see end of review for contents
Itziar M. Galdos (soprano) Per Arne Frantzen (piano).
rec. 14-17 October 2011, Sofienberg Church, Oslo.
LAWO CLASSICS LWC 1048 [65:39]
This CD consists of songs charting a musical journey through
northern Spain. Believing that ‘language is identity. Language
has its own melody and its own sound’ Galdos and Frantzen
tackle this varied repertoire from Catalonian, Basque and Galician
texts. These are all included and translated in the excellent
LAWO booklet.
Adored for her performances of Puccini’s famous heroine,
Manon Lescaut and for Tosca as well as for Desdemona
in Verdi’s Otello, Galdos is at much at home as
Elizabeth in Tannhäuser as in these Spanish songs.
In the spring of 2013 she was the recipient of Spain’s Commander
of the Royal Order of Isabella.
From the Galician collection, the most enchanting piece is the
sorrowful Panxolina by Cristobal Halffter and based on
a poem by Vicente Risco. Written in D minor and alternating between
the Dorian and Aeolian, this piece is pure and nostalgic; Halffter
here rids himself of his modernist avant-gardism. As Galdos sings
‘Little caged angel / from my poor breast / where I felt
so alone’, one feels the sensitivity in her voice. Similarly
melancholic, Joaquin Nin’s Meu Amor Meu Amorino
with its piano introduction and postlude is sparse and harrowingly
brooding. Perhaps more scandalously known as the incestuous father
of the erotic writer Anais Nin, who recalls her father as an egotistical
Don Juan, in this instance it is Joaquin Nin’s music that
holds the listener captive and still.
Moving to the Bay of Biscay for the songs of the Basque Country,
the music seems altogether more graceful and flowing. The melodies
hint at Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and Robert Schumann. We
begin with a selection from Pablo Sorozabal’s Siete
Lieder, composed when Sorozabal was living in Berlin and
inspired by poems written by Heinrich Heine. The Germanic influence
hinted at in the title of these songs is evident, particularly
in the admixture of playfulness, dreaminess and sorrow. The chiaroscuro
of the sad lotus flower ‘under the rays of the burning sun’
in Lotoren Lorak is carefully and charmingly done. Zure
Mosuan is particularly ebullient and the flexibility of Galdos’s
voice is evident in the overall bounciness of the piece.
Evoking the atypical Basque gloom, Jesus Guridi’s Loa,
Loa and Jose Gonzalo Zulaika’s Nik Baditut
are acutely mournful and are aptly handled by singer and pianist.
This is not to say that the zippy ‘tweetytweetytweet’
of Aldapeko Sagarraren or the fooling around of Atzo
Ttun Ttun — by Zulaika, more commonly known as Padre
Donostia, after the city of San Sebastian, where he was born —
is anything other than crisp and cheery.
Travelling once more to Catalonia, the listener arrives at the
more familiar sounds of Frederic Mompou and Ricard Lamote de Grignon.
Starting with a selection of Mompou from his Combat del Somni,
based on poems by his friend Josep Janes, Galdos’s recording
of Damunt de tu Nomes les Flores is exquisite in its
achingly beatific serenity and perspicuity. Jo et Pressentia
com la Mar hints at the French impressionism of Erik Satie
and Gabriel Fauré, two of Mompou’s greatest influences.
Galdos is particularly gifted at singing this miniaturist repertoire
drawing out an improvisatory quality, delicacy and intimacy.
Composed in 1934 as a wedding present to two friends, Ricard Lamote
de Grignon’s Triptic is based on Maria de Quadres’s
translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s verse into Catalan.
Yet again, Galdos demonstrates her exquisite talent for touching
the soul of the listener with that of the poetry of the music
itself. The transcendental quality of Es una Nit d’Abril
is lasting as Galdos sings: ‘Through the night I keep humming,
/ ‘I am she despairing traveller, I am she’.’
Taught by Alfred Cortot, Francis Poulenc and Olivier Messiaen,
Manuel Garcia Morante’s arrangement of El Cant dels
Ocells is like ‘seeing the great awakening / of the
light on the most beautiful night’. Frantzen’s accompaniment
is particularly ethereal alongside the yielding voice of Galdos.
To commandeer an extract from Josep Janes’s poem Make
My Life Transparent (set to music by Mompou), the duo form
a flowing river ‘that carries to the sea the pure waters
/ of all images with a blue desire’.
Lucy Jeffery
Track listing
Jose Moreno BASCUNANA (1911-1994)
Morrina [2:44]
Rafael FERRER (1913-1988)
Lua de Vrau [2:26]
Cristobal HALFFTER (b. 1930)
Panxolina [3:03]
Joaquin NIN (1879-1949)
Eu Coa Mina Monteira [2:52]
Meu Amor Meu Amorino [3:14]
Canta O Galo Ven [1:43]
Pablo SOROZABAL (1897-1988)
Amesetan [3:23]
Otz Eta Ixiltsu [1:15]
Zure Mosuan [1:24]
Lotoren Lorak [2:50]
Eres Dagie Txilibituak [1:08]
Agertu-Yatan Orrilla [1:40]
Jesus GUIRDI (1886-1961)
Loa, Loa [3:11]
Father DONOSTIA (1866-1956)
Lili Eder Bat [2:17]
Aldapeko Sagarraren [0:39]
Nik Baditut [2:03]
Iruten Ari Nuzu [1:03]
Atzo Ttun Ttun [0:47]
Frederic MOMPOU (1893-1987)
Damunt De Tu Nomes Les Flores [4:01]
Aquesta Nit Un Mateix Vent [2:47]
Jo Et Pressentia Com La Mar [2:05]
Fes Me La Vida Transparent [3:16]
Ricard Lamote de GRIGNON (1899-1962)
Quan La Llantia S’Apaga [3:46]
Era El CApvespre [2:55]
Es Una Nit D’Abril [3:26]
Manuel Garcia MORANTE (b. 1937)
El Rossinyol [1:49]
El Noi De La Mare [1:17]
El Cant Dels Ocells [2:35]
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