Granados’s Spanish Dances are arguably analogous to Chopin’s Mazurkas – a flattering description, no doubt (Granados wrote only 12 against Chopin’s 58, and his content is far less intricate and wide-ranging than Chopin’s confessional diary), though one that makes some sense when you consider their varied and delightful exploitation of a nationalist idiom, their alternations of brio and introspection. Played by a great pianist they form a haunting tribute to Granados’s ultra-Spanish, most aristocratic nature, one tragically terminated by his premature death at the age of 48.
Rosa Torres-Pardo (dramatically photographed and fulsomely described on Naxos’s booklet cover), while clear-sighted and musicianly, is, however, not sufficiently liberated from the score to evoke such magic, to allow for the fullest expressive freedom and imagination. In her safe but predictable hands the longest dances (Nos. 4 and 11, for example) outstay their welcome and, throughout, her nationality is no guarantee of temperamental affinity. She is more inclined to step into the light, into brilliant Spanish sunshine, in the ‘Rondella aragonesa’, where the music’s bustle and acceleration tempt her into playing of greater emotional empathy. But in the central section of ‘Valenciana’ one longs for greater character and inwardness. In ‘Danza triste’ she is no equal to Jose Iturbi on a long-cherished – and long-deleted – HMV 78 (made before his defection to Hollywood), and in the swaying and seductive rhythms of ‘Sardana’, and indeed in all the dances, she hardly compares with Alicia de Larrocha who, whether on EMI or Decca, offers a sumptuous coloration, sympathy and allure, a musical and technical finesse that makes her performances inimitable. The addition of an encore, Estudio, first published in 1937 is, however, an added attraction to this serviceable bargain issue.'