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.