Andrs Segovia Archive

Spanish Composers
Works by Vicente Arregui, Pedro Sanjun, Gaspar Cassad, Padre Donostia, Jaume Pahis
sa, and Federico Mompou (see end of review for track-list)
Roberto Moronn Prez (guitar)
rec. 28-30 November, 2010, Holy Trinity Church, Weston, Hertfordshire, UK
REFERENCE RECORDINGS FR-705 [70:32]
French Composers
Works by Raymond Petit, Henri Martelli, Pierre de Breville, Henri Collet, Raymon
d Moulaert, Raoul Laparra, Pierre-Octave Ferroud, and Ida Presti (see end of rev
iew for track-list)
Roberto Moronn Prez (guitar)
rec. 3-5 March 2013, Holy Trinity Church, Weston, Hertfordshire, UK
REFERENCE RECORDINGS FR-709 [62:29]
Andrs Segovia was a great guitarist, one of the best ever, and he was also a man
of good taste. Mostly. He had a habit of picking out interesting composers, comm
issioning high-quality pieces, and then performing them once or never. Roberto M
oronn Prez is trawling through the Segovia collection and presenting the highligh
ts in themed recitals. From the hundreds of commissioned works, Prez has selected
about fifty to record, broken down thematically by ethnic origin. Here we ll cons
ider the Spanish and French albums.
The booklet to the Spanish album complains that Segovia had a habit of playing o
nly some of the commissions he received, leaving the others to collect dust. Nei
ther booklet-writer nor guitarist can hear a major difference in quality; nor ca
n I. I do though have a rival theory: there just wasn t enough time to play all of
this stuff and still have room in recital for earlier guitar music. Segovia had
bit off more than he could chew.
We have all profited from his ambition, though. This music is mostly fantastic.
The Spanish album starts with four works by Vicente Arregui, an almost totally u
nknown name who turned to guitar music in the 1920s but carried on the colourful
romantic tradition of Albniz. His music is tuneful and unmistakably Spanish. Jau
me Pahissa, who moved to Argentina in his maturity, is represented by a sheaf of
pieces Segovia barely knew about at all. They re all among the catchiest works pr
esented on the CD. Dilogo is the best, and maybe the most radio-ready track on th
e album, a simple, plain-spoken tune of aching prettiness.
Gaspar Cassad is more famous as a cellist and the composer of Pablo Casals favouri
te encore. He apparently dabbled in guitar for a while, and though he didn t play
it for long, wrote some good pieces. The Catalanesca is a little cheery, a littl
e self-serious; the Cancin de Leonardo is an elegy for his deceased son. The othe
rs are, to me, very Spanish in sound but not very distinctive.
The two best pieces on the album are by the two most famous composers: Federico
Mompou and Padre Donostia. The monk s work, Errimina, is a seductive fantasy, base
d on a repeated bass figure, spanning cultures and maybe continents. Mompou prov
ides the encore, a dance livelier than almost all his piano music, though still
with the same polish and elegance.
Next we have the French (and a Belgian) album. When I first looked at this, I th
ought, Wow, I ve never heard of any of these composers! but it turns out that all of
them are trivia answers of some kind. Henri Collet was friends with Albniz, Gran
ados, and Falla; Raoul Laparra studied with Massenet, and Pierre de Breville stu
died with Franck. Pierre-Octave Ferroud was decapitated in a car crash in his th
irties, depriving the world of an interesting composer whose first symphony was
much-liked by Prokofiev. Ferroud s death inspired his friend Francis Poulenc to wr
ite Litanies la Vierge Noire.

In other words, a lot of these composers are surprisingly good. Henri Martelli s F
our Pieces is a spectacular little suite, paying homage to baroque forms. In fac
t, Martelli s nostalgia sometimes digs even deeper: the slow movement sounds like
something an Italian would write for lute in the early 1600s. The suite is just
ten minutes in total, and Prez is right to call it a real guitar masterwork .
Not every composer was looking back in neo-baroque or neo-classical forms. Raymo
nd Petit, Raoul Laparra, and Henri Collet turn south for inspiration, Collet s Bri
viesca a borderline Spanish work that was close to rewritten by his editor after
Segovia pronounced it unplayable. The booklet does not say, but I assume Prez re
corded the second version. Laparra s Pueblo castellano is especially atmospheric and
enjoyable, bringing to mind Albniz.
Raymond Moulaert, the album s token Belgian, contributes the biggest piece, a 19-m
inute Suite. The first movement takes a couple minutes to get going, because it
starts with a classic guitar flourish, then proceeds with a few more flourishes.
This continues until you think the music can t possibly get more grandiose. The p
iece is capable of intimacy, too, and also a little darkness, like the finale s ne
ar-quotes of Dies irae and abrupt ending.
Ferroud s piece is the most modern; you might think of Roussel or Poulenc. Prez hea
rs Stravinsky and jazz
jazz most obviously in the syncopated rhythms of the midd
le section, and wonders if Segovia was not the right recipient for this piece . Seg
ovia was absolutely the right recipient of Ida Presti s work, or at least I hope h
e was, because she called it Segovia. It s more or less perfect: virtuosic, with a
long-breathed melody spun over challenging accompaniment. It s like a Chopin noct
urne in mood, technique, and formal perfection.
Roberto Moronn Prez never puts a foot wrong in his admirable recitals, and occasi
onally you wonder if mediocre material is being really sold by his excellent del
ivery. Not so with especially great discoveries by the likes of Pahissa, Donosti
a, Presti and Martelli. Prez deserves great credit for unearthing much of this mu
sic. The recorded sound is close but not aggressively so, and sometimes on the S
panish album there is a splashy reverb that is not to my taste. I do have one co
mplaint about Reference Recordings work here: the booklet essays in both CDs proc
eed in a totally random order, so you have to flip back and forth to read about
the next track.
What an excellent series this is proving to be.