To the south-west of Continental Europe, two great countries are divided (or joined?) by the majestic chain of the Pyrenees. France and Spain look at each other from either side of the mountains, and have been doing this for centuries and millennia. These two countries are deeply united by their shared Latin language and culture; for two millennia, they also shared their religious culture (mainly Catholic in both cases, but with important Protestant elements in France, and noteworthy influences from Islam and Judaism in Spain); yet, they are also very different in terms of landscape, heritage, history and thought. It is difficult to estimate if what unites them is more or less than what divides them. Certainly, there is a certain amount of rivalry – the heritage of deep historical oppositions – but also an equally deep fascination felt on both sides. The musical traditions of these two countries are very different from one another. France always belonged in what we may label as the “mainstream” Western tradition: with a voice of its own, of course, and with idiosyncratic traits and features, which emerged with particular clarity between the nineteenth and the twentieth century. On the other hand, the relationship between Spain and that “mainstream” tradition was intermittent. At times, in music history, Spain was fully integrated within it; on other occasions, it seemed to live in isolation, and to develop a heritage of its own, with distinguishing traits which were markedly different from what happened in the rest of Europe. The intertwining between folk and “cultivated” music was much tighter in Spain than in France; the enthralling vibes of the Spanish folk heritage permeated not only the works of classically-trained Spanish composers, but also entered the “cultivated” works of foreign musicians, who approached that tradition with different degrees of respect, reliability and responsibility. Many French musicians drew abundantly from the Spanish musical heritage, seen, from time to time, as something utterly exotic and alien, or as something which could creatively dovetail with the most modern developments of the French “cultivated” language. And this happened in a particularly lively fashion between nineteenth and twentieth century, probably also as a consequence of the extraordinary success of Bizet’s Carmen. The Spanish scales, rhythms and harmonies, moreover, were considered as refreshing elements to be poured into the traditional language of Western classical music; they were seen as ready-made resources which meaningfully resonated with the efforts of many French musicians to reinterpret tonality without actually abandoning it – as the Second Vienna School would do. This is the framework against which Isaac Albéniz’s work should be seen and interpreted, in dialogue with those by Turina and Ravel which are also recorded in this album. This Da Vinci Classics CD includes, in fact, the completion of Albéniz’s majestic cycle known under the collective title of Iberia, and encompassing four piano suites with an increasing degree of transcendental difficulty. Along with them, works by Turina (a Spaniard who lived in Paris) and Ravel (a Frenchman with Spanish ancestors) complete the picture. Albéniz composed Iberia between 1905 and 1908. He was an extraordinary pianist himself, and was in constant dialogue with two other great pianists, i.e. Joaquim Malats (the “hidden” dedicatee and intended performer of the cycle) and Blanche Selva. Their advice helped Albéniz to reduce some of the most challenging and nearly impossible difficulties he had disseminated throughout his work, which, nonetheless, remains one of the most daring feats of pianistic virtuosity in history. It is a particular kind of virtuosity, though: one which is spectacular without being showy, and which is always subservient to musicality and expressivity. This was typical for Albéniz’s musical concept, as was witnessed by his contemporaries. On one occasion, conductor André Messager told his friend Francis Poulenc about Albéniz’s performing style: “One afternoon, in Vincent D’Indy’s house, Chabrier had played his Rhapsody Spain for Albéniz. The composers were very alike in certain aspects – their beards, the eternal cigar between their lips, their straightforwardness, truculence, generosity – yet, they were profoundly different. When Chabrier got up from the piano, after having played his wonderful Spanish style piece with overwhelming passion, we saw Albéniz go to the piano to play his music even more calmly than usual, almost austerely”. It was for this primacy of musicianship that Albéniz was so appreciated by the most musical of his contemporaries, as, for instance, Claude Debussy. Writing four years after Albéniz’s death (which followed by a handful of months his completion of Iberia), Debussy stated: “Let us now turn to Isaac Albéniz. After first achieving renown as a peerless virtuoso, he soon acquired exceptional expertise in the art of composition. Even if he has absolutely nothing in common with Liszt, the exuberance of his ideas nevertheless recalls the latter. Albéniz was the first to make use of melancholy in harmony, and to utilise the unique humour of his native land (he was Catalan). […] Although he never literally quoted folk music, [El Albaicín] is clearly written by someone