Full Track List
Chants d’Espagne, op.232
» II Orientale
» I Prelude: Asturias (Leyenda)
» IV Cordoba
Espana: Album Leaves (6), op.165 B37 (Seis hojas de album)
Piezas caracteristicas (Characteristic Pieces), op.92
» VII Zambra Granadina
» XII Torre Bermeja
Suite espanola no.1, op.47
» I Granada
» III Sevilla
“Albéniz sounds big and serious in Marchionda’s reading. MDG is still a guarantee of quality”.
Scherzo Magazine
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In this matter of transcriptions, not all guitarists are on the same path or, perhaps, once the brush of postmodernism has passed through our discourse and old tables of values have been swept away, it would be convenient to say, simply, that they follow different paths. Albéniz’s music, in particular, is part of the guitar repertoire in such a way that the latter, without it, would be practically incomprehensible. Moreover, as much of his music has been known and disseminated for a century in the hands of the legion of guitarists who have been in the world, Albéniz himself, as a complex historical reality, would be understood without the guitar in an unnecessarily incomplete way. It is a particular symbiosis, different, for example, from that between Domenico Scarlatti and the guitar. If behind the guitaristic Albéniz is the very tradition of the contemporary guitar, Scarlatti – although it was an intuition of the guitarists of the 20th century – is intended to be a more recent conquest for the guitar repertoire.
Three years ago, Stephen Marchionda dedicated to Scarlatti an album on the same MDG label -one of our favorites- in which he presents this Albéniz monographic. His approach, as we noted in these pages, was that of an adaptation, without technical concessions, of “major” works.¨
The technical aspects, of “major” works: Scarlatti’s keyboard playing, so idiomatic, was intended to be folded, as it was, to the guitar. Here, the criterion -except for the “major” works- is the same: Marchionda starts from Albéniz’s originals in an effort to solve discrepancies that he observes in other transcriptions and guitar interpretations of this music and to give back to Albéniz’s pianism the romantic free flight that in those interpretations remained caged as salon music. Well… we would qualify the latter, but, certainly, Albéniz sounds great and serious in Marchionda’s reading of the music.
Marchionda’s reading. MDG is still a guarantee of quality.”
Scherzo Magazine