Ponce Piano Works: Volume 3

Cover of the third Grand Piano release of piano music by Manuel Ponce (courtesy of Naxos of America)

As had been observed earlier this week, the third volume in Álvaro Cendoya’s project to record the complete piano works of the twentieth-century Mexican composer Manuel Ponce will be released this coming Friday. The new release continues to maintain the composer’s reputation as a miniaturist. However, it also provides the first evidence of how he would sometimes group those pieces into collections. As usual, Amazon.com has created a Web page for processing pre-orders.

The one complete collection on the new release is 20 Piezas fáciles (twenty easy pieces). For the most part these are adaptations of folk songs and dances, some taken from indigenous sources. As a result, the collection as a whole amounts to a “guided tour” of music-making practices in Mexico.

The other collection is the Estudios de concierto (concert studies). Ponce composed twelve of these, but only seven are included on this particular album. Presumably, the remaining five will show up on a later release. Similarly, there are two mazurkas numbered 19 (in C-sharp minor) and 23 (in A minor) with no indication of how many Ponce wrote. (IMSLP is not particularly helpful on this matter, nor is Grove!)

Nevertheless, as was the case with first two volumes, it is easy to accept this music on its own terms while waiting for the full catalog to flesh out over the remaining five volumes.