Enrique GRANADOS (1867-1916)
Goyescas (complete) (1912-16) [65:23]
Manuel de FALLA (1876-1946)
Pantomima [4:16]; Canción del Fuego Fatuo [2:43]
Nicholas Zumbro (piano)
rec. London, 1992.
KRITONOS 8 85767 06331 0 [72:24]
Tennessee-born Zumbro’s credentials can be traced back to his training
at Juilliard and with a wide span of European teachers. International tours
have been accommodated alongside teaching at Juilliard, Indiana University,
University of Hawaii and the University of Arizona. There have also been master-classes
in Europe, China, Korea, Iceland and the USA. Zumbro is a composer with a
catalogue that includes music for Euripides' Hippolytus, an opera Kassandra,which
was premiered in Greece in 1990, children's songs and other vocal works.
This pianist leaves you with the sense, all too often glided over by super-technicians,
of a human being wrestling with the unlikely mechanical device that is the
piano. He translates Granados’s hugely challenging Goyescas into
sound that speaks to the listener. Zumbro bridges the chasm yet preserves
that fragile humanity without compromising the poetry that is at the heart
of this cycle. The last time I heard something like this was many years ago
on two long-lost Saga LPs from the Spanish pianist, Mario Miranda. For me
the apex is reached in Fandango de candil where majesty and heroic
endeavour are touchingly put across. There’s nicely judged attention
to fine dynamic shading in El amor y la muerte - tender indeed. This
is also what we hear from Zumbro with the God-given melody that floats free
in de Falla’s Pantomima from El Amor Brujo. Lest there
be any misunderstanding Zumbro can also big it up as he does in the explosive
Pelele with which the cycle begins.
This is the full version of Goyescas, complete with El Pelele, Crepuscolo
and Intermezzo.
The piano is a Bösendorfer Concert Grand and the recording was taken
down by none other than Mike Skeet, a recording engineer we hear too little
from but who was much connected with the Ensemble and British Music Label
companies. It would be nice to know exactly where in London this was recorded.
The bass is sumptuous and the treble rings true without harshness.
This is a disc from Zumbro’s own label and the only number I have is
the scan code.
There is a companion as well which appears to have been set down in London
at the same time: Ives’ Concord Sonata and Barber’s Sonata.
Is this the world’s best Goyescas? I don’t know the field
well enough but it is one of the most poetic and memorable I have heard. Do
not miss it if you have any affection for this superb work in which elusive
sensitivity, subtlety and romance meets the romance of Iberia.
Rob Barnett
One of the most poetic and memorable Goyescas I have heard.
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