wimpel69
12-19-2016, 02:18 PM
Please request the FLAC link (including the complete
artwork & booklet, LOG & CUE) in this thread. PMs will be ignored!
This is my own rip. Please do not share my material any further, also please
add to my reputation!
"A recent silent film score discovery I’m very excited about is Carmen, by Ernesto Halffter. A great and fine great score
which we’re very glad to have restored. He composed it at the age of 21, in 1926, and conducted the first performance
himself, but the circumstances were rather unsatisfactory. He didn’t have a big enough orchestra, and the parts seem to
have been copied at great speed, which caused many inaccuracies. We’ve now put the whole thing in order, and I hope
very much that listeners to our new Naxos disc will agree with me that this is a very exciting find indeed. The most
stunning track of all is the last number, the death of Carmen. It’s absolutely overwhelming music. Bizet’s is a great
opera but it sounds quite tame in comparison with Halffter. This is really gritty, passionate music."
Mark Fitz-Gerald
Ernesto Halffter, one of Manuel de Falla’s most admired disciples and a student of Stravinsky and Ravel, was a
close associate of iconic figures such as Dal�, Garc�a Lorca, and Bu�uel on the 20th century Iberian cultural scene.
His magnificent score for Jacques Feyder’s 1926 silent film, Carmen, is one of the great impressionistic Spanish
masterpieces of its era. More sombre and tragic than the music for Bizet’s opera, Halffter’s vivid panorama depicts the
range and depth of the powerful emotions encompassed within the Carmen story, a tale of thwarted love, passion,
jealousy, and violence set in the heart of Andalusia in southern Spain. This is not only the work’s world premi�re
recording but the first performance to realise the composer’s musical intentions in full.
Music Composed by
Ernesto Halffter
Played by the
Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by
Mark Fitz-Gerald
"Ernesto Halffter Escriche (Madrid, 16 January 1905 – Madrid, 5 July 1989) is one of the most important Spanish
composers of the twentieth century. Yet he considered himself modestly, just as a pupil of Manuel de Falla, whom he admired,
both as an artist and as a morally exemplary human being. Nevertheless, Halffter was aware of his all-round musical talent,
and that he was not lacking in ideas.
His father, Ernest Halffter Hein, a Prussian jeweller, who had settled in Madrid and married a Spaniard, Rosario Escriche Errad�n,
was completely supportive of the idea of his eldest and third-born sons, Rodolfo and Ernesto, choosing music as a profession.
Perhaps this interest in music was inherited from their grandparents, Andalusians hailing from �cija (Seville), who were both
opera lovers, while, according to Yolanda Acker, the musicologist and specialist in the works of Ernesto Halffter, their
grandfather, Emilio Escriche, was also an excellent painter.
Ernesto began his education at the Colegio Alem�n in Madrid and soon stood out in the world of music, as did his brother
Rodolfo, for whom he wrote opera libretti. His earliest composition dates from 1911, when he was just six years old. In 1922
Ernesto’s piano teacher, the Hungarian Fernando Ember, performed his pupil’s first piano works, including the three pieces
from Crep�sculos at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid. A short time later after their first meeting in 1923, the young Halffter sent
Falla the score of his Trio for violin, violoncello and piano, on which the Andalusian composer, wrote “Bravo!”
Crep�sculos already showed signs of the great composer who, at the of age twenty, would receive the Premio Nacional de
M�sica for his splendid Sinfonietta, a prize he would again be awarded in 1983 for his ‘continuous contribution to Spanish
music’. This piano triptych was initially titled Tres piezas l�ricas (Three Lyric Pieces). The composer wrote a program for the
first, El viejo reloj del castillo (The Old Castle Clock), which might have been based on one of the legends by the great
romantic poet Gustavo Adolfo B�cquer, whose Rimas (Rhymes) Alb�niz, Falla and Turina turned into very beautiful songs.
