We've reached
the sixth issue of Claves' adventurous Basque Music Collection. I suppose
potential buyers will be divided between amazement that this most prominent
of native composers didn't emerge earlier in the series, and those who
mutter "Pablo Who?". But then, even amongst the millions of Iberians
who do know it, the name of Pablo Sorozábal continues to divide
opinion. As the last in the line of great zarzuela composers, the inimitable
style of his stage legacy thrills many, whilst leaving others cold.
Nothing
here will be unknown to Sorozábal aficionados, and everything
has been recorded before. Having said which, let me make clear at once
that - quite aside from the sheer convenience of gathering seven excellent
pieces together - this newcomer sweeps the board in terms of performance,
conducting and recording quality. It is a match for any previous issue
devoted to Sorozábal's concert output, even counting the composer's
own, treasured LP versions. Yet is this highly enjoyable CD more than
just an automatic choice for the converted?
What can
"Pablo Who?" listeners expect? Well, for a start they won't find much
of that trademark bitter-sweet lyricism which has led some critics to
praise Sorozábal as a sort of Spanish Kurt Weill. Most of this
generously-filled CD is devoted to early pieces from his Leipzig study
years; the three, shorter choral, items alone date from his maturity,
and of these only Maite - a delicate tribute to his Basque homeland
in a lilting, 5/8 zortzico rhythm - gives a flavour of the 'real'
Sorozábal. It is sung here with a sensual melancholy which is
most touching.
The funeral
march written as late as 1966 in memory of the infamous Gernika
atrocity during the Civil War has a stern, agitprop austerity - old
age was very far from mellowing Sorozábal's acerbity! Plasson
(in EMI's disc devoted to Basque choral music) presented it as a study
in ice-cold fury, but Gernika seems, if anything, more impressive
for Mandeal's keeping the anger more firmly under wraps. The 1963 Euskalerria
("ĦAy, tierra vasca!") is a milder revisitation of Maite,
so it's perhaps unfortunate that it is placed first on the CD. Having
said which, the Bilbao renditions of both zortzicos easily eclipse the
penny-plain Madrid versions under Asensio for RTVE.
The longer
Suite Vasca, Op.5 (1923) will be familiar from Plasson's spirited
version. Oddly reminiscent of Vaughan Williams's Five Tudor Portraits
in its alternately rumbustious and tender settings of Emeterio Arrese's
folkloristic verse, touches of orchestral and harmonic asperity may
point the way forward to Sorozábal's stage masterpiece La
del manojo de rosas, but this is a generous and spirited work on
its own terms which grows in stature with every hearing. In the outer
movements Plasson's tighter acoustic captures an extra degree of choral
bite, but Mandeal is more attentive to dynamic and colouristic detail
- most notably in the subtle, modal poetry of the nocturne with its
magical scoring, more poised here than on the EMI disc. On balance,
this is the version to have.
Claves
present the first CD recording of Dos apuntes vascos (Two Basque
Sketches) from 1925. These miniatures belie their brevity with a fastidious
craftsmanship, suggesting that Schoenberg's Leipzig vignettes made a
stronger impression on Sorozábal's method than his later strictures
of atonality lead us to believe. There's a real foretaste here of the
mature composer's sometimes ascetic economy of notes, as well as his
growing power of lyrical expression.
Dos
apuntes takes us on an upward curve into the first of the two best
achievements of the Leipzig years - Siete Lieder (1929), seven
settings of Heine for mezzo-soprano and orchestra. The composer skilfully
remoulds Heine's romantic sensibility into something patently Basque
and fresh in feeling. This new version is preferable to the composer's
own 1973 Zafiro account, which featured the warm-voiced Isabel Penagos,
by then perhaps a little past her vocal prime. Mandeal's strong singer
is Maite Arruabarrena, more familiar from her recordings with Jordi
Savall's Hesperion XXI, but performing attractively here in her native
language with ample tone and winning interpretative confidence. Conductor
and orchestra prove sensitive, poetic accompanists.
The greatest
impression is made by the oft-recorded seven Variations on the
Basque tune Aoriñoa, norat hoa, written two years before
the Heine set. Past releases (under the composer on Zafiro, and Luis
Izquierdo on Elkarlanean's valuable 2-CD issue of Sorozábal's
1997 Madrid Centenary concert) were engaging, but not wholly convincing
for a variety of reasons.
Here the
sum is manifestly more than the parts. Mandeal underlines the work's
structural strength, pacing each variation beautifully and allowing
each its own character without ever losing sight of the symphonic demands
of the whole. It is a vivid journey, enlivened by some strong and characterful
orchestral playing - not least in the latino opening to the 7th
variation, where trumpets and woodwind adopt a mariachi-like
rough vigour. In Claves' demonstration-quality recording the work's
climaxes are built with compelling logic, and the impact of the triumphant
'homecoming' of the finale is warmly moving.
