March 8 Will be Even Busier than Expected!

Readers may recall that this site has already accounted for two events taking place on Sunday, March 8, which is now about a week and a half away. The earlier of those events is the next performance by the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, which will begin at 2 p.m., and the other will be a Chamber Music San Francisco program at the Presidio Theater, which will begin at 3 p.m. The latter of these will be a Groupmuse event. It will be “competing” with two other Groupmuse events, one of which is already sold out.

Photograph of a living room, presumably where Scarfe’s recital will be performed (from its Groupmuse Web page)

The full title of the other event is A Victorian Living Room Concert: Solo Piano with Ian Scarfe. The living room is in a historic Victorian home that even has its own name: “Agape.” Scarfe is no stranger to the venue, which is where he played his very first Groupmuse recital. Program details have not yet been finalized, but the composers he has selected are Philip Glass, Frédéric Chopin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados, and Manuel de Falla.

As readers will expect, Groupmuse has created a Web page for purchasing tickets, twelve of which are available as of this writing. Ticket prices will be $20 at the door, but reservations may be made for $5. The performance will begin at 2:30 p.m. after doors open at 2 p.m., and the performance will conclude at 4 p.m.

Ian Scarfe to Bring Spanish Music to Century Club

Poster for the event being described, showing the three performers (screenshot from the Groupmuse Web page)

Pianist Ian Scarfe will begin the new year with his next visit to the Century Club of California. Once again, he will be joined by a cellist, this time James Jaffe. The title of next month’s program will be An Afternoon in Spain – Classical Spanish Music and Flamenco. Each of the instrumentalists will begin with a solo selection.

Scarfe will open the program with Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 19, his “Boléro” in A minor. This will be followed by Jaffe’s performance of the three-movement suite for solo cello composed by Gaspar Cassadó in 1926. (Cassadó was taught by Pablo Casals and was probably influenced by his teacher’s performances of the solo cello suites by Johann Sebastian Bach.) Scarfe will then accompany mezzo Deborah Rosengaus in a performance of Siete canciones populares españolas, Manuel de Falla’s arrangements for soprano and piano of seven traditional Spanish songs.

The remainder of the program will be devoted to settings of Spanish dances. Scarfe will begin with Isaac Albéniz’s Opus 37, the six Danzas Españolas. This will be followed by the “Ritual Fire Dance,” an episode from the music composed Falla for the ballet El amor brujo (the bewitched love). The program will then conclude with the Spanish Dances collection by Enrique Granados.

For those that do not already know, the Century Club is located at 1355 Franklin Street, between Post Street and Sutter Street. However, all arrangements must be made through a Groupmuse Web page. Ticket prices begin at $25, with $5 to hold a reservation. As of this writing, 43 of 75 spots are still available. The performance will begin at 2 p.m. on Sunday, January 25. Doors will open at 1:30 p.m. Drinks will be provided at the intermission (both with and without alcohol). However, the club itself is not wheelchair accessible.

Pepe Romero’s Solo Guitar Recital at Herbst

Many readers probably know by now that last night in Herbst Theatre was originally scheduled to host a performance by the guitar quartet known as The Romeros, presented jointly by San Francisco Performances (SFP) and the OMNI Foundation for the Performing Arts. Unfortunately, the visit had to be cancelled due to a serious illness in the Romero family. As a result, last night hosted a solo performance by one of the quartet’s founding members, Pepe Romero.

The program was richly diverse, accounting for ten different composers, one of whom returned for the encore selection. Two of them were founders of the quartet. The final work on the program was Celedonio Romero’s “Fantasia Cubana,” which required non-standard finger technique. Pepe contributed to the program with a piece entitled “Granadinas.” Celedino also provided two transcriptions of piano compositions. The first of these was the “Andaluza” movement from Enrique Granados’ Danzas Españolas. This was followed by “Granada,” the first of the eight movements in Isaac Albéniz Opus 47, the first of his Suite española compositions.

The first half of the program was shared by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Joaquín Turina. The first composer was represented by the five preludes he composed for solo guitar. The second was “Sevillana,” the first of only five works for solo guitar composed by Turina.

Francisco Tárrega (photographer unknown, from a Wikimedia Commons Web page, public domain)

The encore selection was taken from the works of Francisco Tárrega. It was his “Gran jota Aragonesa.” He had previously appeared near the end of the program with the performance of “Capricho árabe. Taken as a whole, the diversity of the evening was consistently engaging, with Romero providing just the right course through all of that diversity.