According to the critic Adolfo Salazar, the third, Una ermita en el bosque (A Hermitage in the Forest), had a certain rural
flavour in the style of Granados. The second, Lullaby, reflects the impressionism Ernesto experienced several years later,
from 1926 to 1928, in the Paris of Les Six. Halffter felt a close affinity to some of its members such as Poulenc, Auric and
Milhaud. In Madrid he also formed part of the group of composers representing the so-called ‘Generation of 27’ or ‘of the
Republic’, the famous literary (and musical) group launched during the very creative Roaring 20s, which dominated Spanish
music until 1936. The group was based around the Residencia de Estudiantes, the institution derived from the very liberal,
lay, and innovative Instituci�n Libre de Ense�anza.
The premiere of the Marche joyeuse took place at the Residencia de Estudiantes in 1922. This piece is admirable for its
charm and modern spirit, much in keeping with that of the generation of writers and artists featuring Garc�a Lorca, Bu�uel,
Dal�, Gerardo Diego, Aleixandre, etc. It was published with a cover by Salvador Dal� and soon formed part of the repertory
of the famous Artur Rubinstein. Halffter reveals his very clever and ingenious use of bitonality and a varied array of rhythms.
In 1926 Halffter began composing his Sonata per pianoforte, which would not be completed until six years later. It could
be described as a modern version of Scarlatti or of the spirit behind the Spanish harpsichord school. But upon closer
listening, there are traces of a composer who, without discarding his customary joviality, is capable of revealing a side to
his music that was as serious and profound as that of his admired Falla. It could also be a disguised homage to Granados,
clearly cited towards the end of the Sonata, in both his Goyesque and Scarlattian aspects. The Sonata per pianoforte,
dedicated to Janine Cools, was given its premiere by the pianist, Leopoldo Querol, in Madrid in May 1934. This was the
only sonata of the three Halffter was required to compose in a contract he signed with the publishing house Max Eschig
of Paris, of which the composer Eug�ne Cools (1877-1936) was Director.
L’espagnolade formed part of the album Parc d’attractions, a collective homage to the French pianist and teacher
Marguerite Long (1874-1966), which took place at the 1937 Paris Exposition. This involved numerous foreign composers
who resided in Paris at the time, including Tibor Hars�nyi (1898-1954), Arthur Honegger (1892-1955), Bohuslav Martinu
(1890-1959), Marcel Mihalovici (1898-1985), Frederic Mompou (1893-1987), Vittorio Rieti (1898-1994), Alexandre
Tansman (1897-1986) and Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977). L’espagnolade is an ironic pasodoble, a charming imitation
of an Andalusian musical form that flourished during the mid-nineteenth century. The premiere, given at the Salle Gaveau
in Paris in 1938, was entrusted to the French pianist, Nicole Henriot (1925-2001), one of Marguerite Long’s favourite pupils.
Gr�ss (salute, greeting) follows the tradition of the German romantic Lied. The composer himself did not consider the
piece to be of the slightest importance and never published it himself as he believed composers of his generation would
not take it seriously. However, it exudes an intimate charm like that of other pieces of the same genre by Mendelssohn,
Schumann, Gade or Grieg. It is as if it had been composed in 1840 instead of 1940. The title reveals its obvious Germanic
precedents (similar to a romance without words, album leaf, or lyric piece), but it was also a Christmas greeting for his
father, Herr Ernest Halffter. Max Eschig published Gr�ss in 1994.
In 1943 the composer (married to Alicia Camara Santos, the Portuguese pianist, since 1928), composed incidental music
to Carlos Salvagem’s heroic farce Dulcinea, premiered at the Teatro Nacional in Lisbon in January 1944. Halffter arranged
the work into a symphonic suite, presented in Madrid on 9 December 1945 during a benefit concert for the Press Association
at the Teatro Monumental, when the composer himself conducted the Orquesta Sinf�nica Arb�s. The work consists of
various parts, Preludio y alborada, Los pastores, Nocturnos, Serenata, and Final. As well as a version for violoncello
transcribed by Gaspar Cassad�, and a piano and violoncello transcription by Maurice Gendron, the penultimate Serenata
was also arranged for the piano. In ternary form, the opening section evokes the plucking of the guitar, accompanying a
short melody whose text could well be You are my love, Dulcinea. In the centre section, there is a sad and desolate
nocturne, in which the guitar strums while Don Quixote serenades his beloved, a peasant whom the knight believes
to be a princess.
