4.0 out of 5 stars
Superbly recorded and enterprising CD for a modest price, January 24, 2005
This review is from: Spain & Portugal Organ History (Audio CD)
Goodness only knows what the other volumes in this ORGAN HISTORY series are like, but if they are all as impressive and enterprising as this one, they will give Naxos serious competition in the budget-CD stakes. Arturo Sacchetti's playing is next to flawless. The only slight fault with any of it is the unduly slow tempo with which he starts Antonio de Cabezon's CABALLERO variations (easily the most often played piece by this composer, who died in 1566); and even that mild complaint can soon be forgotten amid the delightful choice of stops with which he emphasizes the cantus firmus each time it comes back.
Some splendid music has turned up here, a little of it probably known to students of baroque organ literature - who could well have noticed the names of Francisco Correa de Arauxo (1576?-1654) and Juan Cabanilles (1644-1712) in other contexts - yet much of it utterly obscure. Who in the world, for instance, was Joaquin de Oxinagas (1719-1789)? Whoever he was (the pretentiously written booklet note is unforthcoming), he must have been a formidably talented polyphonist, with - as the booklet points out in one of its few intelligible statements - a Germanic rigor at his command.
Three of the last four tracks disappoint, because of their intrinsic content rather than because of the player. Someone called M.H. Eslava y Elizondo (1807-1878) treats the magnificent plainsong melody AVE MARIS STELLA to a stuffy and shop-worn meditation; it seems to last far longer than the 5'54" timing given on the jewel-box; his contemporaries in France, Belgium and Germany were writing much finer music than this. Compare this effort to the organ compositions of Saint-Saens, Liszt, Franck, Mendelssohn, or Brahms, and it becomes embarrassing. The INTERLUDE by Jesus Guridi (1886-1961) is at best slightly attractive; the TIENTO by Ernesto Halffter (1905-1989, though this CD describes him as being still alive) sounds interminable, rather like an undergraduate's attempt at mimicking Messiaen. Augusto de Oliveira Machado (1845-1924), apparently director of the Lisbon Conservatoire in his later life, contributes a PRELUDE neatly written but too short to give listeners much idea of him.
In engineering terms, the disc is superb. No record company is reproducing organ tone more faithfully, or more vividly, than this label manages to do. If you find the contents list appealing, why hesitate?
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