SFIPF: A Hispanic Finale

Late yesterday afternoon the San Francisco International Piano Festival concluded with a program entitled Maurizio – Ravel’s Basque & Spanish Masterpieces. The title of the program refers to Maurice Ravel’s origins. He was born on March 7, 1875 in the Basque region, specifically in the French town of Ciboure, near the better-known Biarritz. His father was born in Versoix, near the border with Switzerland; but his mother, born Marie Delouart, was Basque.

The first half of yesterday’s program (which, due to other circumstances, was all I was able to view through my livestream source), featured three Spanish composers (in order of appearance): Manuel de Falla, Enrique Granados, and Joaquín Rodrigo. Paul Sánchez and Asiya Korepanova gave a two-piano account of Rodrigo’s five short pieces collected under the title Piezas infantiles. In the absence of any introduction, it was unclear whether this was music to be played by the young or whether it evoked youthful behavior.

Indeed, no background material was provided regarding any of the compositions or the performers. If the music was familiar, such as the two-piano version of Emanuel Chabrier’s “España” (performed by the same duo), one could appreciate the familiar rhetorical context. On the other hand, the Rodrigo set was a journey of discovery (and may have been my first encounter with one of his compositions that did not involve the guitar). Ironically, in spite of its brevity, I came away recalling the classic phrase from the play Amadeus about “too many notes!”

Paul Sanchez accompanying Esther Rayo in her performance of Maurice Ravel’s “Vocalise” (screen shot from the YouTube video of the performance)

The program began with a survey of vocal works by Falla, Ravel, and Debussy sung by soprano Esther Rayo. In this set Ravel was represented by his “Vocalise en forme d’étude,” which has been a personal favorite for some time. Sadly, Rayo took a forceful approach which undermined the cloying subtlety of Ravel’s rhetoric. This was followed by a selection from the first book on the Goyescas collection by Enrique Granados, which Sánchez delivered with excessive affectation. Taken as a whole, the first half of the program did little to meet the expectations promised by the program’s title.

Enrique Granados’ First Opera

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

This is the time of year when the flow of new releases is not as strong as usual. As a result, it provides me with an opportunity to explore works that I had overlooked in the past. This weekend I encountered the two-CD Naxos release of Enrique Granados’ first operatic success, María del Carmen. In Enrique Granados: Poet of the Piano, Walter Aaron Clark praised it as the composer’s best opera, describing it as a Spanish version of Pietro Mascagni’s one-act success, “Cavalleria rusticana” with a happy ending. The album was produced, engineered, and edited by Andrew Lang based on recordings of performances on October 23, 26, and 29, 2003 at the Theatre Royal in Wexford, Ireland.

When the album was released, the back cover provided a hyperlink for the libretto, but it is only in Spanish. If Opera Folio is a reliable source, then an English translation is not currently available. (There is a Web page for it on the Operas Arias Composers Singers Web site, but it is blank!) On the other hand, the accompanying booklet provides a perfectly good synopsis of the plot, with track numbers inserted to guide the listener.

Granados’ operatic achievements are somewhat limited. María del Carmen, composed in 1898, was his first three-act undertaking; but he never completed it. His best-known opera is the one-act “Goyescas,” completed in 1915. He would die the following year. Compared with the other genres in his repertoire, the number of works composed for theatrical performances is quite modest. Nevertheless, one can appreciate his “Hispanic rhetoric” in the instrumental passages of María del Carmen, even if the narrative (based, as is so often the case, on mutual hatred between the protagonists) may involve more “soap” than “opera!” When that plot is set aside, one can still appreciate Granados’ command of a Hispanic rhetoric.

Douglas Riva Performs Enrique Granados

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

Not too long ago I succumbed to an invitation from Naxos to download a complementary album of pianist Douglas Riva playing the twelve Danzas españolas (Spanish dances) composed by Enrique Granados (DLR I:2). The metadata associated with this album cited it as the first volume in a collection of the (presumably complete) piano compositions by Granados. The good news is that Riva’s interpretations are engagingly expressive.

Presumably, this was a “lure” to whet my appetite for further albums in the series. Sadly, the Amazon.com search engine tends to be more than a little haphazard for those interested in the full scope of available recordings of this music. The Complete Works for Piano of Enrique Granados, a critical edition supervised by Alicia de Larrocha (presumably the above “DLR”), consists of eighteen volumes. Thus far, finding further information about content has led to little more than frustration.

Fortunately, I have enough on my plate that I can wait patiently (and indefinitely) for an opportunity to explore a broader account of Granados’ music for solo piano!

