¡Viva Segovia!
Classical Guitar Works from the Archive of Andrés Segovia (1893-1987)
Hans HAUG (1900-1967)
Étude - Rondo fantastico (1956) [2:42]
Cyril SCOTT (1879-1970)
Sonatina (1927) [11:13]
Lennox BERKELEY (1903-1989)
Quatre Pièces pour la guitare (1927-32) [9:37]
Ettore DESDERI (1892-1974)
Sonata in mi (1954-55) [20:36]
Aloÿs FORNEROD (1890-1965)
Prélude (1927?) [3:05]
Fernande PEYROT (1888-1978)
Thème et variations (1930s) [7:17]
Hans HAUG
Passacaglia (1955) [5:01]
Roberto Moronn Pérez (guitar)
rec. 2015, Holy Trinity Church, Weston, Hertfordshire, U.K
REFERENCE RECORDINGS FR-723 [58:37]
This is a successor to the two earlier sievings by Roberto Moronn Pérez of works accumulated in the Segovia archive (review): works dedicated to Segovia or commissioned by him. There have already been some surprises and this collection serves up some more.
Haug's Étude is cool, sparky, flowing, smooth and bright as an Hispanic button. Haug has the honour of both opening and closing this collection. His plangent Passacaglia rounds things out.
The little Scott Sonatina is more thoughtful, capricious and has that wandering meandering tonality well known from this composer's orchestral music and especially from the First Piano Concerto. Its pace is relaxed and Scott seems at ease with the instrument whether in the rhythmically tense yet sunlit Finale or in the central Allegretto Pensoso. It's a fresh work that adds valuably to the guitar repertoire. It dates from the late 1920s when Segovia met Scott during one of his visits to London.
The four Berkeley items are similarly gorgeously polished and imagined. There's a life-enhancing Moderato warmed by the southern slopes. The Andante is cooler and has a smiling countenance. The dignified Lento seems to spell out an elegiac message written centuries ago. A flighty Allegro ends the sequence. Pérez introduces some lovely writing from Lennox Berkeley. This piece joins two other Berkeley guitar standards written for Julian Bream: Sonatina (1957) and Theme and Variations (1970).
Ettori Desderi's four-movement Sonata is the longest work here. It is playfully inventive, capricious and animated - a work replete with sly baroque smiles. Fornerod's subtly sweet little Prelude precedes Peyrot's Thème et Variations which makes play, both sombre and brilliant, with a melancholy theme.
The English-only booklet is very well designed and substantially detailed.
Shedloads of credit to Pérez and Reference Recordings for giving us an hour of openly and intimately recorded music fresh to the repertoire and drawn from recently released works from the Segovia archive.
Rob Barnett