Mandeal's is the finest interpretation
on record of this most ambitious of Sorozábal's pre-zarzuela works.
In the choral works, the Bilbao Choral Society at least equal the precision
of their work for Plasson on EMI, almost matching the looser-limbed fervour
of the Andra Mari Abesbatza group in the live Elkarlanean versions. Just
for the converted? Well, although it offers only subliminal glimpses of
Sorozábal's mature musical world, and despite the regrettable lack
of texts for the choral works, I recommend this CD most enthusiastically
to anyone with the curiosity to discover more about "Pablo Who?"
Christopher Webber
Sorozábal Biography:
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/com/soroza.htm
Pablo Sorozábal
selected current discography
Choral
and Orchestral
Euskalerria
- ĦAy, tierra vasca!; Suite vasca Op.5; Gernika; Maite; Dos apuntes
vascos; Siete lieder*; Variaciones sinfónicas
Arruabarrena,
Bilbao Choral Society, Basque NO, c. Mandeal
Claves
CD 50-2205
Gernika;
Suite Vasca Op.5 (+ works by Guridi etc.)
Bilbao
Choral Society, Touloise Capitol Orchestra, c. Michel Plasson
EMI
7243 5 56876 2
Variaciones
sinfónicas; Gernika; Suite Vasca Op.5; "Adios a la Bohemia"
(cpte.)
Andra
Mari Abesbatza Choir, Madrid SO, c. Luis Izquierdo
Elkarlanean
KD 491-2 (2-CD)
Maite, Euskalerria
- ĦAy, tierra vasca! (+ zortzicos by Alonso etc.)
Orquesta
Sinfónica & Coro de RTVE, c. Enrique García Asensio
RTVE
64074
Stage
Works (opera and zarzuela)
"Adiós
a la Bohemia" (1933, rev. 1945)
Berganza,
Ausensi, de Narke, Coro Cantores, Orquesta Sinfónica, c. Sorozábal
BMG
Alhambra WD 74386
"Black,
el payaso" (1942)
Cesari,
Barclay, Kraus, Algorta, Serrano, Fuentes, Coros Líricos de Hispavox,
Orquesta de Conciertos, c. Sorozábal
EMI
7243 5 74227 2 7
"Don
Manolito" (1943)
Cesari,
Langa, Algorta, Serrano, Fuentes, Coros Líricos de Hispavox,
Orquesta de Conciertos, c. Sorozábal
EMI
7243 5 74343 2 4
Ausensi, Berganza,
de Narke, Molina, de la Victoria, Regidor, Frutos, Coro Cantores, Orquesta
Sinfónica, c. Sorozábal
BMG
Alhambra WD 71581
"Entre
Sevilla y Triana" (1950)
Medio,
Serrano, Iriarte, Cuenca, de la Vara, Orquesta Sinfónica Columbia,
c. Sorozábal
Homokord
HC002 [highlights]
"La eterna
canción" (1945)
Tourné,
Higueras, Lavirgen, Cesari, Catania, Coro Cantores, Orquesta de Conciertos,
c. Sorozábal
EMI
7243 5 74344 2 3
"Katiuska"
(1931)
Penagros,
Ausensi, de la Victoria, Frutos, Julián, Coro Cantores, Orquesta
Sinfónica, c. Sorozábal
BMG
Zafiro 74321 33461 2
Lorengar, Serrano,
Kraus, Cesari, Gas, Coro Cantores, Orquesta de Conciertos, c. Sorozábal
EMI
7243 5 74161 2 2
Herrero, Ottein,
Serrano, Albiach, Nieto, Gonzalo, Bori, Redondo (original casts). Orquestas
y coros, c. Sorozábal, Gelabert, Capdevila, Puri
Blue
Moon BMCD 7516 [extensive highlights, including material later cut]
"La del
manojo de rosas" (1934)
Penagos,
Ausensi, de la Victoria, Regidor, Rodríguez, Orquesta de Conciertos,
c. Sorozábal
BMG
Zafiro 74321 33463 2
Lorengar, Cesari,
Serrano, Fuentes, Maroto, Orquesta de Conciertos, c. Sorozábal
EMI
5 74158 2 (2-CD, with La tabernera del puerto)
"Las
de Caín" (1958)
Tourné,
Higueras, Cesari, Catania, García, Frutos, Orquesta de Conciertos,
c. Sorozábal
EMI
5 74342 2
"La tabernera
del puerto" (1936)
Bayo, Domingo,
Pons, Baquerizo, Orféon Donostiarra, Orquesta Sinfónica
de Galicia, c. Pablo Pérez
Auvidis
Valois V4766
Barclay, Kraus,
Cesari, Algorta, Coro Cantores, Orquesta de Conciertos, c. Sorozábal
EMI
5 74158 2 (2-CD, with La del manojo de rosas)
Christopher
Webber, January 2003