CMSF Concludes Season with Beijing Guitars

Duo guitarists Meng Su and Yameng Wang (photograph by Sophie Zhai, from the Beijing Guitar Duo Web site)

The Beijing Guitar Duo of Su Meng and Wang Yameng is no stranger to San Francisco. They gave their first recital in Herbst Theatre for San Francisco Performances (SFP) in April of 2010. They have also often contributed to the Dynamite Guitars series presented by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts. Yesterday afternoon’s visit returned to Herbst but this time under the auspices of Chamber Music San Francisco for the final program in the ten concerts in this year’s season.

The final work was the only one explicitly composed for two guitars, Astor Piazzolla’s Tango Suite. Su herself provided the arrangement of Claude Debussy’s four-hand piano composition Petite Suite. There was also an arrangement by Sergio Assad, who previously had a major impact on guitar studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He prepared the two-guitar version of Radamés Gnattali’s Suite Retratos, which was originally composed for chamber ensemble. The other guitarist familiar to me was Manuel Barrueco (performing in Herbst exactly one week earlier), who arranged Tan Dun’s Opus 1, Eight Memories in Watercolor. The Beijing Duo played five of the movements from that suite. Enrique Granados was included on the program with his eight Valses poéticos, arranged by Christian Gruber and Peter Maklar; and the program began with Mantanya Ophee’s arrangement of César Franck’s organ composition, Prélude, fugue et variation.

Finally, there was one encore selection. This was an arrangement of “Le tic-toc-choc, ou Les maillotins,” from the eighteenth Ordre in F major from the third book in François Couperin’s Livre de piéces de clavecin. This is one of those keyboard compositions that sounds much better on a harpsichord than on a piano. The plucked strings of two guitars served up an excellent evocation of the spirit the composer had in mind.

Taken as a whole, this was a thoroughly engaging journey through an impressively diverse repertoire. Every composition on the program had its own unique rhetorical stance, and the duo players knew exactly how to capture the full breadth of those stances. It might be fair to note that Su and Wang revisited many of the pieces they presented during their last visit in December of 2023, hosted jointly by SFP and Omni; but that was long enough ago that one could still enjoy the repertoire!

April Begins with a New Omni Video

The frequency with which the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts is releasing new videos has become quite impressive. The next release will take place this coming Sunday; and this one is in the Live from St. Mark’s series, video documents of performances that took place here in San Francisco. The date for this particular performance by the Beijing Guitar Duo is December 2, 2023. For those interested in details, I was fortunate enough to cover that concert; and, as usual, documented it as an article on this site. However, the video that will be released this Sunday will account for only three of the selections from that program:

1. The transcription by Matanya Orphee of César Franck’s Opus 18 “Prélude, Fugue et Variation,” which was composed for pipe organ
2. The Valses poéticos collection by Enrique Granados in arrangements by the guitar duo of Christian Gruber and Peter Maklar
3. Astor Piazzolla’s three-movement Tango Suite

As usual, the performance will be streamed through the Omni Foundation’s YouTube channel. The specific YouTube Web page for this program has already been created. Those that visit this page now will see that it will become available for viewing at 10 a.m. on Sunday, April 7. There is no charge for admission, which means that these performances are made possible only by the viewers’ donations. A Web page has been created for processing contributions, and any visits made prior to the streaming itself will be most welcome.

The Next Omni Video: Filippos Manoloudis

Title frame for the Filippos Manoloudis video (from its YouTube Web page)

The next OMNI on-Location video will be released by the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts this coming Sunday. Unlike last Sunday’s release, which consisted of a single relatively short composition, this will be a program of three selections. That program will be performed by Filippos Manoloudis; and it was filmed in Frankfurt, Germany, at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main, which was founded in 1878 by the banker (and music patron) Dr. Joseph Hoch.

Manoloudis will begin his program with seven of the movements from 44 Children’s Pieces on Greek Melodies by Ioannis Constantinidis (who composed popular music under the name Kostas Giannidis), arranged for guitar by Fotis Koutsothodoros. This will be followed by the three guitar compositions by Tōru Takemitsu collected under the title Folios. The program will conclude with Valses poéticos, a collection of eight waltzes for piano, which Manoloudis arranged for himself. The entire video will run for about 35 minutes.

As usual, the performance will be streamed through the Omni Foundation’s YouTube channel. The specific YouTube Web page for this program has already been created. Those that visit this page now will see that it will become available for viewing at 11 a.m. on Sunday, March 24. There is no charge for admission, which means that these performances are made possible only by the viewers’ donations. A Web page has been created for processing contributions, and any visits made prior to the streaming itself will be most welcome.

