Nine more sonatas by
the astonishingly prolific Soler – who
also wrote, whilst carrying out his
monastic duties at the Escorial, at
least six concertos for two organs,
nine masses, sixty psalm settings, thirteen
settings of the Magnificat and much,
much else. He also found time to write
a treatise on harmony (the Llave
de la Modulacion), to develop something
of a reputation as a mathematician and
a theorist of monetary exchange and
to achieve some standing as an authority
on the design of organs! One is not
surprised to learn, from an obituary
written by a fellow monk, that Soler
normally slept no more than four hours
a night.
Given all this, it
is not surprising that Soler’s output
is a little uneven. I haven’t heard
all ten previous volumes of Gilbert
Rowland’s Naxos series, but on some
of the ones I have heard this was very
marked . In volume 11 the general level
is pretty high, most of the sonatas,
in their different ways, showing Soler
at something like his best.
In many of the sonatas
– like much in the music of Scarlatti
(with whom Soler studied) and Boccherini
– one can hear the influence of the
syncopated dance rhythms of Spain. This
is true, for example, of the second
subject in the C major sonata which
opens the present programme (and which
has no Rubio number, not being included
in Father Samuel Rubio’s great edition)
and of sonatas 45 and 51. There are
places, too, where some of Soler’s melodic
materials sound as though they may be
derived from Spanish folk music, as
in the first two movements of Sonata
65.
Yet, for all his ‘Spanishness’,
Soler can sometimes surprise one by
writing in idioms which one wouldn’t
readily think of as Spanish. So, for
example, the Rondo, marked ‘andantino
con moto’, which opens the four-movement
Sonata 62 sounds more like a piece of
Viennese classicism, like Haydn or Mozart,
for example, than anything else – if
one heard it played on the fortepiano
the resemblance would, I suspect, seem
even greater. This is really only to
say that Soler is a good deal more various
than he has sometimes been thought to
be, that he is far more than merely
an imitator of Scarlatti. His sonatas
in several movements – this CD includes
no.65 in three movements, as well as
Sonata 62 – attempt things quite different
from the work of his early master, for
all the many echoes of Scarlatti.
Gilbert Rowlands has
a sure-fingered understanding of Soler’s
idioms and a clear-sighted sense of
the differences between the sonatas
(evident in his useful booklet notes
as well as in his performances). I enjoy
his playing, except perhaps in some
of the louder climaxes, though this
may be the fault of a not especially
attractive sounding instrument – described
as a "Concert Flemish harpsichord
from the Paris Workshop, prepared and
tuned by Andrew Wooderson". But
this is a relatively small blemish on
a generally interesting and enjoyable
recital.
Glyn Pursglove
Gilbert Rowlands (harpsichord) 