who absorbed it until it flowed into his own music and seamlessly intermingled with it. […] Never before had music assumed such a multi-faceted and dazzingly colourful guise. One closes one’s eyes and reels from so much imaginative bounty in music”. In its entirety, and even though the composer did not envisage a complete performance of the four suites together – or of any individual suite, indeed: each piece can be played in isolation or in combination with any other piece – Iberia is a paean to Albéniz’s home country. But it is a Spain seen from the vantage-point of the exile. Albéniz lived in France, and was much more successful there than in his country of origin. The intermingling of the Spanish folk tradition (without actual quotes, as Debussy poignantly remarked) with the language of the “mainstream” classical tradition (i.e. that of Central Europe) and with the suggestions of French Impressionism gave birth to an extraordinary cycle, which would remain as an everlasting testimony of its composer’s art. The three pieces constituting vol. 3 are mainly homages to Andalusia. Albéniz wrote to Malats in the following terms: “I have finished, under your direct influence as a wonderful performer, the third series of Iberia, the pieces are entitled as follows: El Albaicin, El polo and Lavapiés. I think I have taken the Spanish elements and technical difficulties to their utmost”. El Albaicin refers to a particular area in the city of Granada. Thus does Albéniz describe it to a friend: “Although unfortunately rather ill, I still have a large, healthy heart in which to keep my Granada. […] For Iberia, I have finished an emotional, rowdy piece, epic and noisy, all guitars, sun and fleas. But I have been able to spread a rosy hue – as Paul Dukas says – on El Albaicin – that is what the work is called – of great tenderness, but very elegant tenderness”. Albéniz mentioned in his manuscript that El polo had not to be mistaken for the eponymous British sport, but – understandably – his publisher omitted this humorous remark. Adopting one of the two main traditions of polo singing (the one dating back to Manuel García rather than the gipsy one), Albéniz created a piece where melody and rhythm reciprocally illuminate and engender each other. Different from the others, Lavapiés is not set in Andalusia, but rather in Madrid, of which Lavapiés constitutes a neighbourhood. The composer prescribed that it ought to be played “joyfully and freely”, with the typical rhythms of the “Andalusian tango” underlying its extraordinary liveliness and brilliancy. Málaga, opening book 4, is much less spectacular and therefore has been less successful than other pieces recorded here. Still, its harmony and language are so extraordinarily modern that Olivier Messiaen admitted that Iberia had been fundamental for reconciling him with dissonance. Jerez is set in Cadiz, and explores the deep poetry of the cante jondo, the quintessential flamenco singing with its distilled melancholy and nostalgia. By way of contrast, Eritaña, which closes the series, is lively, brilliant and fantastic. In Debussy’s words, “Music has never achieved such varied impressions” – and if that was being said by an “impressionist” composer… it is meaningful indeed. Fantasy is also what determines and characterizes the other piano suite recorded here, i.e. Joaquín Turina’s Danzas fantásticas op. 22. They postdate Iberia by approximately one decade. Turina had lived in France in turn, and was another admirer of Debussy and Ravel; moreover, he befriended Albéniz and De Falla, with whom he made a trio of Spanish expats. (Turina would later return to his homeland, though). The inspiration for his Danzas Fantásticas came to Turina from quotes by an author from Sevilla (the composer’s own hometown), José Mas. In Turina’s words, “[The pieces’] epigraphs come from a novel: La orgía three epigraphs simply relate in some way to the musical and, in a way, the choreographic essence of the three dances. They are states of mind expressed in rhythm, in accordance with the eternal law of contrast”. Exaltación is a jota, the typical Aragona dance; the citation from Mas speaks of “figures… moving inside the calyx of a flower”. In the second movement, “The guitar’s strings sounded the lament of a soul helpless under the weight of bitterness”. The third, called Orgía like Mas’ work, evokes a bouquet of scents: “The perfume of the flowers merged with the odor of manzanilla, and from the bottom of raised glasses, full of the incomparable wine, like incense, rose joy”. Finally, this Da Vinci Classics album offers us a Frenchman’s view of Spain; but, once more, Ravel was by no means alien to Spanish culture, and his Rapsodie Espagnole was acknowledged as “genuinely Spanish” by De Falla himself. As De Falla put it, “Ravel’s hispanism was obtained […] through a free use of rhythms, modal tunes and evolutions typical for our popular lyricism”. The whole palette of Ravel’s imaginative mind and his acquaintance with modes and styles of Spanish music are clearly revealed in this magnificent composition. Together, these works lead us in a fascinating tour of Spain, seen “with the ears” and therefore contemplated in its mysterious nature, both enchanted and enchanting at one and the same time.
Chiara Bertoglio © 2023
Isaac Albéniz: Iberia, Book III & IV
