Isaac Albéniz and Automythology: Chants d’Espagne, Chants des adieux, Chants biographiques

N    umerous accounts of Albéniz’s life have been written... Even a cursory examination of any half-dozen of them soon reveals, however, that they are all plagued by inconsistencies and contradictions. This one says he was a stow-away on a Steamer in Cádiz and traveled to Cuba when he was twelve; that one says that the steamer was bound for Buenos Aires, not Havana; another says that it left from La Coruña, not Cádiz. This one says that he studied for nine months in Leipzig; that one says 18 months; another, 3 years. This one says that he studied with Liszt in Weimar, Rome, and Budapest; that one says that he studied with him for a year but only in Italy; another says that he played for Liszt but once, in the summer of 1880. And so it goes, throughout his life.”
  —  Walter Clark, Guide to Research, p. 3.

T  he birthday of the brilliant, prevaricating, self-mythologizing, perpetually leave-taking Catalan-emigre composer-pianist Isaac Albéniz (29-MAY-1860 – 18-MAY-1909) is today.


[50-sec clip, Guillermo Gonzáles, Isaac Albéniz, ‘6 mazurkas de salon, Op. 66: No. 5. Christa’, 1.6 MB MP3]


[50-sec clip, Guillermo Gonzáles, Isaac Albeniz, ‘Souvenirs de Espagne: Asturias’, 1.6 MB MP3]

A  t age 7 Albéniz passed the Paris Conservatoire entrance examination at the Paris Conservatoire. Bored following the exam, he took out a ball from his pocket and broke one of the Conservatoire windows while he was ‘playing’ with it. The authorities denied him Conservatoire admission on account of this incident. By age 12, he’d run away from home at least 9 times... Clark’s and others’ biographical writings about Albéniz are a delight—full of wonderful enigmas. Hell on wheels.

I  n fact, it’s fascinating to read these biographies in parallel—read one for fifteen minutes, then switch to another, then switch to another, and another.

I  think this is the best way to do it, and probably the way that would please Albéniz most. You should never allow the apparent veracity of any one of the accounts to win your devotion. Each one should remain at most a mere semblance, a sketch only, as good or shaky as any of the others. Read the biographies while you listen to recordings of Albéniz’s music, multiple performers’ multifarious interpretations of the same pieces... many excellent new recordings have recently appeared—including the ones of performances by Guillermo Gonzáles, who is himself very capable of Albénizian mythologizing.


G  onzález, born in Tenerife, is one of Spain’s leading artists and a prominent champion of Spanish music. A professor at the Conservatorio Superior de Madrid since 1975 and concertizes throughout the world, he has appeared in Spain, France, China and around the world. His many recordings include releases of music by Scriabin, Hallfter, de Falla, Antón Abril, de la Cruz, Carlos Cruz Castro, Turina, and Teobaldo Power, for which he received the Premio Nacional del Disco in 1980. Since 1990 he has presided over the Concurso Internacional de Piano de Jaén, receiving a gold medal for his work with this organization. He is a member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes of Tenerife (Canary Islands), Granada and Cádiz, as well as Honorary and Extraordinary Academician of the Conservatory of Santa Cruz of Tenerife. In addition, several music schools have been named after him in his native Spain. In 1994 he was awarded the gold medal of the Island of Tenerife and named ‘Favourite Son of the Lagoon’ and ‘Adoptive son of Garachico’ (Tenerife).

A  lbéniz’s ‘6 Mazurkas de salón’, Op. 66 date from 1885. The 25 year-old Albéniz composed them for a brace of his well-to-do girl piano students. Each is inscribed with a florid, worrisome dedication... ‘To my adorable little friend Christa Morphy’ (daughter of Count de Morphy, private secretary of King Alfonso XII and Albéniz’s patron). The No. 5 (MP3 clip above), dedicated to Christa, is the longest and most enigmatic insofar as it is a delicate presto that requires a player capable of rapid, masculine filigree. The last mazurka, No. 6, entitled ‘Maria’, is more Chopinesque.

G  onzalez is an enthusiastic exponent of Albéniz’s music and a faithful interpreter of the music’s implications—even the slippery, noncommittal, dionysian, raggedy, perennially leave-taking ones.

• Bishop P. The Dionysian Self: Jung's Reception of Friedrich Nietzsche. de Gruyter, 1995.
  
• Cañizares J. Suite Iberia. (BMG Argentina, 2008.)
  
• Catano J. Ragged Dicks: Masculinity, Steel, and the Rhetoric of the Self-Made Man. Southern Illinois Univ, 2001.
  
• Clark W. Isaac Albeniz: Portrait of a Romantic. Oxford Univ, 2002.
  
• Clark W. Isaac Albeniz: A Guide to Research. Routledge, 1998.
  
• Comas A, McClure M. Isaac Albéniz: Integral. (Columna, 2006.)
  
• González G. Albéniz: Piano Music, Vol 3. (Naxos, 2009.)
  
• González G. Albéniz: Piano Music. (Naxos, 2007.)
  
• Gunderson E. Declamation, Paternity, and Identity: Authority and the Rhetorical Self. Cambridge Univ, 2003.
  
