This disc is announced
as the final instalment of Gilbert Rowland’s Naxos cycle of the
complete Sonatas for Harpsichord by Padre Antonio Soler. I haven’t
heard all of the earlier volumes, so I won’t attempt any kind
of comprehensive statement about the project as a whole, but my
impression, for what it’s worth, is that the series has got better
and better as it has gone on. I agree with Patrick Waller (see
his review
of Volume 12) that the recorded sound has improved in later volumes;
it was rather clattery and echoing on some of the early discs,
but there are certainly no problems with the sound on this final
volume. My sense is also that Gilbert Rowland has come to sound
more and more at home with the music, his playing increasingly
relaxed, his phrasing more flexible and his range of tonal colours
more various. Whether or not these (remembered) impressions are
correct, what I can say with some confidence is that this
final disc is full of exciting and exhilarating music, played
with considerable panache.
Spanish musical traditions
are, of course, a central element in Soler’s harpsichord music;
traditional Spanish dance rhythms are very clearly audible in
the almost seven minutes of the central allegro (marked ‘assai
spiritoso’) of Sonata 66, played here with sympathetic (and technically
assured) flair; Spanish idioms are also very much to the fore
in the opening Cantabile of Sonata 60. At times (as in Sonata
76) the influence of Domenico Scarlatti, Soler’s erstwhile teacher
is evident. But Soler clearly listened rather more widely - at
times the music prompts one to think of C.P.E. Bach.
Elsewhere, Soler’s
fugues would satisfy all but the most pedantically rigorous of
Germanic theorists. The fugal third movement of Sonata 66 is a
delight, though some of its modulations might perhaps upset that
hypothetical pedantic theorist; surely even he (or she?) would
find little to complain about in the ‘intento a 4’ which closes
Sonata 68, beautifully worked out and technically very accomplished.
But if Soler could
be ‘correct’, he could also be somewhat shocking. The allegro
in 6/8 of Sonata 60 is full of unexpected leaps and begins with
some unconventional harmonies (“almost Bartókian” says Rowland
in his characteristically useful booklet notes) that even now
retain some of their power to startle.
Rowland responds to
the range of this music and, on this disc at any rate, plays it
with real innerness. At times here, as on some of the earlier
volumes, I wondered whether one or two of the pieces might not
work better still on the organ, but that is a quibble which shouldn’t
detract from our gratitude to Rowland and to Naxos for the completion
of this substantial project. I believe that the only sonatas by
Soler which were ever published during the Eighteenth Century
were those which appeared as XXVII Sonatas para clave,
published around 1796 by Richard Birchall of London. So there
is an aptness in the choice of a British (Rowland was born in
Glasgow) harpsichordist as the protagonist for this series. In
this final disc he plays a two manual instrument by Andrew Wooderson,
made in 2005 and modelled on 1750 instrument from the Goermans
workshop in Paris – and with its bright (but not excessively so)
sound and clear articulation it enables Rowland to do something
like full justice to this engaging music.
Glyn Pursglove
Gilbert Rowland
(harpsichord) 
