Ernesto Halffter - Orchestral Works (Muhai Tang)

Information

Composer: Ernesto Halffter

• (01) Rapsodia Portuguesa
• (02) Deux Esquisses Symphoniques
• (04) Sinfonietta in D

Juh Hee Suh, piano (1)

Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra

Muhai Tang, conductor

Date: 1998

Label: cpo

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Ernesto-Halffter-1905-1989-Sinfonietta/hnum/7866025

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Review

A devoted disciple of Falla, Ernesto Halffter (less avant-garde a composer than his older brother Rodolfo or his more famous nephew Cristobal) gave up so much of his time and energy to the colossal task of making sense of, and completing, his mentor’s Atlantida that his own output remained modest, consisting chiefly of a chamber opera, ballets, concertos for violin and for guitar, and a handful of other works. The first of his Esquisses symphoniques (written before he was 20), the exuberant “Chanson du lanternier”, is heavily indebted to early Stravinsky: more individual (though with Debussian overtones) and very impressive both for its orchestral writing and its eloquence, is the second, “Paysage mort”. But it was his sizeable Sinfonietta, completed shortly afterwards in 1925, which really attracted attention at home and abroad. There have been three or four previous recordings of it (including the very last recording – on Spanish Columbia – made by the conductor Ataulfo Argenta), but none are currently in the catalogue. Its first movement contains conspicuous resemblances to Falla’s Harpsichord Concerto (written at the same time), and the finale is again pertly Stravinskian: as a whole the work is blithe-spirited and neo-classical, very lucid and with great charm – a piece well worth a place in the repertoire; and it here receives a warmly sympathetic performance. But CPO are wrong to bill it as having only three soloists; and they also contradict themselves about the dates both of this and of the Rapsodia Portuguesa. This effectively ear-tickling piece, composed about 15 years later on Portuguese folk themes, provides a vehicle for brilliant and delicately sensitive playing by Ju Hee Suh (once a Leeds Competition winner at the age of 16 and since then a world-travelling soloist).'

-- Lionel Salter, Gramophone

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Ernesto Halffter (16 January 1905 – 5 July 1989) was a Spanish composer and conductor. He was born in Madrid and studied at the Colegio Alemán. His Sinfonietta is one of his earliest and best works; it shows the influence of Domenico Scarlatti. Later, he became more nationalistic with Rapsodia portuguesa for piano and orchestra. In 1934 Halffter became director and conductor of the Seville Conservatory of Music; his only pupil was the Finnish composer Ann-Elise Hannikainen. Halffter also completed Manuel de Falla's opera Atlántida, which the older composer left incomplete when he died in 1946.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernesto_Halffter

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Muhai Tang (born 1949 in Shanghai) is a Chinese conductor. He studied composition and conducting at the Shanghai Conservatory, then with Hermann Michael at the Munich Hochschule für Musik. His international career started when Herbert von Karajan invited him to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic during the 1983-1984 season. He was the chief conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra (1988-2001), the DePhilharmonie (1991-95), the Queensland Orchestra (1991-2001), the Finnish National Opera (2003-06), the Zurich Chamber Orchestra (2006-11), and the Belgrade Philharmonic (2010-15).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhai_Tang

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