Falla: El amor brujo (1915 Version) & El retablo de maese Pedro

"... wonderfully played"

Nominee in Symphonic Music award category

****

Recommended

“… Winning performances of two Falla masterpieces… Adding to the attraction of the performances are informative notes by Artistic Director Moughalian and complete texts with English translation. If you are native Spanish, I am quite sure you wouldn’t need the texts, the singers’ diction being extraordinarily clear. For the rest of us they are invaluable. While there are other choices available for these works, I know of none better than this Naxos recording and so heartily recommend it.”

Supersonic Pizzicato

“Manuel de Falla reworked his El Amor Brujo several times, and usually one hears the 1925 version. This CD features the original version of 1915, set for a much smaller orchestra and with a longer vocal part. The 61-year-old American-Spanish conductor Angel Gil-Ordonez has recorded it with the New York-based Perspectives Ensemble. On the one hand, it is slimmer, fresher and more colorful than the revised version, but on the other, it is more sensual. The wonderful flamenco singer Esperanza Fernandez gives the music a lot of authenticity. Gil-Ordonez conducts in very lively and with great intensity. The small chamber opera El Retablo de Maese Pedro, uses an episode from Cervantes’s Don Quixote and is characterized by very unusual instrumentation. In this recording, it gets exquisite colours and a thrilling rhythm. Jennifer Zetlan is outstanding in the role of the little Trujaman, and tenor Jorge Garza as Master Pedro and baritone Alfredo Garcia as Don Quixote are also convincing. The recorded sound is also excellent, so that this is a highly recommendable production.”

 

"... with Esperanza Fernández as the cantora, there's no lack of bite and raw intensity, and paired with a pungent account of another of Falla's utterly original music-theatre pieces, the chamber opera El Retablo de Maese Pedro, it's a really desirable bargain."