Ernesto Halffter - Sinfonietta; Elegía; Psalmi (Víctor Pablo Pérez)

Information

Composer: Ernesto Halffter

1. Sinfonietta: I. Pastorella
2. Sinfonietta: II. Adagio
3. Sinfonietta: III. Allegro vivace (Minuetto)
4. Sinfonietta: IV. Allegro giocoso
5. Elegía
6. Psalmi XXII: Eominus Pastor Menus et Hospes Meus
7. Psalmi CXVI: Hymnus Laudis et gratiarum action

Ondrej Lewit, violin / Robert Pytel, cello / Peter Jones, contralto

Susan Chilcott, soprano / Claire Powell, mezzo-soprano / Joan Cabero, tenor / José Antonio Carril, bajo

Coro polifónico de la Universidad de La Laguna

Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife

Víctor Pablo Pérez, conductor

Date: 1990

Label: Harmonia Mundi

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Review

ARTISTIC QUALITY: 7 / SOUND QUALITY: 9

This disc originally was released more than a decade ago on the Spanish label Discobi, which enjoyed only limited distribution in the U.S. (and also exhibited rather shoddy production values). Its reissue on HM is welcome primarily for the choral works, which are genuine rarities and, as you might expect from Ernesto Halffter, very beautiful. The two psalms are particularly attractive and typically Spanish in their evocative combination of austerity (Psalm XXII) and exuberant, sensuous allure (Psalm CXVI). While the choral singing (and that of the solo quartet) is a touch rough-and-ready, the performances give a good idea of the music’s character.

Halffter’s deliciously vibrant Sinfonietta is both a crowning glory of Spanish orchestral music and a gem of 20th-century neoclassicism. In fact, it’s so wonderful that you can’t hear it without feeling sadness that the composer didn’t write more of the same. This is a decent but not great performance. The string soloists perform well, and Pérez balances the antiphonal snare drums intelligently against the ensemble–they act at times like a sort of percussion continuo, and their frequent presence can be annoying if not handled with sufficient discretion.

There are two significant problems, though. First, there is the omission of the first-movement exposition repeat, not something that matters much in most romantic music, but essential in a self-consciously neoclassical work such as this. Besides, it’s beautiful stuff, and all the more necessary (secondly) because of the extremely slow tempo that Pérez adopts for the ensuing Adagio. The result tends to undermine the work’s otherwise elegant proportions. Neither of these issues afflict the two major competing versions, on ASV and CPO, and if you don’t care about losing the choral works, go with the CPO release, which features more of Halffter’s orchestral music.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday

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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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Víctor Pablo Pérez (born March 15, 1954 in Burgos) is a Spanish conductor known for specializing in zarzuelas. He studied at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München. From 1980 to 1988 he was principal and artistic director of the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias, then the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife (1986-2005) and Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia (1993-2013). From 2013 to 2021 he was principal and artistic director of the Orquesta y Coro de la Comunidad de Madrid and head of the Teatro de la Zarzuela.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Víctor Pablo Pérez

http://www.victorpabloperez.net/

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