MARCH 2019 | Ray's Round-Up: Miguel Alvarez-Argudo

MARCH 2019 | Ray's Round-Up: Miguel Alvarez-Argudo

By Ray Picot

Valencia is the third largest city in Spain, and whilst it has a proud cultural history, its composers, from an international perspective, seem to receive less attention than their contemporaries from Madrid and Barcelona. Pianist, Miguel Alvarez Argudo, has started to rectify this imbalance through an impressive discography, which covers over 300 years of musical history. For the purpose of this survey I have referred mainly to Alvarez Argudo’s own website, which lists the majority of his recordings: www.malvarez.com.

It should be noted that Professor Alvarez Argudo combines the life of concerto artist, teacher and writer, with his 'pedagogic notebooks' to help students with the complexities of mastering diverse modern idioms. His recordings, some made in conjunction with Valencia University, cover an astonishing number of composers, offering an almost unprecedented treasure trove waiting for the enquiring mind.

Miguel Alvarez Argudo has proved adept at uncovering some forgotten gems of the 19th Century, with a most interesting pair of albums exploring the works of Marcial del Adalid. However, he has become a specialist in contemporary Spanish music, where he combines avant-garde music and scores that are connected to the tonal tradition. His monographic recordings of modern composers like César Cano, Rafael Mira and Josep Soler are outstanding. In my quest to learn more about Valencian composers, I started out with a valuable two-disc survey entitled Historia del pianismo valenciano which takes the listener on a whirlwind trip from the Baroque to the present day. However, the contrast of the familiar with the unknown has been most effectively explored in a three-volume survey entitled Pianismo valenciano,1950-2000 which samples Valencian musical life, teeming with its many different personalities and styles, in a most authoritative style and selection.

Volumes 1 and 3 cover 11 and 13 composers respectively, so the pieces, out of necessity, tend to be quite short in duration. Each volume tends to explore particular styles of composition, so that despite the number of compositions recorded, they work together well to make this a genuinely interesting voyage of discovery.

The composers covered in the three volumes of Pianismo valenciano,1950-2000 are as follows:

Volume 1

Eduardo Montesinos
L. Querol
Matilde Salvador
César Cano
Francisco Llacer Pla
J. M. Sanchis
Bernardo Adam Ferrero
F. Tamarit
Jose Baguena Soler
J. Pons
J. A. Orts

Volume 2

Eduardo Lopez-Chavarri
Leopoldo Magenti
Manuel Palau
Francesc Cuesta
Carlos Palacio

Volume 3

Vicente Asencio
H. Oltra
Ricardo Baixauli
E. Artal
Luis Blanes
Fernando Ferrer-Farran
Salvator Chulia
M. T. Otler
Sergei Pastor
L. Villena
Armando Blanquer
Emilio Calandin
Joaquín Rodrigo

Many of you will find Volume 2 particularly appealing as it focuses on the works written by composers described by Tomás Marco as ‘regional nationalists', and the survey goes back to 1921. One aspect of this volume is that there are fewer composers but longer pieces, so I have gone into this in more detail. The album opens with what is considered Eduardo López Chavarri’s greatest work for the piano, the Sonata levantina. Written in 1955, the sonata is folk-inspired, with melodies and rhythms redolent of Valencian folklore, rather than quoted. The music’s style transitions between Impressionism and Romanticism, and its outward charm disguises its difficulty, over the work’s 20 minutes. López-Chavarri is described by Tomás Marco as ‘a true intellectual and the great patriarch of Valencian music’; widely active through his long life in Spain, he founded an orchestra and was equally well-known as a composer, critic and musicologist.

Leopoldo Magenti Chelvi is best known for his zarzuelas but his easy-going style translates very well to his suite, Estampas mediterráneas. Though a less complex work, it delightfully evokes four Mediterranean scenes with characteristic use of folk-like melodies. The suite is described as ‘symphonic’ and was recorded many years ago in by José Iturbi in an orchestral version. You can hear the music on Youtube, scored most effectively for symphonic band.