Guitarist Pepe Romero Returns to Herbst Theatre

Pepe Romero (photograph by Trace Haskins, courtesy of San Francisco Performances)

Last night Herbst Theatre hosted the latest guitar recital presented jointly by San Francisco Performances (SFP) and the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts. The program was a solo performance by Pepe Romero. He introduced his program by saying that this would be the last recital given in his 80th year, since he will turn 80 this coming March 8. He then added that he was looking forward to further performances in his 90s.

Romero has been giving recitals for SFP since May of 1992, and this was his tenth solo appearance. His program provided a diverse account of music as early as the sixteenth century and as recent as the twentieth. Not all of the music was written explicitly for guitar, and Romero prepared his own arrangements of nineteenth-century piano compositions by Enrique Granados and Isaac Albéniz.

The major offering on the program was an account of all five of the preludes composed by Heitor Villa-Lobos. This was my first encounter with the complete set; but their strongest advocate was probably Julian Bream, who probably has the best recorded account. One often tends to think of preludes from a pedagogical point of view; but, following in the footsteps of Claude Debussy, each of these has a programmatic title. Fortunately, these were included in last night’s inset of program notes! The only contemporary composer on the program was Romero himself, who concluded with his own “Fantasia Cubana.” His encore was his own arrangement of one of the most popular Spanish songs, Sebastián Iradler’s “La Paloma.”

Much of the pleasure of last night came from Romero’s chemistry with the audience. He kept his remarks to a minimum, but they always deserved attention. When it seemed appropriate, he would reflect on some aspect of the music he was about to perform; but, for the most part, he let the composers speak for themselves.

Taken as a whole, this was very much an “old school” experience; but, regardless of the “vintage” of any of the selections on the program, Romero knew exactly how to endow it with the freshness of the immediate present.

Perianes Returns with German-Spanish Program

Pianist Javier Perianes (photograph by Igor Studio, courtesy of San Francisco Performances)

Last night Spanish pianist Javier Perianes returned to Herbst Theatre for his second appearance as a soloist for San Francisco Performances. He devoted the first half of his previous recital to the music of Franz Schubert and shifted to the work of Spanish composers in the twentieth century (including those based in Paris) for the second half. Last night’s program had a similar division. This time the “Spanish second half” was devoted entirely to the Goyescas suite, the Opus 11 of Enrique Granados. The first half was an “extended family affair” involving the relationship of Johannes Brahms with Clara and Robert Schumann.

As the title suggests, Goyescas was inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya. However, only one of the six movements carries the title of one of Goya’s works. “El amor y la muerte” (love and death) is the title of one of the prints in Los caprichos. Granados subsequently added an “appendix” to his suite, “El pelele” (the straw man), which is named after one of Goya’s paintings. Taken as a whole, Goyescas is a suite on a large scale, with each of the movements unfolding a narrative reflection on Spanish culture through an extended series of tempo changes. This was a major undertaking for Perianes, and he could not have been more convincing in presenting each of those narratives to his audience.

Since this was the second half of the program, he added a “punch line” by way on an encore. This was a much more familiar selection, the “Danza ritual del fuego” (ritual fire dance) from the one-act ballet “El amor brujo” (love, the sorcerer), whose music was composed by Manuel de Falla. The intensity of Perianes’ delivery put a welcome cap on the depth of the Spanish portion of his recital.

Each of the three composers in the first half was represented by a set of variations. Two of them were based on the same theme, taken from Robert Schumann’s Opus 99 collection entitled Bunte Blätter (colorful leaves). The program began with Clara’s Opus 20 set of variations and concluded with Brahms’ Opus 9 set. Robert’s variations were taken from the third movement of his Opus 14 piano sonata in F minor. For this set the theme was an Andantino movement that Clara had composed. The unfolding of all three of these compositions made for engaging listening. It is worth noting, however, that Robert called his Opus 14 sonata a “concerto without orchestra;” and this modestly engaging set of variations gives the listener a break from the overblown intensity of the other movements!

Taken as a whole, Perianes’ return was a welcome one. He knew how to bring just the right technical command to each of his selections, and his expressiveness was never overblown. He is a recitalist that has something to say, and what he has to say is definitely worthy of attention!

