Manuel Ponce - Complete Piano Works, Vol. 1 (Álvaro Cendoya)

Information

Composer: Manuel Ponce

1. Estrellita 'Metamorfosis de concierto'
2. Preludio mexicano 'Cielito lindo'
3. A la orilla de un palmar
4. Serenata mexicana 'Alevántate'
5. Valentina
6. Ven, ¡Oh luna!
7. Preludio mexicano 'Cuiden su vida'
8. Arrulladora mexicana 'La Rancherita'
9. Barcarola mexicana 'Xochimilco'
10. Mañanitas
11. Scherzino mexicano
12. Scherzino maya
13. Intermezzo (No. 1)
14. Mazurka de salón in A flat major
15. Mazurka in D minor
16. Mazurka a la española
17. Preludio romántico
18. Deux Études pour Piano: No. 1, Allegretto mosso ma espressivo
19. Deux Études pour Piano: No. 2, Allegro non troppo
20. Sonatine: I. Semplice, in tempo d'allegretto
21. Sonatine: II. Andante, alla maniera d'un notturno
22. Sonatine: III. Allegro
23. Cuatro danzas mexicanas: No. 1, Vivo. Meno messo, espressivo
24. Cuatro danzas mexicanas: No. 2, Vivo. Più lento
25. Cuatro danzas mexicanas: No. 3, Vivo. Meno mosso
26. Cuatro danzas mexicanas: No. 4, Vivo. Poco meno

Álvaro Cendoya, piano

Date: 2013

Label: Grand Piano

https://grandpianorecords.com/Album/AlbumDetails/GP638

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Review

The Grand Piano label was new to me until this disc was unwrapped; neither had I heard of the Basque pianist Álvaro Cendoya. It appears to follow on from at least four other CDs from the same company covering rare repertoire by Constantin Silvestrov, Florent Schmitt, Percy Grainger and Alexander Tcherepnin. I am enormously impressed both by the recording and by the performances. Let me put some flesh on this skeleton. 

Manuel Ponce was Mexican and studied and lived for a while in Paris during the heady 1920s. He is one of the most significant composers to have emerged from Mexico. His language, as I shall be explaining, did alter a little over the years, but on the whole, especially following his return to Mexico in 1933 it was Mexican rhythms and the folk melodies he had grown up with that especially inspired him. This disc contains pieces in various styles and gives a reliable over-view of his output.

 

Some of you may well know his guitar works. As an examiner I often hear his music played with variable success. Some of you may be aware of his songs or arrangements of folk songs. Some might have come across his five orchestral works and three concertos and some may know something of his eight chamber works including the masterly cello sonata. That gives some idea of what music awaits us if we care to and have the opportunity to delve into it.

 

The first track is quite a famous piece. Estrellita began life as a popular short song. In 1912 this new, more complex version came out, hence the subtitle ‘Metamorfosis de Concierto’. This very romantic work was then lushly orchestrated; you can hear it under Enrique Batiz on Naxos 8.550838. Estrellita and the Preludio Romanntico emerged from Ponce’s studies in Italy and Germany amidst the German Romantic School of pianist/composers.

 

Similarly popular although stylistically from another world is the Cuatro Danzas Mexicanas. Each of these brief pieces begins with an excitable Vivo using some of the many rhythms that Ponce heard and used after his discovery of them in the late 1930s. Each also moves into a more romantic section, something more luscious and akin to the early pieces like Estrellita or the song arrangements, for example Valentina andVen ‘Oh luna!’ Music like this, partially anyway, came from his time after leaving Europe while he was living in Cuba during the First World War. 

There is another aspect to Ponce and one I find much more fascinating and which can be found exemplified in the Deux Etudes written for Artur Rubinstein and especially in the Sonatine. The former uses the pentatonic scale in the first study, reminding one of Debussy, The second is a wild Toccata. The Sonatine is a curious and eclectic piece. Its first movement is almost atonal, its harmonies and counterpoint are certainly very searching. The second is likewise, but the finale, an Allegro, is an exuberant Mexican Dance. These pieces arose from a period of study in Paris between 1925 and 1933. At that time Ponce was having lessons with Dukas while being influenced by figures of a more experimental bent.

 

Much of the music is virtuosic, but you might not always realise this, such is the skill that serves to hide the expertise. At no point is Cendoya fazed by the requirements of this aspect; instead he revels in the exotic sonorities and technical demands.

 

There are three Mazurkas on this disc. They manage to sound like Chopin transported to 1940s Mexico - utterly original. The Mazurka a la Española is the most like Manuel de Falla - very Andalusian and quite dissonant at times.

 

It’s good to know that this is Volume 1, and it’s worth knowing that Ponce was amazingly prolific for the piano. There are, for instance, twenty-five Mazurkas. How many more volumes there are to come we are not informed.

 

The accompanying notes by Paolo Mello put the music more or less into context and there are two interesting black and white photos of the composer.

 

-- Gary Higginson, MusicWeb International

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Manuel María Ponce Cuéllar (8 December 1882 – 24 April 1948) was a Mexican composer. His work as a composer, music educator and scholar of Mexican music connected the concert scene with a mostly forgotten tradition of popular song and Mexican folklore. Many of his compositions are strongly influenced by the harmonies and form of traditional songs. Ponce wrote music for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and orchestra. His guitar music is a core part of the instrument's repertory. Ponce's guitar concerto, Concierto del sur, is dedicated to his long-time friend and guitar virtuoso Andrés Segovia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Ponce

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Álvaro Cendoya (born 1960 in San Sebastián) is a Basque Spanish pianist. He studied at the local Conservatories, in Madrid, in Buenos Aires with Bruno Leonardo Gelber, and later in London with Noretta Conci and Peter Feuchtwanger. In 1989 he won the prize for the best interpretation of Spanish music at the international Premio Jaén competition. He made his début in Geneva in 1995, and has also appeared in South America and different European countries. From 2001 to 2003 Cendoya appeared annually in Iran, giving recitals and classes. He is a professor at the Basque Conservatory of Music.

https://www.naxos.com/person/Alvaro_Cendoya/13447.htm

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