Francisco Cuesta was born 15 years after López Chavarri in 1890, but died tragically early in 1921. He was considered an innovative composer in his time and the three delightful inventive pieces played here, Preludio, Canción valenciana and Danza valenciana, demonstrate this most eloquently, with the folk element subtly portrayed.

The music of Manuel Palau is better known throughout Spain than the previous composers. Whilst his music certainly exhibits some French flavour it is thoroughly immersed in the Spanish Levant as can be heard in the nicely contrasted Toccata and the delightful Sonatina Valencia. Palau’s piano music shows a keen sense of rhythm and a distinctive style, which is well demonstrated in these two pieces written in 1938 and 1943.

The disc ends with three pieces taken from the two major suites entitled España en mi corazón (Spain in My Heart) by Carlos Palacio García. This is very immediate and music written in an attractive folk-inflected style. Not perhaps very weighty but idiomatic music, which rounds off the collection very well.

The ranges of styles covered in Volumes 1 and 3 is excellent, with some which include more challenging modern pieces. The first disc helpfully has (in Spanish) short descriptions of the pieces, which are not included in the subsequent volumes. I found this album particularly enjoyable, with some real gems. Matilde Salvador ’s Sonatina is a particular delight, which looks back to Scarlatti. Both volumes include some collections which are from César Cano, J. M. Sanchis, J. A. Orts, Sergei Pastor and Armando Blanquer, which help provide some necessary ballast to the shorter pieces. The third disc opens with two more modern pieces, typical of composers who followed the Generation of ’51, contrasted by some Satiesque figurations in Artal’s Canco trista. This use of effective contrasts helps maintain the listener’s interest which continues throughout these recordings, and though there are some more challenging pieces they have been clearly selected for their intrinsic interest and quality. Whilst some of the music is not without humour these are serious collections, but despite the number of unfamiliar works, each volume maintains the listener’s interest. One can only hope that more pianists of the calibre of Miguel Alvarez Argudo are encouraged to explore the distinctive compositional voices on display on each of these albums, some of which are covered in the series catalogued on his website: www.malvarez.com.

Regretfully, the record company that released these recordings is no longer trading, and copies are quite hard to come by. In the absence of any streaming or downloading options, the pianist has a good quantity of these CDs which he sells directly, via his website. However, he is able to sell most of the recordings which are detailed on his website, with some samples, and details of his pedagogic publications. I was pleased to see that iTunes has a good range of recordings made with other labels.

So I will end with some further recommendations. Andrés Valero-Castells writes in a modern amenable style (not Minimalist or Neo-Romantic) but his inventive piano writing was a real discovery and this has lead me to his other larger compositions. César Cano proved to be more accessible than I imagined and his series of Jácaras are brilliantly inventive. Recordings of Josep Soler have achieved international acclaim and the album Meditació is an extraordinary journey into the depths of the austere language of this composer. The collection Heptagonal brilliantly explores the different paths explored by contemporary Spanish composers. Compositors Valencians Segle XX offers a nicely varied introduction to what might be for many, unfamiliar music, as does Compositors Catalans Segle XX and M.

Very little is heard these days of Valencian Baroque music, but the album Compositors barrocs valencians demonstrates that there was a burgeoning music-scene with some really inventive keyboard music being written. This album collects 9 single-movement sonatas written towards the end of the 18th Century, which make for a very interesting and well played selection performed on the piano.