• Reicher S. Self and Nation. Sage, 2001.
  
• Sanchez E. Albéniz: Iberia; España; Recuerdos de viaje; Sonata No. 5. (Brilliant, 2008.)
  
• Williams J. Albéniz: Echoes of Spain. (Sony, 1990.)
  
• Albéniz MP3s at Amazon
  
• Albéniz scores at Kreusch
  
• Albéniz scores at WIMA
  
• Albéniz scores at IMSLP

[John Williams, Isaac Albéniz, ‘Asturias’]

Santa Fe Guitar Quartet and Rahim al Haj: Hermanos, Caminando por el Mundo

M    usic is like a clock—it moves around in a circle.”
  —  Rahim al Haj, interview in Roots World, Bill Nevins, 2006.

E    l flamenco parece moverse en un mundo oscuro, cargado de sobreentendidos accesible sólo para un reducido círculo de iniciados—hasta ahora. El cuarteto guitarra Santa Fe explica el lenguaje y los detalles del flamenco, junto con un poco de contexto histórico para que gocemos la total experiencia de este estilo musicál. Las guitarras cuentan siempre una historia de las penas y alegrías, la pasión, la rabia y el amor que se viven…
[Until now, flamenco seemed to me to function in a private, covert, highly-implicated world accessible only to natives and ‘initiates’. The SFG4 explain to us the intimate details of flamenco, along with historic context so that we gringos can finally grasp and enjoy the total experience of this musical style. The guitars emit always a living history of griefs and happinesses, passion, rage and love…]”
  —  DSM, blown away by SFG4 concert in Albuquerque on 18-JAN-2009.

S ome things passively happen; other things you actively and collectively/collaboratively ‘make happen’. It’s nice when you are able to enjoy and derive joy and satisfaction from both.

T he four members of the Argentinian group, Santa Fe Guitar Quartet (SFG4), performed last Sunday with special guest, the Iraqi émigré oud artist Rahim al Haj, as part of this season’s international program by Chamber Music Albuquerque at the Simms Center recital hall of the Albuquerque Academy, to an appreciative audience of more than 600. Their stage manner was notable for its ‘inclusiveness’ and the warmth and humor of the artists’ remarks, punctuating and interleaved between each piece… shades of Sandow’s admonishments about making classical music accessible in the Age of Pop.

C ombining the individual talents of two Argentineans and two North Americans, the group has been touring internationally since 1989. Santa Fe Guitar Quartet’s members are Miguel Piva, Mariano Fontana, Eric Slavin, Christopher Dorsey—“two Argentinians and two gringos,” as Mariano puts it in his introductory words to the audience.

T he program began with ‘Three Latin Dances’, composed by the Cuban clarinetist Paquito d’Rivera in 2000. In ‘Wapango’, d’Rivera references the rhythm of the Mexican dance called ‘huapango’, exploring relationships between traditional and new, masculine and feminine.


    [50-sec clip, D’Rivera, ‘Wapango’, Santa Fe Guitar Quartet, 1.2MB MP3]

P iazzolla’s ‘Cuatro Estaciones’ was composed between 1965 and 1970. Originally written for his quintet of violin, bandoneón, electric guitar, piano, and contrabass, the transcription performed by the Santa Fe String Quartet was filled with rich, homogenized sonorities—made more intense by the familial timbres of the guitars. Tango was transformed by Piazzolla’s writing, and this piece is the pinnacle of that influence, as SFG4 member Eric Slavin told the audience. Baroque counterpoint is obvious in ‘Invierno porteño’, and a fugue-like section begins the last movement, ‘Primavera porteña’.


    [50-sec clip, Piazzolla, ‘Invierno porteño’, Santa Fe Guitar Quartet, 1.2MB MP3]

A lbeníz’s ‘Iberia-Almería’ was, for me, a high-point in the SFG4 performance—‘backhandedly’ so, because of my acquaintaince with it as a piano composition. I admit that the depth of my prior experience of ‘Iberia’ has been limited by my modest abilities as a pianist. In fact, hearing SFG4’s arrangement of it for guitar quartet made me think that one brain operating ten fingers and pedals at a keyboard is actually seriously suboptimal—too little grey matter ‘computing power’, to adequately render all of what ‘Iberia’ has to offer.



    [50-sec clip, Albeníz, ‘Iberia-Almería’, Santa Fe Guitar Quartet, 1.2MB MP3]

Y es, there is a certain amount of ‘parallel processing’ that each brain is capable of on its own. But with respect to muscle motor activity—fine control of fingers, etc.—and with respect to attending to and coping with ‘affective’ and expressive ‘emotional’ content, the parallelism any person’s one-brain, ‘single-core’ architecture can support is limited, no matter how virtuosic she/he may be. Neural structures in the brain that mediate our ‘active’ (versus passive) emotional coping have been identified anatomically and are located within distinct, longitudinal neuronal columns of the midbrain [the periaqueductal gray (PAG) region]. Active coping is associated with activation of either the dorsolateral or lateral columns of the PAG; whereas passive coping is triggered by activation of the ventrolateral PAG. In each one of us, these brain areas generally attend to one trigger or evoking event at a time. But with SFG4 we have a ‘four-core’ massively-parallel multiprocessor, with an extremely high-bandwidth bus for interprocessor communication. The musical/expressive effect is impressive—as staggering as, say, moving to a supercomputer, after having experienced the execution of a program on a smaller, slower computer.