Guitarist Pepe Romero to Return to SFP/Omni

Pepe Romero with his guitar (from the San Francisco Performances event page for his recital)

The next guitar recital to be presented jointly by San Francisco Performances (SFP) and the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts will see the return of Pepe Romero. He is currently the one founding member of the quartet known as The Romeros, and he is now on a tour in celebration of his 80th birthday. His program will survey music that dates back to the Renaissance (Luis de Milán) and advances to the twentieth century with particular attention to the founder of The Romeros, Celedonio. The program will conclude with his “Fantasia Cubana” and will also include his arrangements of piano music by Enrique Granados and Isaac Albéniz.

This performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 10. The venue will be Herbst Theatre, on the first two floors of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. Tickets are being sold for $75 for premium seating in the Orchestra, the Side Boxes, and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $65 for the center rear of the Dress Circle and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $55 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony. They may be purchased through an SFP secure Web page or by calling 415-392-2545.

Spanish Pianist Javier Perianes to Return to SFP

Pianist Javier Perianes (photograph by Igor Studio, courtesy of San Francisco Performances)

Spanish pianist Javier Perianes is no stranger to San Francisco. He made his debut in June of 2015 with the San Francisco Symphony under the baton of Charles Dutoit in a performance of Manuel de Falla’s “Nights in the Gardens of Spain.” This was followed, in May of 2017, with his San Francisco Performances (SFP) recital debut. On that occasion, the second half of his  program was devoted to the Spanish aesthetic of the early twentieth century and the impact of Spanish composers in Paris, while the first half consisted entirely of music by Franz Schubert.

Perianes will return to Herbst Theatre for another SFP recital early next month. Once again, the second half of his program will be Spanish; but this time it will be devoted entirely to the Goyescas suite (Opus 11) by Enrique Granados. The first half will again be Germanic, this time taking an “extended family” approach. It will begin with Clara Schumann’s Opus 20 set of variations based on a theme by her husband Robert. Robert will then be represented by the third movement of his Open 14 piano sonata in F minor, a set of variations on an Andantino movement by Clara. The first half will then conclude with the Opus 9 set of variations on a theme of Robert Schumann by the “extended” family member Johannes Brahms.

This performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 7. The venue will be Herbst Theatre, on the ground floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. Tickets are being sold for $70 for premium seating in the Orchestra, the Side Boxes, and the front and center of the Dress Circle, $60 for the center rear of the Dress Circle and the remainder of the Orchestra, and $50 for the remainder of the Dress Circle and the Balcony. They may be purchased through an SFP secure Web page or by calling 415-392-2545.

De los Ángeles: “Post-Romantic” Songs

Readers may recall that the “lion’s share” of opera recordings in the Victoria de los Ángeles: The Warner Classics Edition; Complete Recordings on His Master’s Voice & La Voix de son maître anthology occupied what I called the “post-romantic” category. This is also the case where arias and songs are involved. As might be expected, a significant portion of that category is devoted to the Spanish repertoire.

What struck me the most in listening to that repertoire was the diversity of “sub-genres” within that category. Thus, in addition to songs that are attributed to a specific composer (who often is providing a “personal twist” to traditional music), the individual albums traverse categories that include not only “Spanish Songs” but also “Songs of Andalusia,” “Songs of Catalonia,” “Sephardic Songs,” and “Zarzuela Arias.” It is also worth noting that the “Songs of Andalusia” category includes the subtitle “Music from the Middle Ages and Renaissance.”

Cover of the original vinyl album of the Hunter College recital by Victoria de los Ángeles accompanied by Alicia de Larrocha (from the Amazo.com Web page for this album)

Personally, I tend to prefer recordings of recitals to the “studio-made” albums. Readers know that I have already cited de los Ángeles’ contributions to the “retirement recital” given by pianist Gerald Moore. However, there is also a French recital album, whose entire repertoire consists of “post-Romantic” compositions by Henri Duparc, Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel. Then there is the 1964 recital in the Royal Festival Hall (again with Moore), which includes composers such as Joaquín Rodrigo, Manuel de Falla, and Joaquín Nin. Several years later, Angel released an album of a recital given “on this side of the pond” at Hunter College, with pianist Alicia de Larrocha accompanying de los Ángeles. That program is distinguished for its account of the two major song cycles composed by Enrique Granados, the Colección de Tonadillas and the Colección de canciones amatorias.

The fact is that these last two paragraphs account for only the “tip of the iceberg” when it comes to the closing of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth. Attentive listeners will find this genre to be the “mother lode” of de los Ángeles’ repertoire. I have only just begun to appreciate the richness of that repertoire, and I expect to spend a fair amount of time getting to know it better!