The renewed interest in the 19th-Century music of Spain has resulted in some very special albums and discoveries. After Fernando Sor one of the next important figures on the Spanish piano music scene was Marcial Del Adalid (1826-1881), who was a pupil of Moscheles, and cultivated a very attractive Chopinesque style. The music is really well put together and whilst the sources of pianist inspiration are evident, over the two albums Alvarez Argudo demonstrates why he attained a considerable degree of popularity, with most of his music published in Madrid and Paris. The first album contains many of Adalid’s best known works, written around 1850, which are given very sympathetic readings in a very natural acoustic. In later life the composer was interested in Galician folk music and simplified his writing style, which is exemplified in the composer’s last work, Enfantillages, which was published after his death. This collection of 12 short character pieces have a refined simplicity without losing charm or interest, and deserve to be more widely heard. The next generation of Valencian pianist-composers is most attractively covered in the album, El piano fin de siècle recorded for the label Patrimonio Musical Valenciano. Five composers, including the better known Ruperto Chapí are most winningly represented, offering a fascinating glimpse in to the world of the late 19th-Century salons and parlours.

I shall conclude this survey with three collections: inspired by the region of Garabella (Castile-La Mancha) which has acted as the pianist’s spiritual refuge, Miguel Alvarez Argudo offers a characteristic collection of slower tempo pieces on Relax Piano Music ending with the natural sounds of the region. It is a quite disarming collection and the inclusion of more modern compositions does not distract from the overall aim of the album. For a more classic blend of the familiar and the rare in Spanish repertoire, I found the double album Fidelity quite illuminating and an excellent collection to play through. Malvarezmix is a clever collection of 30 pieces which traverses an extraordinary range of repertoire, ending with Beethoven.

Alvarez Argudo has also edited some more interesting recordings of two-piano works (with contemporary Valencian music), Saxophone and piano (a historical recording of his beginnings, also with contemporary Spanish works) and one of Christmas music with jazzy aspects.

Finally I would like to express my gratitude for the singular generosity of Miguel Alvarez Argudo in sending me most of his recordings ‘to enjoy’. In fact I found them very stimulating and the sheer consistency of interpretive and recording quality made them an absolute pleasure to explore. It has (only!) taken me a year to write this overview but I can say unequivocally that I found it hard to know where to begin.