T he ‘Iberia’ that I thought I ‘knew’ and understood suddenly, in SFG4’s hands, has tremendous new depth. My mouth had already been agog at the beauty and technical virtuosity of their playing. But during their rendering of the Albeníz my jaw was on the floor. [And now that I am back home from Albuquerque I will get out my copy of ‘Iberia’ Books 1 and 2 and try to figure out what else I can learn, about the deep structure of these pieces and about how they work… regardless that my single-core mind could never play them like what the four-core SFG4 has done.]


O ne example that epitomizes the flavor of SFG4’s interpretation: in ‘Almería’, the 2-vs-3 polymeter (lower parts’ timesignature is 3/4 against 6/8) imbues it with a collaborative ‘caminando’ urgency that completely betrays the ‘dolce’ marking. ‘Caminando’—driving forward, together and urgently, on the road of Life; requiring only the most abbreviated signals amongst yourselves, because you each know so very well what your companions on the journey are thinking and feeling, and you are all simultaneously hearing and seeing the same ‘scenery’.

T he ‘copla’ (melodic line) does not inhibit the other parts from elaborating their own ideas and personalities. Dense, intricate textures; impressionistic, forward-looking but honoring the past. Domestic, not courtly. Exuberant, not brooding. The textural and interpretive diversity here can be understood in terms of notions of authority and autonomy, as Coelho has done. ‘Authority’ refers to the performer’s reliance on the score—the musical text—and established tradition as to performance style. ‘Autonomy’ refers to latitudes taken in animating and interpreting the score in performance. The artistic license they take is in their transcriptions, their mark-ups of the scores; the re-contextualizations of the music, to their own situations and experiences. The pieces are open to interpolation, extension, repetition, suppression, elaboration—the performers’ autonomy is not separable from the composers’ authority. Compositional style is [mathematically, processually] convolved with performance style.

T he ‘middle ground’/’foreground’ structures... pedal tones have their equivalent here, especially (but not exclusively) in the bass guitar part. These generate cues to digressions and returns—the role which otherwise would be borne by transitions involving tonic and dominant. Use of the subdominant as a secondary key and elided/synoptic restatement of the primary theme on its return ... are essentially co-optations of sonata form.

T he tonic pedal tones unite the thematic content—the themes exhibit small but perceptible mutations and modal inflections but are glued together by the tonic pedal tones. But the bass part is not accompaniment, nor is it directorial in its gestures. It's an equal among brothers. In mm. 53-55, for example, the bass part introduces a new melody. The other parts listen, take it into account, acknowledge it without mimicking it. It reappears briefly, in mm. 83-84, which gives way to a (Mixolydian mode?) copla/theme in mm. 87-100 where the tonic and subtonic harmonies alternate, followed by Phrygian-mode designs. These lend a distinctive ambiguity—one that only sinks in over dozens of bars. Probably it would be more accurate to think of the effect as a coloristic, context-imparting device, rather than an ambiguity-inducing one.

A ll of this is distinctly ‘fraternal’ in character. It is far beyond folkloric or nationalistic. And the rhythmic accents (compás) are similar to that of siguiriyas, which are the most ‘jondo’ (deep) of all flamenco rhythms.

I n fact, the entire SFG4 program has what could fairly be called ‘jondo’ spirit. The encore—a quartet composed by Paris-based guitar master, Roland Dyens, was superb. Visit SFG4’s website and buy their CDs. Better, attend their concerts if you possibly, possibly can.

T he concert was notable also for the captivating performance by oud artist Rahim al Haj. Rahim, an Iraqi who was imprisoned by Saddam Hussein’s regime and who emigrated to the U.S. in 2000, played a requiem that he recently composed for an Albuquerque friend of his who had passed away. He joined SFG4 members on the performance of his piece entitled ‘Fly Away’, which was commissioned by SFG4. Phenomenal! Al Haj’s playing deserves a blog post all by itself—something I’ll set myself to in coming weeks.

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• Academia Brasiliera de Musica
  
• Festival Nacional de Folklore Cosquin 2009
  
• Roland Dyens, professor of guitar at Paris Conservatoire [CNSMDP]
  
• Browse guitar quartet pages on Wikipedia
  
• 'Jondo', 'Siguriya' at Wikipedia
  
• Christensen T. Spanish baroque guitar and Seventeenth-Century triadic theory. J Mus Theory 1992; 36:1-42.
  
• Coelho V, ed. Performance on Lute, Guitar, and Vihuela: Historical Practice and Modern Interpretation. Cambridge Univ, 2005.
  
• Jones M. Key Classes and Textural Dissonance: An Instrument-Specific Study of the Idioms, Textures, and Structures of Selected Early Romantic Music for the Guitar (1799-1850) PhD dissertation, Indiana Univ, 2004.
  
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• Taylor T. Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the World. Duke Univ, 2007.