“Cuba had been lost and now it was true. It wasn’t a lie…”, wrote Rafael Alberti in his evocative poem Cuba dentro de
un piano (Cuba Inside a Piano), which Xavier Montsalvatge so beautifully set to music. But a shattered, post-war
Spain began to miss the gem of the West Indies, though Cuban influence was still felt as is very clear in the Preg�n,
with its Afro-Cuban and Spanish rhythms. And even more so in the Habanera, one of those well-written works that
cannot be forgotten, even on a single hearing. This straightforward beautiful piece exudes the indolence and
drowsiness provoked by the warm Caribbean climate with melancholic naturalness. Both the Preg�n and the
Habanera are featured in the film Bamb�. Directed by Jos� Luis S�enz de Heredia, it is a love story set in Spanish
Cuba during the period of its independence following the war between Spain and the United States in 1898. The film,
starring Imperio Argentina, Sara Montiel, Fernando Fern�n-G�mez and Luis Pe�a, was premiered in Madrid on
15 October 1945. Regino Sainz de la Maza, the guitarist who premiered Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, also
appeared in the movie.
Preludio y danza, composed for the inauguration of the Alonso Ortiz family house at El Escorial, dates from
June 1974 (being premiered in the new house by Manuel Carra on the 11th of that month). It consists of two
sections of the same length, including a Prelude in the style of the eighteenth-century recercadas by Sebasti�n
Albero (1722-1756), slightly austere despite being very arpeggiated and finishing with a cadenza. This is followed
by a very Halffterian dance of a characteristically Spanish nature.
Ernesto Halffter began writing Suite l�rica in 1940 during his Lisbon period, reflected in works such as Rapsodia
portuguesa and Seis canciones portuguesas. But the extract titled Llanto por Ricardo Vi�es was probably composed
between 29 April (the date of Vi�es’s death in Barcelona), and 20 December 1943, the day it was premiered by
the Portuguese pianist, Elena da Costa.
Federico Sope�a was fully justified when he commented that ‘the history of modern music (i.e. the first half of the
twentieth century) could not be written without Ricardo Vi�es’. A number of very significant twentieth-century piano
compositions were dedicated to Ricardo Vi�es Roda (1875-1943) and he himself premiered a great number of works.
Educated in L�rida, his native city, and later in Barcelona under Joan Baptista Pujol (piano) and Pedrell (harmony),
in 1890 he launched a career that would lead him to form part of the principal artistic and intellectual circles of Paris,
where Halffter benefited from his expertise and friendship. Vi�es, a man of vast musical and literary culture, was
described by Professor Tom�s Andrade de Silva as ‘the most unique pianist Spain ever had, both for his intimate
awareness of sonority and for the inspired architectural conception of his interpretations’. Llanto por Ricardo Vi�es,
which did so much for Spanish music abroad, is the Madrilenian composer’s sad and solemn lament for the great
Catalonian pianist. In the style of pieces Falla dedicated to Debussy and Dukas, its arpeggiated chords give a
somewhat medieval atmosphere to the opening of the work. The poetic chords and sombre motives that follow
signify a serene farewell.
Although Spanish keyboard music was already very advanced by the end of the seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries with composers such as Cabanilles and Rodr�guez Monllor, the work of Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
provided a tremendous inspiration, as can be seen in the music of Antonio Soler and others. Nationalistic piano music,
from Granados to Falla, Rodolfo Halffter, Rodrigo and Ernesto Halffter, paid special attention to the Neapolitan genius.
The presence of Scarlattian elements could already be perceived in the composer’s early music as well as in the
famous Sinfonietta and Sonatina. Sonata homenaje a Scalatti presents a musical form similar to those created by
the the Italian musician at the Spanish court, transformed into the neo-baroque aesthetic of the twentieth century.
