DEBÜT CD LAURA LOOTENS, guitar
ALBÉNIZ
Who can avoid thinking of flamenco, bolero, paso doble, and guitars when they hear the term “Spanish music”?
Born in 1860, Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz was mainly a pianist and wrote primarily for the piano. More than any other musician, he succeeded in incorporating the Spanish guitar idiom and folklore into his style. Thus, for instance, his works contain allusions to rasgueado, a guitar technique that strums all six strings percussively in rapid succession, as we often hear in flamenco.
Thus it is no wonder that many of Albéniz’s piano works have also been performed on the guitar: particularly Asturias (from the Suite Española), a piece that has become a staple in practically every guitarist’s repertoire. But things are different when we come to Albéniz’s Iberia, a suite of piano pieces so complex that few solo guitarists have ever attempted to transcribe and perform them (although a few guitar ensembles have managed to accomplish the feat).
Once I fell in love with guitar playing, I could not avoid becoming familiar with the music of Spain, which drew me immediately under its spell, thanks to its fiery character, grace, and astoundingly gorgeous melodies coupled with vibrant rhythms
I was particularly fascinated by Isaac Albéniz’s music, which is why I desired to devote my first CD to him, with my own arrangements of his music.
In these transcriptions, I have endeavored to stay as close to the original as possible in order to retain the original pieces’ complexity.
My selection stems from Albéniz’s most well-known cycles: Iberia (El Albaicín, Evocatión), Suite Española (Aragón, Asturias, Cádiz, Castilla, Cataluña, Cuba, Granada, Sevilla), and España (Capricho Catalán, Malagueña).
Isaac Albéniz was a prominent Spanish pianist and composer. Albéniz was born in Camprodón and was soon recognised as a child prodigy. As a six year old, he received piano lessons from Antoine François Marmontel. After which he attended the conservatory of Madrid and continued to give concerts as a prodigy until he was 15 years old.
In 1876, he studied in Leipzig for two months, but left when he received a royal grant to study at the conservatory of Brussels. In 1879, he graduated with honours and did a succesful concert tour around Europe. He wished to study under Liszt, for which he traveled to Budapest. Unfortunately, his travels were in vain: Liszt had already moved to Weimar.
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