Francisco Mignone; Isaac Albéniz - Piano Concertos (Clélia Iruzun)

Information

Composer: Francisco Mignone; Isaac Albéniz

• (01) Mignone - Piano Concerto
• (04) Albéniz - Piano Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 78 'Concierto Fantástico'
• (07) Albéniz - Suite Espagnole: No. 1 Granada
• (08) Albéniz - Suite Espagnole: No. 5 Sevilla
• (09) Mignone - 1st Valsa de Esquina
• (10) Mignone - 5th Valsa de Esquina

Clélia Iruzun, piano
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Jac van Steen, conductor

Date: 2017
Label: SOMM Recordings
https://www.somm-recordings.com/recording/francisco-mignone-piano-concerto-isaac-albeniz-concierto-fantastico-for-piano-and-orchestra/

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Review

Don’t let the strange cover photo put you off (conductor looking into camera, soloist looking in a completely different direction). This is a valuable release and very well recorded (Ben Connellan in the Blackheath Concert Halls).

The Concerto by Francisco Mignone (1897-1986) – composed in 1958, though you’d never guess from its lyrical, tonal language – is given an authentic reading by Clélia Iruzun, a friend of the composer since childhood. Her booklet note tells us his widow, Maria Josephina, learnt the work with him and that ‘during our recent meetings I played it for her and she gave me valuable advice’. This seems to be the only available recording of the piece, something I find rather surprising, for it might well be, as Iruzun avers, ‘the best piano concerto written by a Brazilian composer’. It is certainly more enjoyable than any of those by Mignone’s more famous compatriot Villa-Lobos. You can hear in the course of its three movements echoes of Prokofiev, Rachmaninov and Ravel but also the playful exuberance and rhythmic vitality of South America. My guess is that this cracking performance will tempt many others to take it up.

Iruzun pairs it with Albéniz’s Piano Concerto, written quite early in his career (1887) and still relatively unknown. The composer of Iberia has yet to emerge with his unique voice but that does not mean the work is unattractive or poorly crafted. In fact, the reverse is true (you would, for instance, be hard of heart not to respond to the first movement’s second subject), and van Steen and Iruzun combine to give it its finest outing on disc since Felicja Blumental in the 1970s (both far preferable to the lacklustre Melani Mestre on Hyperion), though I am unsure why Somm lists the second movement simply as Andante when in the score it is clearly headed Reverie et Scherzo.

Iruzun ends the disc with two solo works apiece from each composer, well played but very much space fillers. I should have preferred another piano/orchestra work: there was room for Tavares’s riotous Concerto in Brazilian Forms.

-- Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Dec/Albeniz_PC_SOMMCD265.htm
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Concertos-Francisco-Philharmonic-Orchestra-Recordings/dp/B075VWFY9P

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Francisco Paulo Mignone (September 3, 1897, São Paulo – February 19, 1986, Rio de Janeiro) was one of the most significant figures in Brazilian classical music. A graduate of the São Paulo Conservatory and then of the Milan Conservatory, Mignone was a versatile composer, dividing his output nearly evenly between solo songs, piano pieces, chamber instrumental works, orchestral works, and choral works. In addition, he wrote five operas and eight ballets. Much of Mignone's music is strongly nationalistic in flavor and makes use of the folk and popular melodies and forms of his native Brazil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Mignone

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Isaac Albéniz (29 May 1860 – 18 May 1909) was a Spanish pianist and composer. He is one of the foremost composers of the Post-Romantic era who also had a significant influence on his contemporaries and younger composers. His activities as conductor, performer and composer significantly raised the profile of Spanish music abroad and encouraged musicians in his own country. Transcriptions of many of his pieces, such as Asturias (Leyenda), Granada, Sevilla, Cádiz, Córdoba, Cataluña, and the Tango in D, are important pieces for classical guitar, though he never composed for the guitar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Alb%C3%A9niz

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Clelia Iruzun is a Brazilian London-based pianist who was born in Rio de Janeiro. She studied at the School of Music of the University of Rio de Janeiro, then  with Maria Curcio in London and later at the Royal Academy of Music. In 1988, Iruzun made her Wigmore Hall début and since then she has performed all over Europe, Scandinavia, the USA, China and Brazil. She has also appeared several times on radio and television in many countries, including broadcasts for BBC Radio 3. Iruzun was founder of the festival Brazil Three Centuries of Music which aims to showcase Brazilian music in the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clelia_Iruzun
http://www.cleliairuzun.com/?page_id=2&lang=en

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