Melani Mestre – Espona: Complete Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:08:42 minutes | 561 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Brilliant Classics
A Catalan contemporary of Scarlatti, Manuel Espona (1714-1779) is known now, if at all, as the teacher of Antonio Soler, one of the fathers of Spanish keyboard literature. Melani Mestre’s recording, the only modern album dedicated to this composer, reveals that Espona was a fine composer in his own right.
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Melani Mestre, Martyn Brabbins, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra – Albéniz & Granados: Piano Concertos (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:56 minutes | 1,27 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
Volume 65 (have you got them all?) of Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto series journeys to Spain and the heart-on-sleeve world there to be found. The Albéniz Concierto fantástico owes much to Schumann and Chopin, albeit with an added drizzle of the Iberian peninsula; the perennially popular Rapsodia española, on the other hand, throws all such classical models to the wind.
Granados never actually got round to writing his piano concerto, so our pianist here—Hyperion debutant Melani Mestre—has done it for him. And it’s a romp. The first movement is pretty much ‘echt’, from Granados’ sketches for a putative piano concerto, but thereafter it’s a hugely enjoyable what-if …
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