiko, we have a short energetic prelude, an elegy, and a song cycle. The Eight Basque Songs will bring Falla's example to mind, along with the bubbly folksiness I am coming to expect from Basque tradition. One song's words are just "tun kurrun kutun, la la". The elegy has a nice first half, before it gets way too pompous with Dies irae quotations in the second half.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/63/59/0829410505963_600.jpg)
My expectation before beginning Vol. 4 is that this will be the least Spanish-sounding volume in the series, because Andrés Isasi was a student of Humperdinck's who was also influenced by Richard Strauss. Moreover, three of the works on the disc are titled in German!
First of the Germans is the Erotische Dichtung, which, at risk of being too personal, I did not find even slightly erotische ;D . Das Orakel sounds vaguely exotic and mystical, but mostly like if Bruch had gotten into tone poems - certainly not as colorful as Strauss or Wagner. Die Sünde is the most successfully Strauss-imitative, with lavish string writing including a quartet of soloists who are differentiated from their sections.
Zharufa sounds like its name: very slightly exotic, with a bit of Spanish color and harp strumming occasionally. I can't discern the plot from the music but I bet the middle section is a love scene. The Berceuse Tragica is the highlight of the disc, a memorable concoction for violin and orchestra, with colorful scoring including an intriguing opening, tapped cymbals, and a violin solo that seems to weave in and out. (It's beautifully played here by Jonathan Carney, who goes for understated grace and perfect tone rather than over-the-top emotion.)
This is a release that you'd expect to find on CPO with a composer name like Gerhard Schmurfnagel.
Quote from: Brian on September 03, 2025, 06:41:17 AMWhile I avoid my duty to finish the Hyperion Romantic Piano Concertos series, I decided to start a new listening project: the Basque Music Collection. Many CDs are now sold out and streaming only. There are only 15 volumes. Full listing here (https://www.claves.ch/fr/collections/euskadiko-orkestra-sinfonikoa).
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/69/36/0829410603669_600.jpg)
Jesús Guridi might be the most famous name in the series, since he has also been featured on several Naxos discs.
Diez Melodias Vascas (Ten Basque Melodies) is sort of like an orchestral, wordless equivalent of Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne, based on folk melodies in a variety of moods. Some are catchy, some nostalgic, all colorful. I love the dance of No. 1, the Spaghetti Western soundtrack feel of No. 3, and Hollywoody glamour of the final No. 10. The orchestration is terrific, and I love the short little glimpses of trombone and tuba we get at times.
But if you thought that was Hollywood, just wait! The next track on the disc is called Homenaje a Walt Disney! It's a 24-minute fantasia (hah) for piano and orchestra, starting with a gloomy, quiet, cello-and-bass introduction. The piano enters around 2'. I wish the liner notes were published online, because I feel like there's a storyline I don't know here. It isn't a series of quotations of Disney cartoon music. It isn't in their style, really. Instead, there are moments (9:25) that sound a bit like Ravel, moments that are a bit modernist and even temporarily atonal (17'), and some outright slapstick (9:45). If I had to guess, it's telling Disney's personal life story, from humble beginnings to fame. Maybe he falls in love around 15'?
Next we have a 12-minute tone poem called An Adventure of Don Quixote. It is, once again, very colorful, somewhat like a film score, and gently entertaining. There's a little bit of Dvorak to the shape of the (oft-repeated) main melody (scherzo of Piano Trio No. 3).
Finally, we have a three-movement suite, Eusko Irudiak (Basque Images). The first movement is a very sunrise-y impressionist image, with a faraway offstage choir barely audible at the end. The choir moves up to its traditional placement for the second and third movements, the second featuring men and third featuring women. The ladies sing over an insistent, folksy beat. Like some of the other works here, it's not terribly individual or personal, but is very pleasing.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/65/15/0829410611565_600.jpg)
José Maria Usandizaga has a memorable surname and is represented by a collection of shortish works (6-14 minutes each). He died of tuberculosis at age 28, only 10 years after studying with d'Indy, so he never had a chance to develop fully as a composer, and his best-known works are an opera and a zarzuela.
First up is Dans la mer, a short tone poem where the influence of d'Indy can be heard. Impressionism Lite. Lite could also describe the fluffy, charming dance from Hassan y Melihah (it sounds like Rimsky-Korsakov at times), and a Rapsodia on Basque folk songs: cheery, somewhat generic, with a lot of suspended cymbals. There's a short overture on a folk melody (provided by the cor anglais) and a very gentle, sometimes boring Suite in A that seems to also take some folk inspirations.
