Not many of us would
pretend that you have to be German to
know how to sing lieder, or Russian
to turn in a satisfactory reading of
Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique,
yet there are people who maintain that
only English musicians can understand
Elgar or Vaughan Williams. Spanish music
suffers even more from this kind of
prejudice.
Prodigiously talented
as a child, Albéniz later toured
widely and was justly celebrated as
a virtuoso pianist. As a composer, patronage
from a member of the Coutts family provided
financial security and led to the production
of a wide range of works including a
number of operas. It is his piano music,
however, that is best known to the general
music lover.
The final years of
his short life were much given over
to the composition of the set of twelve
piano pieces collectively entitled Iberia.
Published in four volumes, these pieces
were admired and praised by Debussy,
and some commentators have noted similarities
between them and Debussy’s music, particularly
the Préludes. Whilst it
is easy to perceive what it was that
so impressed Debussy, attempts to draw
too many close parallels between the
work of the two composers are, in my
view, misleading. The keyboard writing
in Iberia is highly charged,
ferociously difficult in places, its
nature closer to that of Liszt than
Debussy. Then there is the sheer scale
of the pieces. They have been described
as "miniature tone poems",
but the word miniature gives
quite the wrong impression. The longest
of these pieces exceeds nine minutes,
and there is a general tendency to examine
and develop themes at length. Debussy,
on the other hand, preferred to establish
mood and atmosphere in a more concise
way. Finally, there is little of that
peculiar luminosity of sound we find
in Debussy, the Spanish composer’s intentions
being quite different. There is some
similarity, though, where the Spanish
aspects of the music are concerned,
the rich darkness favoured by both composers
a world away from the transparent clarity
of Ravel.
Each of the twelve
pieces carries a title referring to
some aspect of Spain. Places, ceremonies
or dances figure largely, mainly from
Andalusia – despite the composer’s Catalonian
origins – and the sombre, brooding melancholy
we often associate with the art of that
region is very much in evidence here,
as is the harsh, fiery brilliance and
unpredictable nature. Take any passage
at random and the national origin of
the music is unmistakeable. Melodic
and rhythmic structures are clearly
drawn from traditional Spanish models,
but these influences are subtly integrated
into the overall style. The keyboard
writing, the grandeur of the composer’s
intentions, the expansiveness and remarkable
psychological complexity, all combine
in music which stretches Romanticism
to the limits of what it can express.
Chromatic harmonies abound and tonality
is frequently indeterminate. In intent,
then, if not in sound, this music seems
to follow on naturally from Liszt towards
Mahler, Schoenberg and the revolutionaries
of the twentieth century.
Joyce Hatto has recorded
an outstandingly successful performance
of this masterpiece. Collectors already
familiar with her work will expect the
technical mastery as a matter of course
and will not be disappointed. The control
she exhibits in the swirling semiquaver
sextuplet accompaniment figures in Triana,
for example, is astonishing, and witness
also the superbly graded crescendo
in the opening Evocación.
Her reading of the third piece, El
Corpus Christi en Sevilla, is masterly,
the extremes of the piece magnificently
controlled and integrated, from the
colourful (yet emotionally detached)
representation of the procession to
the immense calm of the second section
and close, achieving there a quite remarkable
poise. Such wide (and wild) changes
of mood are very much a feature of this
music, and Hatto is particularly successful
at drawing the different elements together
into a convincing whole.
Comparing Joyce Hatto
and Alicia de Larrocha brings us back
to the point raised at the beginning
of this review. Do you have to be Spanish
to be able to play this repertoire?
De Larrocha (in 1972, the second of
her three recordings) yields nothing
to Hatto in respect of technical command,
and she is, as we should expect, splendidly
at ease with the rhythms and melodies
of her own country. Yet one of the great
strengths of Hatto’s reading, heard
on its own terms, is her ability to
create and maintain the inevitably Spanish
atmosphere that is at the heart of this
music whilst at the same time placing
the music firmly in its true historical
(and international) context. De Larrocha’s
reading has something of a classical
feel to it, which is emphatically not
to say that the reading is small-scale,
only that the focus seems differently
directed.
The Spanish nature
of this music means that, on one level
at least, it is immediately attractive,
but in truth it reveals its full meaning
only gradually. Listening to the twelve
pieces in one sitting is a challenge,
but immensely rewarding at the same
time. Joyce Hatto’s performance is conveniently
issued complete on a single disc with
informative notes by my colleague Jonathan
Woolf. Each of de Larrocha’s readings
is available on two discs coupled with
other works by Albéniz and Granados.
William Hedley
Joyce Hatto (piano) 
