It’s disappointing
though understandable given their brevity,
that not more of Turina’s piano pieces
have been accepted into the international
mainstream. Some here, such as the Danzas
fantásticas, will be known
rather better from their orchestral
guise but all are imbued with native
Andalusian colour and rhythm. Turina
looked to the lead of Albéniz
for new directions in the path of Spanish
music in the early twentieth century.
He certainly shared
something of De Falla’s approach. In
the first of the Danzas fantásticas
an initial impressionist drizzle
gives way to Jota rhythms and a sense
of colour and passion whilst in the
second Masó drives the bass hard.
Iberia certainly haunts the outline
of these Op.22 settings but nowhere
more evocatively than in Orgía,
the last movement where it becomes (creatively)
explicit. In a much earlier set, the
Op.8 Tres danzas andaluzas, dating
from 1908, we can hear Turina characterising
national dance forms with immediacy
and powerful concentration – such as
the tango which is imbued with Parisian
tristesse (the work was written
there). But a more, purely characterful,
use of these forms comes later, and
one needs to look at something like
the Op.55 set of Gypsy Dances to hear
how elliptically and limpidly Turina
could evoke the Ritual Dance. Or indeed
to the 1934 Danzas gitanas in
which his development was consolidated;
here the impressionist harmonies give
richness and depth to the set. The Invovación
is particularly Debussian, except
for the little central panel, and it
gives vertical depth to Turina’s harmonies
and adds piquancy and colour. In the
suite of nineteenth century dances the
standout is surely the game of rhythmic
displacement in the Danza de corte
but they are all attractive and with
almost all of Turina’s piano music,
very short.
I’ve reviewed a disc
by Masó before and I remain impressed
by the Barcelona-born musician. He has
a good, crisp touch and an active command
of the idiom. What’s slightly less pleasing
is something beyond his control; the
recorded sound is slightly too resonant
and the Naxos engineers have not succeeded
in focusing it properly. It’s a shame
but certainly not an insuperable problem.
Jonathan Woolf
see also reviews
by Steve
Arloff and Patrick
Waller
Jordi Masó (piano) 