One track stands out from the rest. The Fantasia for cello and orchestra is gloriously tuneful and fun, and Asier Polo really sings his part. This is a real basket of churros con chocolate.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/66/49/0829410504966_600.jpg)
The main course on this collection is Jesús Arambarri's ballet Aiko-Maiko, presented in a 50-minute long suite. There are a lot of influences here; I detect some of the French ballet greats, like Daphnis and Cydalise. It's not overtly nationalistic Spanish in the manner of Falla, though the music does acquire some country peasant dances in its second half. It is almost all sunny, optimistic music, brightly scored. Clarinet parts are especially memorable. One thing that the finale reminded me of: certain folk traditions in far northern Spain actually have a lot in common with those of Ireland and Scotland. I remember hearing the sound of bagpipes "in the wild" while hiking the Camino de Santiago. There's a tune in the third part here that reminds me of that connection.
Before we get to Aiko-Maiko, we have a short energetic prelude, an elegy, and a song cycle. The Eight Basque Songs will bring Falla's example to mind, along with the bubbly folksiness I am coming to expect from Basque tradition. One song's words are just "tun kurrun kutun, la la". The elegy has a nice first half, before it gets way too pompous with Dies irae quotations in the second half.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/63/59/0829410505963_600.jpg)
My expectation before beginning Vol. 4 is that this will be the least Spanish-sounding volume in the series, because Andrés Isasi was a student of Humperdinck's who was also influenced by Richard Strauss. Moreover, three of the works on the disc are titled in German!
First of the Germans is the Erotische Dichtung, which, at risk of being too personal, I did not find even slightly erotische ;D . Das Orakel sounds vaguely exotic and mystical, but mostly like if Bruch had gotten into tone poems - certainly not as colorful as Strauss or Wagner. Die Sünde is the most successfully Strauss-imitative, with lavish string writing including a quartet of soloists who are differentiated from their sections.
Zharufa sounds like its name: very slightly exotic, with a bit of Spanish color and harp strumming occasionally. I can't discern the plot from the music but I bet the middle section is a love scene. The Berceuse Tragica is the highlight of the disc, a memorable concoction for violin and orchestra, with colorful scoring including an intriguing opening, tapped cymbals, and a violin solo that seems to weave in and out. (It's beautifully played here by Jonathan Carney, who goes for understated grace and perfect tone rather than over-the-top emotion.)
This is a release that you'd expect to find on CPO with a composer name like Gerhard Schmurfnagel.
I have the complete series and a few years ago I've started listening to it but somehow I stopped at volume 5, I think. Your great thread reminds me it's high time I restart it from Disc 1.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/66/97/0829410649766_600.jpg)
Francisco Escudero (1912-2002) gets a double album devoted to his music, more than two hours' worth. He's a hard man to google, sharing names with multiple politicians worldwide. But he's an easy composer to like.
The first disc has a piano concerto, cello concerto, and a tone poem with the evocative title El Sueño de un Bailarín (Dream of a Dancer). That last piece is about what you'd expect from the name, a colorful, bright piece swirling from episode to episode, with lots of interesting instruments (the bass clarinet gets a workout). Certainly more successfully wears Strauss' influence than Isasi did. However, don't compare it to Ravel's La valse ;D
The Piano Concerto starts with a vivacious woodwind melody with unusual harmonies, then the piano joins in on the same idea. It's a splashy, percussive, fun first movement, with lots of cheeriness and cymbal crashes. The adagio is very romantic indeed, and contains a long piano trill that's lifted straight from Ravel's Concerto in G, played over a recapitulation of the main melody that confirms the melody, too, is inspired by that piece. (Church bells add a sappy, maybe unnecessary touch of nostalgia.) The entertaining finale is again woodwind forward; I like a stubborn clarinet motif that the player just won't stop playing.
The Cello Concerto is in a freeform 23-minute single movement, and features Asier Polo, who was the highlight of an earlier volume. This is a much more modernist work, grim and determined. One memorable passage, around 11', involves the cello singing a song against a backdrop of col legno string slaps and low bass harp chords, nothing else. The ending is also quite striking.
CD2 is mostly given over to "serious" stuff: a Sinfonia Sacra and an oratorio about John the Baptist. This is bad news for me! The Sinfonia Sacra is modern, intense, and mostly pretty bleak, with a central movement that is, oddly, a concerto movement for bassoon. I gather that it represents the voice of St. Peter. There are sound effects in this piece, too, including a woodwind playing blowing through their reed and, near the end, an insistent knocking on the door.
