EDVARD GRIEG (1843-1907)
Suite Holberg
I Praeludium
II Sarabande
III Gavotte
IV Air
V Rigaudon
LEOS JANACEK (1854-1928)
Sonata
I El Presentimiento
II La Muerte
MIJAIL GLINKA (1804-1857) –MILI BALAKIREV(1836-1910)
La Alondra (Adiós a San Petesburgo)
JEAN SIBELIUS (1865-1957)
Romanza en Reb M
MANUEL DE FALLA (1876-1946)
Pour le Tombeau de Claude Debussy
ISAAC ALBÉNIZ (1860-1909)
Córdoba (España – 6 hojas de álbum)
ENRIQUE GRANADOS (1867-1916)
Valses Poéticos
The encounter of Spaniards with the cultures of the American continent following its discovery was one of the most significant intercultural phenomena of the modern age. The Spaniards took the features of Spanish culture to the Americas, impregnating the indigenous and autochthonous cultures of that unknown universe with it. They carried our language and our songs, which very quickly brought an intercultural contagion and blend to the local songs with those differing idiosyncracies. While they certainly bore our songs, they also returned with the indigenous counterparts of those people, recorded in their hearts and in their memory, infected and infecting themselves mutually in an inevitable process of imitation where the mixture would produce the richness of interculturalism.
Three illustrious Bs shape a program which summarizes one of the periods of the greatest splendor of European music, begun by Beethoven, culminating with Brahms and reflected in the post-romantic consequence of Alban Berg. And threeare the works offered by Marisa Blanes as models in this concert of great historical value and profound musical andpianistic demands.
Tonality abolished or tonality diluted? – this was the dilemma which conditioned twentieth century musical creation. Dmitri Shostakovich bequeathed us a document of the greatest musical and historical value: the 24 Preludes and FuguesOpus 87, written for piano between 1950 and 1951 as homage to Johann Sebastian Bach, choosing the path of evolutionand not the crossroads of rupture. Without foregoing his aesthetic credos, Shostakovich offers a discourse which issingularly up to date and where tonality and modality are not seen as being in conflict but rather as the adhesive of arenewed discourse, ranging from the paradigms of historical reason to the new hypotheses of a freely expressive musicallanguage.
Marisa Blanes is the first Spanish pianist to have tackled the recording of this historic document, offered in concert intwo sessions of the very greatest musical and interpretative value.
“Salon music”, a term bringing together the classical formats of chamber music and the new musical models of thebourgeoisie of the time constituted as much a musical as a social form in nineteenth century Europe, its rise clearlydefining some of the romantic traits characterising the time, as conservative as it was revolutionary. Spain, politicallyremote from the new parameters shaping the situation in Europe, was not however removed from the space of thosesalons where the beautiful world of the “small form” was being woven, although the country was beyond the reach of thesymphony or the “large form”.
This concert offered by the pianist Marisa Blanes reflects the course music followed in Spain throughout that century, somewhat aside from that of the revolutionary Europe at its beginnings, progressively joining its controversy from the finalthird of that secular adventure.
The Iberia Suite with which Isaac Albéniz stunned the world at the beginning of the twentieth century meant Spain’sdefinitive aesthetic inclusion in Europe. At almost the same time, Manuel de Falla composed his 4 piezas españolasand, since then, Spanish piano creativity underwent an unprecedented development throughout the twentieth century. The country’s piano repertoire, articulated during the course of the century is as extensive as it is intense.
Marisa Blanes offers an overview of Spanish pianistic creation during that time in two clearly differentiated parts, from thebeginning of the century until 1950 and from that year until the century’s end, establishing not just chronological but alsoaesthetic and stylistic differences.
ISAAC ALBÉNIZ (1860-1909)
Evocación (Suite Iberia) (1905)
MANUEL DE FALLA (1876-1946)
Cuatro piezas españolas (1906-1909)
Aragonesa – Cubana – Montañesa – Andaluza
JULIÁN BAUTISTA (1901-1961)
Colores (1922)
Blanco – Violeta – Negro
Amarillo – Azul – Rojo
FEDERICO MOMPOU (1983-1987)
Diálogos (1923)
Plaintif – Moderé
OSCAR ESPLÁ (1886-1976)
Cantos de antaño (1930)
Danse – Berceuse – Tarana
ERNESTO HALFFTER (1905-1989)
Espagnolade (1937)
JOAQUÍN RODRIGO (1901-1999)
À l’ombre de Torre Bermeja (1945)
XAVIER MONTSLVATGE (1912-2002)
Divagación (1950)
ANTÓN GARCÍA ABRIL (1933)
Sonatina (1954)
AMANDO BLANQUER (1935-2005)
Variaciones para piano (1963)
CARMELO A. BERNAOLA (1929-2002)
Morfología sonora (1967)
BENET CASABLANCAS (1956)
2 Pieces per a piano (1978)
TOMÁS MARCO (1942)
Soleá (1982)
CRISTÓBAL HALFFTER (1930)
El ser humano muere solo cuando le olvidan (1987/93)
MAURICIO SOTELO (1961)
Cadencia (1994)
CLAUDIO PRIETO (1934)
Meditación (1995)
JOSÉ MARÍA SÁNCHEZ VERDÚ (1968)
Como un soplo de luz y calor (1999)
JOSÉ EVANGELISTA (1943)
Nuevas monodias españolas (2000)
Despite the vast extent and quality of the development of the piano literature throughout History, the instrumentcontinues to be key to the task of composition. Clear evidence in seen in this programme of first performances of worksby Spanish composers, already in the twenty–first century, from a number of generations. Seven piano pieces in all, completely new, brought to light thanks to the talent of their composers but also to the work and dedication of MarisaBlanes, who is able to clear the way through very different techniques and aesthetics, placing her skill and capacity atthe service of twenty–first century Spanish creation. A panorama here making clear its power, its variety and the flood ofcreativity and sensitivity demonstrated at this time by composition in Spain.