Beijing Guitar Duo Returns to SFP+Omni

Duo guitarists Meng Su and Yameng Wang (photograph by Wasin Prastlap, courtesy of SFP)

Last night in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, the Beijing Guitar Duo of Meng Su and Yameng Wang returned to the San Francisco Performances (SFP) Guitar Series, presented in partnership with the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts. They have been frequent and consistently welcome visitors since their first SFP recital in April of 2010. They served as SFP Guitarists-in-Residence between 2011 and 2015. This is their sixth appearance and the first since the pandemic.

Over the course of my encounters with them, I have been consistently impressed with their performances of transcriptions of piano music. What made Su’s transcriptions for the first half of the program particularly interesting was that both Claude Debussy’s Petite Suite and Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 56 Dolly were composed for four hands on a single keyboard. To take on even richer keyboard textures, they began the program with a transcription by Matanya Orphee of César Franck’s Opus 18 “Prélude, Fugue et Variation,” which was composed for pipe organ. The clarity they brought to all three of these richly elaborate compositions was nothing short of jaw-dropping.

The second half of the program shifted over to the Hispanic repertoire, beginning with transcriptions of three works for solo piano. The first of these was the Valses poéticos collection by Enrique Granados in arrangements by the guitar duo of Christian Gruber and Peter Maklar. This was followed by Miguel Llobet’s transcriptions of two compositions by Isaac Albéniz, “Sous le palmier” from the Opus 232 Chants d’Espagne collection and “Castilla,” the seventh movement in the first Suite española collection (Opus 47). The program then concluded with Astor Piazzolla’s three-movement Tango Suite, which he composed for his close friends, the guitarists Sérgio and Odair Assad. Taken as a whole, this was a refreshing change in perspective from the French repertoire in the first half of the program.

However, the repertoire returned to France for the first encore. This was a selection from the eighteenth Ordre in the massive collection of keyboard music by François Couperin, “Le tic-toc-choc.” This was followed by one of the movements from Tan Dun’s Opus 1 Memories in Watercolor. (I did not catch the title very clearly, but I think it was the “Herdboy’s Song.”)

It goes without saying that I was delighted to have another encounter with the Beijing Guitar Duo. Their approach to repertoire is consistently inventive, and their technical skills live up to any challenge that confronts them. Su is now on the faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Hopefully, this means that there will be many engaging guitar opportunities to come.

Beijing Guitar Duo to Return to SFP

The Beijing Guitar Duo of Yameng Wang and Meng Su (courtesy of SFP)

Prior to the pandemic, the Beijing Guitar Duo of Meng Su and Yameng Wang were relatively frequent visitors to the San Francisco Performances (SFP) Guitar Series, presented in partnership with the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts. At the beginning of next month, they will make their sixth SFP appearance, the first being on a program with their teacher Manuel Barrueco in 2010. This was followed by their serving as SFP Guitarists-in-Residence between 2011 and 2015. My own fondest memory was when they gave a one-hour recital at the Hotel Rex in the SFP Salons series in March of 2012.

As is often the case, Su and Wang perform transcriptions of a prodigious span of piano music. I was particularly impressed by their performances of keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti; and, during my tenure with Examiner.com, I wrote enthusiastically about how they took on Claude Debussy’s Petite Suite (originally scored for piano four hands). The Duo will revisit that transcription when they return next month to perform the final SFP program of the fall season. The Debussy selection will serve as a “keystone” between two other French composers. The program will begin with César Franck’s Opus 18 set of a prelude, a fugue, and a set of variations. Petite Suite will then be followed by another suite, Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 56, given the title Dolly.

The second half of the program will then turn to Hispanic influences. They will begin with Enrique Granados’ set of 8 Valses Poéticos. This will be followed by two selections by Isaac Albéniz, “Sous le palmier” (under the palm tree) from the Opus 232 Chants d'Espagne and “Castilla” from Opus 47, the first of the Suite Española compositions. The geography will then shift to Argentina with Ástor Piazzolla’s three-movement “Tango Suite.”

This performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 2. The venue will be St. Mark’s Lutheran Church at 1111 O’Farrell Street, just west of the corner of Franklin Street. All tickets are being sold for $60, both on the main floor and in the balcony. They may be purchased through an SFP secure Web Page or by calling 415-392-2545.

