Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

<i>Obra vocal: Obras para voz y piano</i> (review)

2008; Music Library Association; Volume: 64; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/not.0.0029

1534-150X

Walter Aaron Clark,

Libraries, Manuscripts, and Books

Reviewed by: Obra vocal: Obras para voz y piano Walter Aaron Clark Isaac Albéniz. Obra vocal: Obras para voz y piano. Revisión y edición Mac McClure, Frances Barulich. Barcelona: Editorial de Música Boileau, c2006. [Vol. 1: Biography, introd. and crit. notes, in Sp., Eng., Cat., p. 5– 19; score, p. 21–64. ISMN M-3503-0363-0; ISBN 84-8020-795-7; Reg. B.3232. i20. Vol. 2: Facsim., p. 4; biography, introd. and crit. notes, in Sp., Eng., Cat., p. 5–31; score, p. 32–104. ISMN M-3503-0364-7; ISBN 84 8020-796-5; Reg. B.3233. i23. Vol. 3: Selección de obras líricas para voz y piano. Nomenclature and table of tessituras, p. 5; biography, introd. and crit. notes, in Sp., Eng., Cat., p. 7–18; score, p. 19–116. ISMN M-3503 0365-4; ISBN 84-8020-797-3; Reg. B.3234. i 25.] Millions of people have heard the music of Isaac Albéniz (1860–1909), have recognized and enjoyed his memorable melodies, without being able to attach his name to any of it. The Prelude to his Chants d'Espagne, a virtuoso showpiece for piano usually performed on the guitar, or the lovely Tango in its myriad arrangements and transcriptions, has appeared in television commercials, movie scores, radio programs, and public serenades on street corners and in subways. Albéniz would have been gratified to know how celebrated his piano compositions would one day become. While staying in Prague during the 1897 production there of his opera Pepita Jiménez, he heard a barrel organ grinding out familiar tunes from Lohengrin just outside his hotel window. Wagner was a composer Albéniz not only admired but also clearly envied, and in noting this occurrence in his journal on May 20, he concluded with a wistful exclamation: "Ah, popularity!" (Isaac Albéniz, Impresiones y diarios de viaje, ed. Enrique Franco [Madrid: Fundación Isaac Albéniz, 1990], 46). In time, Albéniz's music would achieve considerable popularity as well, but it has remained the preserve of his piano works and not his operas, much less his songs. Indeed, for decades after his death in 1909, few of the composer's admirers outside Spain even knew how much time and energy Albéniz had invested in vocal music; those who did know nonetheless disparaged his operas in particular, considering them, in one biographer's infamous characterization, "abortions," that is, an utter waste of his talent (Gabriel Laplane, Albéniz, sa vie, son oeuvre [Geneva: Éditions du Milieu du monde, 1956], 104). We now know that this estimation was utterly mistaken; even the most generous and supportive commentators, however, could not have imagined just fifteen years ago the renaissance of interest in Albéniz's music that was soon to occur, and the enormous attention that would be paid to the two neglected aspects of his triune legacy in composition: songs and operas. Indeed, when I was poring over the manuscripts of his stage works in Barcelona archives in 1990, it seemed to me highly unlikely that any of this music would ever be heard again. Nonetheless, thanks largely to musicologist Jacinto Torres (see in particular his Catá logo sistemático descriptivo de las obras musicales de Isaac Albéniz [Madrid: Instituto de Bibliografía Musical, 2001]) and conductor José de Eusebio, his operas Merlin (1898– 1902), Henry Clifford (1895), and at last Pepita Jiménez (1896) have risen phoenix-like from the ashes of obscurity and been produced and recorded (respectively: [End Page 816] Decca 289 467 096-2 [2000], 2 CDs; Decca 473 937-2 [2003], 2 CDs; and Deutsche Grammophon 00289 477 6234-00289 477 6236 [2006], 2 CDs). Merlin even won a Latin Grammy Award for the best classical album of 2001, and Pepita Jiménez was recently nominated for the 2007 best opera recording Grammy. This is beyond the wildest dreams anyone dared entertain only a few years ago. And yet, there is that third note in the triad: the songs. What about them? Based on the edition under consideration here, it would appear that their fortunes are also improving. To be sure, this...