Joaquín RODRIGO (1901-1999)
Fantasía para un Gentilhombre
[22:01]
Concierto de Aranjuez
[22:58]
Xianji Liu (guitar)
Orquesta Sinfónica de Radio Televisión Española/Pedro Amaral
No recording dates given.
IBS CLASSICAL IBS42020
[44:59]
Xianji Liu comes to this recording with a strong claim for attention; the
first Chinese winner of the Tarréga International Guitar Competition, he
has performed Rodrigo’s music in Spain, including at a special concert at
the Palace of Aranjuez in September 2019, where he played these two works
with the RTVE Orchestra. I assume that the recording was made around that
time – it’s one of the many pieces of information which the IBS booklet
fails to give, including the composer’s dates, unless they are included in
the mandarin section of the multi-lingual notes.
Any recording of Rodrigo’s music which includes just these two standards is
going to have to work hard to sell when most recordings throw in an extra
work. A 1997 Chandos recording from Craig Ogden, with the BBC Philharmonic
and Sachio Fujiyoka throws in Concierto para una fiesta and offers
73 minutes of music against 45 minutes on IBS (CHAN9604). PentaTone,
digging back into the DG catalogue, have reissued Narciso Yepes’ recording
with the ECO and García Navarro in the two standards, with Concierto madrigal, in an SACD reincarnation which remains one of
the front runners, the 1970s recording having come up very well in the
process (PTC5186209 –
review).
Even better value if you are prepared to forego SACD or hi-res download is
a 2-for-1 DG Duo, with Yepes’ recording of those three works plus three
other concertos (4779999). Of the two, Yepes still has the edge, but Ogden
is well worth considering for the coupling, and there are several other
very fine alternatives which I mention in the Yepes review. Fans of the
phenomenal Miloš Karadaglić, for example, are well served by his recording
of Aranjuez and Fantasía, with solo works (DG 4810811 –
review). Another very worthwhile 2-CD bargain containing Aranjuez and six other
works – not the Fantasía, however – from Alfonso Moreno, Enrique
Bátiz and others is now download only (2376812 -
review).
In the notes Liu expresses the hope that ‘by integrating East-West cultural
elements’ he has ‘interpreted Joaquín Rodrigo’s music in a brand-new way’,
but I didn’t hear much, if anything, that struck me as novel in either
work. To be fair, Rodrigo’s music is not open to wildly different
interpretations, by and large, what you see (or hear) is what you get.
In Aranjuez, for example, Liu and Amaral are a shade slower in
each movement than most, but the difference on paper is hardly apparent in
performance. Their performance is as evocative as any, but never
over-deliberate. If the adagio second movement brings out a little
more emotion, it’s by a minimal amount – a smoochy performance that you can
snuggle into.
Again, in the Fantasía, which Liu claims gave him a special
insight into Rodrigo’s playing technique, this is an attractive
performance. It confirms my own love of this work, perhaps even more than Aranjuez, but then I’m a great fan of modern re-workings of the
music of the past – Walton’s The Wise Virgins, Respighi’s Gli Ucelli, just as enjoyable as hearing period-instrument
performances of their originals.
The recorded sound, heard on CD, is good, and there’s a hi-res 24-bit
download available from some suppliers, but neither performance nor recording
is special enough to surmount the hurdle of short playing time. Reissued with another
concerto thrown in, and made more widely available, this might be competitive.
As I close this review, I note that another IBS recording of Rodrigo is in
the offing: Soleriana, Tres viejos aires de danza, Dos miniaturas
andaluzas and Zarabanda lejana y villancico from Orquesta de la
Communitat Valenciana/Joan Enric Lluna (IBS72020). If these performances
are as light and breezy as I have seen claimed, with far fewer alternatives
for the music, that looks like a more attractive proposition, though still
offering less than an hour of music. So far the
only way that I’ve found to track it down is via
the
Naxos Music Library.
Brian Wilson