The John the Baptist Oratorio is in a similar language and includes a choir that sometimes sings nonsense syllables and sometimes speaks their lines. It feels creepy and exotic, like something from Indiana Jones, like he's sneaking into the temple of doom and trying to escape the priests. In this context, the third movement (Salome) is a chase scene. (Are there two sets of timpani?) The beginning of the finale has a primitive mysticism that reminds me of the first minute or two of the second part of Rite of Spring. The ending is pretty cool.
The disc's encore is a tone poem called Aranzazu. It's the most unpredictable piece of the set, a wild, energetic mix of night-sky mysticism, percussive Amazon jungle sounds, modernist hard-edged motifs in super-colorful orchestration, and traditional hymn-like melodies. Near the end, a march section seems to mix modern brass bands with medieval processions before the music fades to a quiet ending. It's a real trip. Is it a masterpiece? I dunno...actually, maybe? It's like nothing else.
(https://static.qobuz.com/images/covers/66/68/0829410486866_600.jpg)
Pablo Sorozábal's career spans nearly the entire 20th century. He is considered - according to Wikipedia, for Qobuz has no booklet - to be the last of the great romantic zarzuela composers, author of 20 or so from the 1920s-50s. His last zarzuela was premiered in 2009, having been delayed by the disapproval of Franco. Sorozábal's career as a conductor abruptly ended when he programmed Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony in a concert in the 1950s. Franco's minions canceled the performance, fired him, and began discouraging performances of his music.
The CD is almost all works for choir and orchestra. Many are short and pleasant miniatures, including a lovely habanera (track 5). We also get a short, early Basque Suite, whose final movement reminds me of the Polovtsian Dances.
The first purely orchestral piece is a diptych, Dos Apuntes Vascos, in which the first has a wonderful magical sunrise-like section (think Ravel's Daphnis) topped off with church bells, and the second is a brief, graceful minuet with side drum and intricate harp part.
I'm amused by the song cycle's title. "Siete Lieder"?! How bilingual can you get? Why didn't Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos ever record it? ;D Anyway, it's 16 minutes of loveliness. Reminds me of the pastoral beauty and natural tunefulness of Canteloube. There are a couple moments where mezzo Maita Arruebarrena sings so loudly it adds a sudden new layer of reverb.
Finally, we get the 24-minute Symphonic Variations, which fits into the tradition established by Grieg and Kodaly of starting with a folk melody and giving it a real workout. The initial tune is a lil bit melancholy and delicately scored for winds. I do think the central "andante lamentabile" tries a little too hard at being a Nimrod-style emotional climax. The penultimate variation flirts with modernist harmonies for about 30 seconds, before the finale becomes a joyous dance. I like the miniatures better than this work, which is a little too ambitious.
(https://cdn.naxos.com/sharedfiles/images/cds/hires/8.557631.jpg)
Bonus! Guridi's Sinfonia pirenaica is acclaimed as one of the ultimate Basque orchestral masterpieces. I had listened to it in university and bought a copy as part of a short-lived (and incredibly cheaply made) 25 CD Naxos box called "Spanish Orchestral Music." (Paper sleeves and a paper outer box - no cardboard. They accidentally put the box on sale for $2.99 back in 2010 and that's when I snapped it up.)
David Hurwitz compares it to Vaughan Williams' London Symphony which is maybe one of the best descriptions he's ever provided. It has the same splashy, cinematic orchestration style, big tunes, and a clear pride of place. Even some of the tunes are kind of RVWish, like the rather magical slow viola-harp trio tune in the scherzo and the folksy tune that starts the finale. The symphony is also unpredictable despite the classical form of each movement: the first movement's epically long development section, for example, contains almost all the dramatic stuff. There's no proper slow movement, just three big fast ones with occasional slow episodes. I do think the only real weak portion is the very ending, which just isn't as memorable as what's come before. A voluptuous late romantic extravaganza like this really needs a slam-dunk ending to make it unforgettable.
There are parts you could call a little cheesy - Hollywoody - and the slower passages do not achieve the kind of mysticism RVW gets in his work. But overall, wow does this hold up well. And it would be a smash in concert despite the 48 minute length. Another comparison point might be early George Lloyd symphonies, but with an authentic Spanish flavor.
Quote from: Brian on September 15, 2025, 12:58:21 PMThe John the Baptist Oratorio is in a similar language and includes a choir that sometimes sings nonsense syllables
Basque, maybe? ;D
QuoteI'm amused by the song cycle's title. "Siete Lieder"?! How bilingual can you get?
Capriccio Italien. :laugh:
Quote from: Florestan on September 15, 2025, 11:12:10 PMBasque, maybe? ;D
Capriccio Italien. :laugh:
Hah! You got me on both points! ;D