Omni Video Premiere: Duo Evocaciones

Guitarist Pietro Locatto and cellist Martina Biondi (courtesy of the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts)

This morning the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts released the latest video to be added to its Omni On Location series. As was the case with the last video in this series, the performance involved the pairing of a guitarist, Pietro Locatto, with another instrumentalist, this time cellist Martina Biondi. This time the video was recorded in Villa Ala, an eighteenth-century villa located in the Italian town of Rivalba. The performance took place earlier this year on February 20.

The performers call themselves Duo Evocaciones. As they put it, their objective is to “‘evoke’ the expressive colors of the main protagonists of the Spanish national school which developed between the 19th and 20th centuries.” Only one of the works on the program was explicitly composed for the cello, “Requiebros” (compliments), by Gaspar Cassadó, written for cello and piano in 1934. (As might be guessed, Cassadó was, himself, a cellist.)

The entire program was framed by arrangements of two instrumental compositions. It began with the “Intermezzo” from the one-act opera “Goyescas,” composed by Enrique Granados; and it concluded with the “Danza ritual del fuego” (ritual fire dance) from the one-act ballet “El amor brujo” (love, the sorcerer), whose music was composed by Manuel de Falla. The remaining works on the program were arrangements of music originally composed for solo piano. The first of these was “Granada,” the opening movement of the first collection that Isaac Albéniz entitled Suite Española. The other two were selected from the collection of twelve Spanish dances compiled by Granados.

Those of my generation are likely to associate at least some of these selections with solo performances by guitarist Andrés Segovia. Others might associate these performances with the recent cello-piano recital presented by LIEDER ALIVE! at the end of last month. Personally, I found myself easily drawn into the cello-guitar arrangements of music that I had previously known from guitarists and/or pianists. Duo Evocaciones has clearly established their own approach to repertoire; and I would have no problem with encountering them a second time, perhaps when they embark on a tour of the United States!

Amparo Iturbi’s Turn on Sony Classical

As many readers probably know by now, I have invested about a week and a half in working my way through the From Hollywood to the World: The Rediscovered Recordings by Pianist and Conductor José Iturbi collection of sixteen CDs released by Sony Classical. Ironically, Iturbi is almost entirely absent from the final three CDs in this collection, all of which are focused on his sister Amparo. Over the course of the 39 tracks that wrap up the package, so to speak, José shows up on only three two-piano selections, two of which involve the same piece of music: Manuel Infante’s “Ritmo,” the first movement in his collection of three Andalusian dances. Between those two tracks the Iturbi siblings play the third and final movement of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 448 sonata for two pianos in D major (which had appeared in its entirety on the fourth CD in the collection).

For the most part the tracks on those final CDs are brief, almost suggesting that they are encore candidates. The most notable exception is the fifteenth CD, which is devoted entirely to the Goyescas music composed by Enrique Granados. This is a suite that the composer structured into two “books.” The first book, which was given its first performance on March 11, 1911, consists of four movements:

• “Los requiebros” (the compliments)
• “Coloquio en la reja” (conversation at the window)
• “El fandango de candil” (fandango by candlelight)
• “Quejas, o la maja y el ruiseñor” (complaint, or the girl and the nightingale)

Francisco de Goya’s “El amor y la muerte” print from his Caprichos collection (provided by the Museo del Prado, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

The second book was completed in December of 1911 and consisted of only two movements:

• El amor y la muerte (Balada) (ballad of love and death)
• Epilogo: Serenata del espectro (epilogue: serenade to a spectre)

However, Granados seemed to have one more movement in mind, entitled “El pelele: Escena Goyesca” (the puppet: Goya scene). He first performed this on March 29, 1914, about half a week before the other two movements were first performed. “El pelele” (named after the 1791 painting that Francisco Goya made for King Charles IV of Spain) tends not to be included in piano performances of Goyescas and is better known in the instrumental version that begins Granados’ one-act “Goyescas” opera. Amparo included it on her Goyescas album but used it for the opening track, rather than having it follow the epilogue. Personally, I approve that she did not neglect this “extra” movement and had the good sense to use it as an opening!

The final CD offers two multimovement compositions from decidedly different centuries. The earlier of these is Mozart’s K. 333 sonata in B-flat, which accounts for the last three tracks on the album. This is complemented at the beginning with Maurice Ravel’s seven-movement “Valses nobles et sentimentales.” Between these “bookends,” Amparo provides selected movements by Emanuel Chabrier, Franz Schubert, and Dmitri Shostakovich, along with Gabriel Fauré’s Opus 34 (third) impromptu in A-flat major and an unfamiliar but brief sampling of a Valencian dance movement by Eduardo López-Chavarri.

One wonders where Amparo’s repertoire ventures would have led her had she made more of her own recordings.