Genoveva G�lvez gave the premiere at the Prado Museum, Madrid, on 14 September 1985, the year of Scarlatti’s
bicentenary. Towards the end of the sonata, Halffter quotes the theme from the well-known Cat’s Fugue from
D. Scarlatti’s Sonata in G minor K. 30. Genoveva G�lvez played the work on the harpsichord, which seems closer
to the composer being celebrated, but Halffter conceived the work for piano, and this justifies its performance
on either instrument.
I had the privilege of hearing the composer himself perform Nocturno oto�al: recordando a Chopin, at his last
home in Madrid. To commemorate the centenary in 1987 of the birth of Artur Rubinstein (1887-1982), the founder
of the Santander International Piano Competition, Paloma O’Shea, commissioned a series of works in homage to the
great Polish pianist, one of the most eminent performers of Chopin’s music. In this work, written in the autumn of
his life (he died two years later in Madrid on 5 July 1989), Ernesto expressed the melancholy of time irremediably
running out.
But Halffter would still complete three piano pieces in homage to the memory of three Spanish colleagues and friends –
llian Joaqu�n Turina (1882-1949) of Seville, Federico Mompou (1893-1987) of Barcelona, and his brother, Rodolfo
Halffter (1900-1987) from Madrid. Guillermo Gonz�lez premiered all three works, the first two during the inauguration
of the Manuel de Falla Archive in Granada (9 March 1981), and Homenaje a Rodolfo Halffter at the Real Academia
de Bellas Artes, Madrid (5 December 1992)."
Source: Naxos Film Music Classics CD, 2011
Format: FLAC(RAR) files, 16-44, DDD Stereo
File Size: 251 MB (incl. artwork, LOG, CUE)
Please request the FLAC link (including the complete
artwork & booklet, LOG & CUE) in this thread. PMs will be ignored!
This is my own rip. Please do not share my material any further, also please
add to my reputation!
artwork & booklet, LOG & CUE) in this thread. PMs will be ignored!
This is my own rip. Please do not share my material any further, also please
add to my reputation!
"A recent silent film score discovery I’m very excited about is Carmen, by Ernesto Halffter. A great and fine great score
which we’re very glad to have restored. He composed it at the age of 21, in 1926, and conducted the first performance
himself, but the circumstances were rather unsatisfactory. He didn’t have a big enough orchestra, and the parts seem to
have been copied at great speed, which caused many inaccuracies. We’ve now put the whole thing in order, and I hope
very much that listeners to our new Naxos disc will agree with me that this is a very exciting find indeed. The most
stunning track of all is the last number, the death of Carmen. It’s absolutely overwhelming music. Bizet’s is a great
opera but it sounds quite tame in comparison with Halffter. This is really gritty, passionate music."
Mark Fitz-Gerald
Ernesto Halffter, one of Manuel de Falla’s most admired disciples and a student of Stravinsky and Ravel, was a
close associate of iconic figures such as Dal�, Garc�a Lorca, and Bu�uel on the 20th century Iberian cultural scene.
His magnificent score for Jacques Feyder’s 1926 silent film, Carmen, is one of the great impressionistic Spanish
masterpieces of its era. More sombre and tragic than the music for Bizet’s opera, Halffter’s vivid panorama depicts the
range and depth of the powerful emotions encompassed within the Carmen story, a tale of thwarted love, passion,
jealousy, and violence set in the heart of Andalusia in southern Spain. This is not only the work’s world premi�re
recording but the first performance to realise the composer’s musical intentions in full.
Music Composed by
Ernesto Halffter
Played by the
Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by
Mark Fitz-Gerald
"Ernesto Halffter Escriche (Madrid, 16 January 1905 – Madrid, 5 July 1989) is one of the most important Spanish
composers of the twentieth century. Yet he considered himself modestly, just as a pupil of Manuel de Falla, whom he admired,
both as an artist and as a morally exemplary human being. Nevertheless, Halffter was aware of his all-round musical talent,
and that he was not lacking in ideas.
