The "passacalle"
is a Spanish form, coming from passer
calle, meaning "to walk down
the street". There is only one
instrument you can easily play while
walking down the street, and that is
the guitar, therefore the passacalle
has been represented mostly by guitar
and hence imitative harpsichord pieces.
But harpsichord pieces can also be played
on the organ, so Bach’s great work for
pedal harpsichord, BWV 582, is most
often now played on the organ although
to hear it played by a guitar quartet,
as I have, is truly a revelation. It
takes on some of the air of a bistro
in Madrid late at night. Try it, you’ll
like it.
But, back to Cabaniles,
his pieces are often found included
in anthologies; this is the first disk
I have seen devoted entirely to his
music. So instead of a small sample
of his most characteristic style, we
have a chance to study his compositional
output in some depth. The tientos
are "essays" (Carlos Surinach
wrote Tientos and Samuel Barber
wrote Essays for Orchestra.)
and the form is not that different from
the Elizabethan fantasia, a sort of
improvisation on a musical phrase obeying
its own internal rules. The passacalles
are variations in the higher voices
over a repeated motif in the bass, another
form very popular in early English music,
indeed all music, early and more recent.
Passacaglias have also shown up in the
Shostakovich Violin Concerto #1
and the William Schuman Symphony
#3. It is easy to believe, on the
evidence presented here, that the Spanish
musicians who would have come to England
with Catharine of Aragon must have had
a greater influence on the forms of
Elizabethan keyboard music that I would
previously have thought.
This disk is a box
of candy for enthusiasts of Spanish
organ sound — I should say for French
enthusiasts of Spanish organs because
all the descriptions of the organ are
printed in French only. A Dutch organist
writing about a Spanish organ in French?
Perhaps Editions Hortus would favour
us by posting translations of the notes
in Spanish and English on their web-site.[many
of their CD issues do have English translations-
LM]
Only two tracks have
vocal contributions, sung with great
beauty and enthusiasm by the ensemble,
accompanied by a continuo of cello and
harpsichord. One track is a passacalle
played entirely by strings. The remaining
tracks are all played on the organ with
great virtuosity and spirit and with
brilliant and interesting registrations
making good but not overwhelming use
of the reed and trumpet stops; it appears
that Cabaniles, in contrast to some
of his contemporaries, was not all that
fond of them.
The CD sound is extremely
clear and in your surround sound decoder
gives you a realistic re-construction
of the acoustic of the church in your
listening space.
Paul Shoemaker
The
Hortus catalogue is available through
MusicWeb
for details
Maria Pilar Burgos, Beatriz Gimeno, sopranos;
Susana Cabrero, contralto; José Pizarro,
tenor; Pablo Prieto, Eduardo Fenoll, violins;
Pedro Reula, viola dagamba; Jesús Alonso,
theorbo. 