Iturbis: The “Second” Round of Solo and Duo Piano

The ninth, tenth, and eleventh CDs in Sony Classical’s sixteen-CD collection entitled From Hollywood to the World: The Rediscovered Recordings by Pianist and Conductor José Iturbi offer the “second” collection of piano music performed by José Iturbi. As was the case in the first collection, several of the performances are duos that José performed with his sister Amparo. In this collection, however, none of the tracks present solo performances by Amparo.

Note, however, the scare quotes around the adjective “second.” The recording sessions for the fourth, fifth, and sixth CDs took place between 1950 and 1952, while the three CDs being discussed here were recorded between 1933 and 1949. This left me wondering how much thought was put into the planning of this collection with any consideration for allowing listeners to appreciate how the Iturbis approached their repertoire when they were working in recording studios, rather than in the presence of an audience. This includes the fact that Amaparo’s presence in this “second set” is far more diminished than it had been in the first.

The good news is that the ninth CD provides the first opportunity to listen to José’s approach to two Mozart sonatas, K. 331 in A major and K. 332 in F major. These are probably the most familiar of Mozart’s solo piano sonatas, and I would not be surprised it that was also the case in the Thirties. José’s interpretations may not have been as “historically informed” as performances became during the last quarter of the last century. Nevertheless, he endows each of the two sonatas with his own “brand” of engaging rhetoric. I might even go as far as to say that he was more comfortable playing Mozart than he was in satisfying the more compelling preferences for the solo piano music of Frédéric Chopin (particularly those of shorter durations).

Isaac Albéniz playing the piano for his daughter Laura (photographer unknown, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Of far greater interest is the Hispanic side of the repertoire on the tenth and eleventh CDs. The list of composers in the chronological order of their birth years is an impressive one: Domenico Scarlatti (born in Italy in 1685 but spending almost the last 40 years of his life on the Hispanic peninsula), Pietro Domenico Paradies (1707), Isaac Albéniz (1860), Enrique Granados (1867), Manuel de Falla (1876), Manuel Infante (1883), and Iturbi himself (1895). My guess is that most listeners will find the music of at least some of those composers to make for an engaging journey of discovery. For all intents and purposes, Michael Feinstein’s introductory essay says almost nothing about this “Hispanic legacy,” which puts those most interested in listening to the performances in this collection at a disadvantage.

The Romeros’ Belated Anniversary Tour

2020 was planned to be the year of the 60th Anniversary Tour of The Romeros, the guitar quartet founded in 1960 by Celedonio Romero and his sons Celin, Pepe, and Angel. In 1996 only two of those “founding sons” were still performing, Celin and Pepe, joined by Celin’s son Celino and Angel’s son Lito. That quartet first performed for San Francisco Performances (SFP) in Herbst Theatre in December of 2014. Last night was their first return, concluding this season’s SFP Guitar Series, presented in association with the OMNI Foundation for the Performing Arts. Sadly, Celin was unable to perform; and he was replaced by Angel, who had left the quartet in 1990.

While most of the program was devoted to the entire quartet, Pepe took two solo sets, the second of which was the one flamenco offering of the evening. Celino had a briefer single set, as well as a duo set with Lito. There was a bit of verbal banter over the course of the evening, much of which involved Angel joking about whether or not he could still play.

Needless to say, there was no cause to find fault with any of the performances. All of the quartet performances were arrangements, and they tended to highlight the interplay of the older and younger generations. The duo set taken by Celino and Lito consisted of Pepe’s arrangements of two of the Danzas españolas, the Opus 37 collection of twelve dances composed by Enrique Granados. Each of these had a descriptive title, “Andaluza” and “Oriental” (in “order of appearance”); and the almost evanescent textures of the original piano compositions translated effectively by Pepe into a delicate intimacy.

Where the quartet was concerned, the most memorable set involved arrangements of “Spanish-themed” orchestral work. The set began with the familiar “Danza del molinero” (dance of the miller), a farruca from Manuel de Falla’s score for the two-act ballet The Three-Cornered Hat, originally choreographed by Léonide Massine for Sergei Diaghilev. This was followed by two excerpts from Georges Bizet’s Carmen opera, arranged for guitar by Federico Moreno Torroba and subsequently reworked for the quartet by Celedonio. The arrangement of the “Habanera” acknowledged all the subtle vocal twists in the original score, while the entrance of the toreadors that begins the final act revealed the full splendor of a quartet of virtuoso guitarists.

Taken as a whole, last night was decidedly a never-a-dull-moment experience.