His father, Ernest Halffter Hein, a Prussian jeweller, who had settled in Madrid and married a Spaniard, Rosario Escriche Errad�n,
was completely supportive of the idea of his eldest and third-born sons, Rodolfo and Ernesto, choosing music as a profession.
Perhaps this interest in music was inherited from their grandparents, Andalusians hailing from �cija (Seville), who were both
opera lovers, while, according to Yolanda Acker, the musicologist and specialist in the works of Ernesto Halffter, their
grandfather, Emilio Escriche, was also an excellent painter.
Ernesto began his education at the Colegio Alem�n in Madrid and soon stood out in the world of music, as did his brother
Rodolfo, for whom he wrote opera libretti. His earliest composition dates from 1911, when he was just six years old. In 1922
Ernesto’s piano teacher, the Hungarian Fernando Ember, performed his pupil’s first piano works, including the three pieces
from Crep�sculos at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid. A short time later after their first meeting in 1923, the young Halffter sent
Falla the score of his Trio for violin, violoncello and piano, on which the Andalusian composer, wrote “Bravo!”
Crep�sculos already showed signs of the great composer who, at the of age twenty, would receive the Premio Nacional de
M�sica for his splendid Sinfonietta, a prize he would again be awarded in 1983 for his ‘continuous contribution to Spanish
music’. This piano triptych was initially titled Tres piezas l�ricas (Three Lyric Pieces). The composer wrote a program for the
first, El viejo reloj del castillo (The Old Castle Clock), which might have been based on one of the legends by the great
romantic poet Gustavo Adolfo B�cquer, whose Rimas (Rhymes) Alb�niz, Falla and Turina turned into very beautiful songs.
According to the critic Adolfo Salazar, the third, Una ermita en el bosque (A Hermitage in the Forest), had a certain rural
flavour in the style of Granados. The second, Lullaby, reflects the impressionism Ernesto experienced several years later,
from 1926 to 1928, in the Paris of Les Six. Halffter felt a close affinity to some of its members such as Poulenc, Auric and
Milhaud. In Madrid he also formed part of the group of composers representing the so-called ‘Generation of 27’ or ‘of the
Republic’, the famous literary (and musical) group launched during the very creative Roaring 20s, which dominated Spanish
music until 1936. The group was based around the Residencia de Estudiantes, the institution derived from the very liberal,
lay, and innovative Instituci�n Libre de Ense�anza.
The premiere of the Marche joyeuse took place at the Residencia de Estudiantes in 1922. This piece is admirable for its
charm and modern spirit, much in keeping with that of the generation of writers and artists featuring Garc�a Lorca, Bu�uel,
Dal�, Gerardo Diego, Aleixandre, etc. It was published with a cover by Salvador Dal� and soon formed part of the repertory
of the famous Artur Rubinstein. Halffter reveals his very clever and ingenious use of bitonality and a varied array of rhythms.
In 1926 Halffter began composing his Sonata per pianoforte, which would not be completed until six years later. It could
be described as a modern version of Scarlatti or of the spirit behind the Spanish harpsichord school. But upon closer
listening, there are traces of a composer who, without discarding his customary joviality, is capable of revealing a side to
his music that was as serious and profound as that of his admired Falla. It could also be a disguised homage to Granados,
clearly cited towards the end of the Sonata, in both his Goyesque and Scarlattian aspects. The Sonata per pianoforte,
dedicated to Janine Cools, was given its premiere by the pianist, Leopoldo Querol, in Madrid in May 1934. This was the
only sonata of the three Halffter was required to compose in a contract he signed with the publishing house Max Eschig
of Paris, of which the composer Eug�ne Cools (1877-1936) was Director.