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News News Archive Concert Reviews CD Reviews Musicology Newsletter	MARCH 2019 \| Ray's Round-Up: Miguel Alvarez-Argudo MARCH 2019 \| Ray's Round-Up: Miguel Alvarez-Argudo By Ray Picot Valencia is the third largest city in Spain, and whilst it has a proud cultural history, its composers, from an international perspective, seem to receive less attention than their contemporaries from Madrid and Barcelona. Pianist, Miguel Alvarez Argudo, has started to rectify this imbalance through an impressive discography, which covers over 300 years of musical history. For the purpose of this survey I have referred mainly to Alvarez Argudo’s own website, which lists the majority of his recordings: www.malvarez.com. It should be noted that Professor Alvarez Argudo combines the life of concerto artist, teacher and writer, with his 'pedagogic notebooks' to help students with the complexities of mastering diverse modern idioms. His recordings, some made in conjunction with Valencia University, cover an astonishing number of composers, offering an almost unprecedented treasure trove waiting for the enquiring mind. Miguel Alvarez Argudo has proved adept at uncovering some forgotten gems of the 19th Century, with a most interesting pair of albums exploring the works of Marcial del Adalid. However, he has become a specialist in contemporary Spanish music, where he combines avant-garde music and scores that are connected to the tonal tradition. His monographic recordings of modern composers like César Cano, Rafael Mira and Josep Soler are outstanding. In my quest to learn more about Valencian composers, I started out with a valuable two-disc survey entitled Historia del pianismo valenciano which takes the listener on a whirlwind trip from the Baroque to the present day. However, the contrast of the familiar with the unknown has been most effectively explored in a three-volume survey entitled Pianismo valenciano,1950-2000 which samples Valencian musical life, teeming with its many different personalities and styles, in a most authoritative style and selection. Volumes 1 and 3 cover 11 and 13 composers respectively, so the pieces, out of necessity, tend to be quite short in duration. Each volume tends to explore particular styles of composition, so that despite the number of compositions recorded, they work together well to make this a genuinely interesting voyage of discovery. The composers covered in the three volumes of Pianismo valenciano,1950-2000 are as follows: Volume 1 Eduardo Montesinos L. Querol Matilde Salvador César Cano Francisco Llacer Pla J. M. Sanchis Bernardo Adam Ferrero F. Tamarit Jose Baguena Soler J. Pons J. A. Orts Volume 2 Eduardo Lopez-Chavarri Leopoldo Magenti Manuel Palau Francesc Cuesta Carlos Palacio Volume 3 Vicente Asencio H. Oltra Ricardo Baixauli E. Artal Luis Blanes Fernando Ferrer-Farran Salvator Chulia M. T. Otler Sergei Pastor L. Villena Armando Blanquer Emilio Calandin Joaquín Rodrigo Many of you will find Volume 2 particularly appealing as it focuses on the works written by composers described by Tomás Marco as ‘regional nationalists', and the survey goes back to 1921. One aspect of this volume is that there are fewer composers but longer pieces, so I have gone into this in more detail. The album opens with what is considered Eduardo López Chavarri’s greatest work for the piano, the Sonata levantina. Written in 1955, the sonata is folk-inspired, with melodies and rhythms redolent of Valencian folklore, rather than quoted. The music’s style transitions between Impressionism and Romanticism, and its outward charm disguises its difficulty, over the work’s 20 minutes. López-Chavarri is described by Tomás Marco as ‘a true intellectual and the great patriarch of Valencian music’; widely active through his long life in Spain, he founded an orchestra and was equally well-known as a composer, critic and musicologist. Leopoldo Magenti Chelvi is best known for his zarzuelas but his easy-going style translates very well to his suite, Estampas mediterráneas. Though a less complex work, it delightfully evokes four Mediterranean scenes with characteristic use of folk-like melodies. The suite is described as ‘symphonic’ and was recorded many years ago in by José Iturbi in an orchestral version. You can hear the music on Youtube, scored most effectively for symphonic band. Francisco Cuesta was born 15 years after López Chavarri in 1890, but died tragically early in 1921. He was considered an innovative composer in his time and the three delightful inventive pieces played here, Preludio, Canción valenciana and Danza valenciana, demonstrate this most eloquently, with the folk element subtly portrayed. The music of Manuel Palau is better known throughout Spain than the previous composers. Whilst his music certainly exhibits some French flavour it is thoroughly immersed in the Spanish Levant as can be heard in the nicely contrasted Toccata and the delightful Sonatina Valencia. Palau’s piano music shows a keen sense of rhythm and a distinctive style, which is well demonstrated in these two pieces written in 1938 and 1943. The disc ends with three pieces taken from the two major suites entitled España en mi corazón (Spain in My Heart) by Carlos Palacio García. This is very immediate and music written in an attractive folk-inflected style. Not perhaps very weighty but idiomatic music, which rounds off the collection very well. The ranges of styles covered in Volumes 1 and 3 is excellent, with some which include more challenging modern pieces. The first disc helpfully has (in Spanish) short descriptions of the pieces, which are not included in the subsequent volumes. I found this album particularly enjoyable, with some real gems. Matilde Salvador ’s Sonatina is a particular delight, which looks back to Scarlatti. Both volumes include some collections which are from César Cano, J. M. Sanchis, J. A. Orts, Sergei Pastor and Armando Blanquer, which help provide some necessary ballast to the shorter pieces. The third disc opens with two more modern pieces, typical of composers who followed the Generation of ’51, contrasted by some Satiesque figurations in Artal’s Canco trista. This use of effective contrasts helps maintain the listener’s interest which continues throughout these recordings, and though there are some more challenging pieces they have been clearly selected for their intrinsic interest and quality. Whilst some of the music is not without humour these are serious collections, but despite the number of unfamiliar works, each volume maintains the listener’s interest. One can only hope that more pianists of the calibre of Miguel Alvarez Argudo are encouraged to explore the distinctive compositional voices on display on each of these albums, some of which are covered in the series catalogued on his website: www.malvarez.com. Regretfully, the record company that released these recordings is no longer trading, and copies are quite hard to come by. In the absence of any streaming or downloading options, the pianist has a good quantity of these CDs which he sells directly, via his website. However, he is able to sell most of the recordings which are detailed on his website, with some samples, and details of his pedagogic publications. I was pleased to see that iTunes has a good range of recordings made with other labels. So I will end with some further recommendations. Andrés Valero-Castells writes in a modern amenable style (not Minimalist or Neo-Romantic) but his inventive piano writing was a real discovery and this has lead me to his other larger compositions. César Cano proved to be more accessible than I imagined and his series of Jácaras are brilliantly inventive. Recordings of Josep Soler have achieved international acclaim and the album Meditació is an extraordinary journey into the depths of the austere language of this composer. The collection Heptagonal brilliantly explores the different paths explored by contemporary Spanish composers. Compositors Valencians Segle XX offers a nicely varied introduction to what might be for many, unfamiliar music, as does Compositors Catalans Segle XX and M. Very little is heard these days of Valencian Baroque music, but the album Compositors barrocs valencians demonstrates that there was a burgeoning music-scene with some really inventive keyboard music being written. This album collects 9 single-movement sonatas written towards the end of the 18th Century, which make for a very interesting and well played selection performed on the piano. The renewed interest in the 19th-Century music of Spain has resulted in some very special albums and discoveries. After Fernando Sor one of the next important figures on the Spanish piano music scene was Marcial Del Adalid (1826-1881), who was a pupil of Moscheles, and cultivated a very attractive Chopinesque style. The music is really well put together and whilst the sources of pianist inspiration are evident, over the two albums Alvarez Argudo demonstrates why he attained a considerable degree of popularity, with most of his music published in Madrid and Paris. The first album contains many of Adalid’s best known works, written around 1850, which are given very sympathetic readings in a very natural acoustic. In later life the composer was interested in Galician folk music and simplified his writing style, which is exemplified in the composer’s last work, Enfantillages, which was published after his death. This collection of 12 short character pieces have a refined simplicity without losing charm or interest, and deserve to be more widely heard. The next generation of Valencian pianist-composers is most attractively covered in the album, El piano fin de siècle recorded for the label Patrimonio Musical Valenciano. Five composers, including the better known Ruperto Chapí are most winningly represented, offering a fascinating glimpse in to the world of the late 19th-Century salons and parlours. I shall conclude this survey with three collections: inspired by the region of Garabella (Castile-La Mancha) which has acted as the pianist’s spiritual refuge, Miguel Alvarez Argudo offers a characteristic collection of slower tempo pieces on Relax Piano Music ending with the natural sounds of the region. It is a quite disarming collection and the inclusion of more modern compositions does not distract from the overall aim of the album. For a more classic blend of the familiar and the rare in Spanish repertoire, I found the double album Fidelity quite illuminating and an excellent collection to play through. Malvarezmix is a clever collection of 30 pieces which traverses an extraordinary range of repertoire, ending with Beethoven. Alvarez Argudo has also edited some more interesting recordings of two-piano works (with contemporary Valencian music), Saxophone and piano (a historical recording of his beginnings, also with contemporary Spanish works) and one of Christmas music with jazzy aspects. Finally I would like to express my gratitude for the singular generosity of Miguel Alvarez Argudo in sending me most of his recordings ‘to enjoy’. In fact I found them very stimulating and the sheer consistency of interpretive and recording quality made them an absolute pleasure to explore. It has (only!) taken me a year to write this overview but I can say unequivocally that I found it hard to know where to begin. Site design and content copyright © 1998-2023 The Iberian and Latin American Music Society, all rights reserved. ILAMS is a registered charity, No. 1092749