3 pieces from Suite espagnole, Op.47

Sevilla

Asturias

Castilla

It used to be said - in France, of course - that all the best Spanish piano music was by French composers. The case was always dubious but it was at least arguable until 1906, when Albéniz published the first part of his monumental Iberia. Although he had written many highly attractive piano pieces in the Spanish idiom before that, he had achieved nothing of the quality, in terms of musical thought and keyboard technique, as the four books of what was to be his last major work. Even so, there are anticipations of some of the most interesting aspects of Iberia from as long as twenty years earlier.

One such prophetic piece is Sevilla which was written for the Suite espagnole in 1886. Derived from the folk music of Andalusia - where (although he was himself a Catalan) Albéniz was to find the inspiration for the greater part of Iberia - it is remarkable not only for the swaying dance tune and the cheerfully strummed guitar rhythms accompanying it but also for the evocation of flamenco vocal improvisation in piano octaves in the middle section. Asturias, which was was written in 1896, first published in Chants d’Espagne in 1897 and included in the Suite espagnole by Albeniz’s publisher after the composer’s death, is even more remarkable. This is guitar music transferred direct to the keyboard with no effort made to dress it up or to disguise the raw, percussive quality of the fiercely plucked chords. The contrasting middle section is another vocal improvisation, some of it in octaves, much like that of Sevilla. The last of these pieces Castilla (also first published in Chants d’Espagne and posthumously added to the Suite espagnole) is a brilliantly scored example of the seguidilla, the vigorous, even almost aggressive dance characteristic of the central Castile region.