L’espagnolade formed part of the album Parc d’attractions, a collective homage to the French pianist and teacher
Marguerite Long (1874-1966), which took place at the 1937 Paris Exposition. This involved numerous foreign composers
who resided in Paris at the time, including Tibor Hars�nyi (1898-1954), Arthur Honegger (1892-1955), Bohuslav Martinu
(1890-1959), Marcel Mihalovici (1898-1985), Frederic Mompou (1893-1987), Vittorio Rieti (1898-1994), Alexandre
Tansman (1897-1986) and Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977). L’espagnolade is an ironic pasodoble, a charming imitation
of an Andalusian musical form that flourished during the mid-nineteenth century. The premiere, given at the Salle Gaveau
in Paris in 1938, was entrusted to the French pianist, Nicole Henriot (1925-2001), one of Marguerite Long’s favourite pupils.
Gr�ss (salute, greeting) follows the tradition of the German romantic Lied. The composer himself did not consider the
piece to be of the slightest importance and never published it himself as he believed composers of his generation would
not take it seriously. However, it exudes an intimate charm like that of other pieces of the same genre by Mendelssohn,
Schumann, Gade or Grieg. It is as if it had been composed in 1840 instead of 1940. The title reveals its obvious Germanic
precedents (similar to a romance without words, album leaf, or lyric piece), but it was also a Christmas greeting for his
father, Herr Ernest Halffter. Max Eschig published Gr�ss in 1994.
In 1943 the composer (married to Alicia Camara Santos, the Portuguese pianist, since 1928), composed incidental music
to Carlos Salvagem’s heroic farce Dulcinea, premiered at the Teatro Nacional in Lisbon in January 1944. Halffter arranged
the work into a symphonic suite, presented in Madrid on 9 December 1945 during a benefit concert for the Press Association
at the Teatro Monumental, when the composer himself conducted the Orquesta Sinf�nica Arb�s. The work consists of
various parts, Preludio y alborada, Los pastores, Nocturnos, Serenata, and Final. As well as a version for violoncello
transcribed by Gaspar Cassad�, and a piano and violoncello transcription by Maurice Gendron, the penultimate Serenata
was also arranged for the piano. In ternary form, the opening section evokes the plucking of the guitar, accompanying a
short melody whose text could well be You are my love, Dulcinea. In the centre section, there is a sad and desolate
nocturne, in which the guitar strums while Don Quixote serenades his beloved, a peasant whom the knight believes
to be a princess.
“Cuba had been lost and now it was true. It wasn’t a lie…”, wrote Rafael Alberti in his evocative poem Cuba dentro de
un piano (Cuba Inside a Piano), which Xavier Montsalvatge so beautifully set to music. But a shattered, post-war
Spain began to miss the gem of the West Indies, though Cuban influence was still felt as is very clear in the Preg�n,
with its Afro-Cuban and Spanish rhythms. And even more so in the Habanera, one of those well-written works that
cannot be forgotten, even on a single hearing. This straightforward beautiful piece exudes the indolence and
drowsiness provoked by the warm Caribbean climate with melancholic naturalness. Both the Preg�n and the
Habanera are featured in the film Bamb�. Directed by Jos� Luis S�enz de Heredia, it is a love story set in Spanish
Cuba during the period of its independence following the war between Spain and the United States in 1898. The film,
starring Imperio Argentina, Sara Montiel, Fernando Fern�n-G�mez and Luis Pe�a, was premiered in Madrid on
15 October 1945. Regino Sainz de la Maza, the guitarist who premiered Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, also
appeared in the movie.
Preludio y danza, composed for the inauguration of the Alonso Ortiz family house at El Escorial, dates from
June 1974 (being premiered in the new house by Manuel Carra on the 11th of that month). It consists of two
sections of the same length, including a Prelude in the style of the eighteenth-century recercadas by Sebasti�n
Albero (1722-1756), slightly austere despite being very arpeggiated and finishing with a cadenza. This is followed
by a very Halffterian dance of a characteristically Spanish nature.
