Traditional Catalan Songs
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Label: Classics
Magazine Review Date: 7/1992
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 57
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 1318-2
Author: Lionel Salter
Catalonia's rich store of folk-song is inevitably coloured by that province's long history of hardship and repression from France and from Castile; but the vein of melancholy that permeates it has resulted in many songs of haunting beauty—of which I would single out as examples here Mariagneta, Caterina d'Alio and the wistful La filla del Carmesi. The last-named may be familiar to pianists from the first of Mompou's Cancons i dansas (which altogether quote no fewer than eight of the present songs literally); and one of the cheerful songs, L'hereu Riera, puts in an appearance in Martin y Soler's opera Una cosa rara.
Victoria de los Angeles, an ideal choice for this appealing collection of imaginative but unfussy arrangements by Manuel Garcia Morante, starts with El cant dels ocells, now a Catalan national symbol (used as a call-sign in the BBC's Catalan Service) with which Casals always ended his Prades (not Prague, please, Collins!) Festival concerts (and which I was privileged to record with him); and she ends with the almost equally famous Els segadors, whose symbolic words were considered so inflammatory by various Spanish governments as to be banned. The limitation on the number of verses sung here of course means that the stories of some songs are not completed; but at least appetite is whetted. Among other rewarding items are the charming nursery song La filidora, the sadly modal Els estudiantes de Tolosa and the ebullient El bon cacador; and the irregular shape of El rossinyol is intriguing. But why not sample them all?'
Victoria de los Angeles, an ideal choice for this appealing collection of imaginative but unfussy arrangements by Manuel Garcia Morante, starts with El cant dels ocells, now a Catalan national symbol (used as a call-sign in the BBC's Catalan Service) with which Casals always ended his Prades (not Prague, please, Collins!) Festival concerts (and which I was privileged to record with him); and she ends with the almost equally famous Els segadors, whose symbolic words were considered so inflammatory by various Spanish governments as to be banned. The limitation on the number of verses sung here of course means that the stories of some songs are not completed; but at least appetite is whetted. Among other rewarding items are the charming nursery song La filidora, the sadly modal Els estudiantes de Tolosa and the ebullient El bon cacador; and the irregular shape of El rossinyol is intriguing. But why not sample them all?'
Traditional Catalan Songs
Discover the world's largest classical music catalogue with Presto Music.
Gramophone Digital Club
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £8.75 / month
Subscribe
Gramophone Full Club
- Print Edition
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £11.00 / month
Subscribe
If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information.