Ernesto Halffter began writing Suite l�rica in 1940 during his Lisbon period, reflected in works such as Rapsodia
portuguesa and Seis canciones portuguesas. But the extract titled Llanto por Ricardo Vi�es was probably composed
between 29 April (the date of Vi�es’s death in Barcelona), and 20 December 1943, the day it was premiered by
the Portuguese pianist, Elena da Costa.
Federico Sope�a was fully justified when he commented that ‘the history of modern music (i.e. the first half of the
twentieth century) could not be written without Ricardo Vi�es’. A number of very significant twentieth-century piano
compositions were dedicated to Ricardo Vi�es Roda (1875-1943) and he himself premiered a great number of works.
Educated in L�rida, his native city, and later in Barcelona under Joan Baptista Pujol (piano) and Pedrell (harmony),
in 1890 he launched a career that would lead him to form part of the principal artistic and intellectual circles of Paris,
where Halffter benefited from his expertise and friendship. Vi�es, a man of vast musical and literary culture, was
described by Professor Tom�s Andrade de Silva as ‘the most unique pianist Spain ever had, both for his intimate
awareness of sonority and for the inspired architectural conception of his interpretations’. Llanto por Ricardo Vi�es,
which did so much for Spanish music abroad, is the Madrilenian composer’s sad and solemn lament for the great
Catalonian pianist. In the style of pieces Falla dedicated to Debussy and Dukas, its arpeggiated chords give a
somewhat medieval atmosphere to the opening of the work. The poetic chords and sombre motives that follow
signify a serene farewell.
Although Spanish keyboard music was already very advanced by the end of the seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries with composers such as Cabanilles and Rodr�guez Monllor, the work of Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
provided a tremendous inspiration, as can be seen in the music of Antonio Soler and others. Nationalistic piano music,
from Granados to Falla, Rodolfo Halffter, Rodrigo and Ernesto Halffter, paid special attention to the Neapolitan genius.
The presence of Scarlattian elements could already be perceived in the composer’s early music as well as in the
famous Sinfonietta and Sonatina. Sonata homenaje a Scalatti presents a musical form similar to those created by
the the Italian musician at the Spanish court, transformed into the neo-baroque aesthetic of the twentieth century.
Genoveva G�lvez gave the premiere at the Prado Museum, Madrid, on 14 September 1985, the year of Scarlatti’s
bicentenary. Towards the end of the sonata, Halffter quotes the theme from the well-known Cat’s Fugue from
D. Scarlatti’s Sonata in G minor K. 30. Genoveva G�lvez played the work on the harpsichord, which seems closer
to the composer being celebrated, but Halffter conceived the work for piano, and this justifies its performance
on either instrument.
I had the privilege of hearing the composer himself perform Nocturno oto�al: recordando a Chopin, at his last
home in Madrid. To commemorate the centenary in 1987 of the birth of Artur Rubinstein (1887-1982), the founder
of the Santander International Piano Competition, Paloma O’Shea, commissioned a series of works in homage to the
great Polish pianist, one of the most eminent performers of Chopin’s music. In this work, written in the autumn of
his life (he died two years later in Madrid on 5 July 1989), Ernesto expressed the melancholy of time irremediably
running out.
But Halffter would still complete three piano pieces in homage to the memory of three Spanish colleagues and friends –
llian Joaqu�n Turina (1882-1949) of Seville, Federico Mompou (1893-1987) of Barcelona, and his brother, Rodolfo
Halffter (1900-1987) from Madrid. Guillermo Gonz�lez premiered all three works, the first two during the inauguration
of the Manuel de Falla Archive in Granada (9 March 1981), and Homenaje a Rodolfo Halffter at the Real Academia
de Bellas Artes, Madrid (5 December 1992)."
Source: Naxos Film Music Classics CD, 2011
Format: FLAC(RAR) files, 16-44, DDD Stereo
File Size: 251 MB (incl. artwork, LOG, CUE)
Please request the FLAC link (including the complete
artwork & booklet, LOG & CUE) in this thread. PMs will be ignored!
This is my own rip. Please do not share my material any further, also please
add to my reputation!
