Dal Segno’s piano roll releases are like a juggernaut. Their series devoted to women pianists is invariably generous in the number of rolls provided. Some pianists share disc space with contemporaries but fortunately young Paquita Madriguera Segovia, who was born in 1900, made enough Duo Art rolls to allocate her an entire disc.
 
She was a prodigy and studied with Frank Marshall and then with Granados. Her debut came at eleven and she toured internationally, being well received in London, Paris and America. Her younger brother Enrique was a violinist and they often performed as a duo in recital. Crossing the Atlantic in 1915 she made these rolls in America; they were published between 1916 and 1920 though she probably recorded the bulk toward the earlier point of that period, which meant she was around 16.
 
Segovia’s greater fame was to come as second wife of the guitarist but, as these seventeen rolls are all that seems to remain of her pianism, they make a well-contrasted selection. Her early association with Granados is reflected in the fact that she was asked to record two rolls by him. The more extensive and historically potent is the Allegro de concierto which shows, despite the artificiality of the roll medium, a definite flair and self-confidence. The Intermezzo however is rather rigid in places, a rhythmic failing of the system I should think rather than any necessarily gauche playing from the young pianist. The Segovia programme was a very light one; not for her naturally the kind of roll expected of a Bauer, a Hess or a Levitzki, say. Dance rhythms and evocative excursions were chosen, the better to reflect her digital athleticism and joie de vivre. It’s a shame therefore that her Albéniz Spanish Serenade is so hobbled by unnatural sounding rubato. Something of her resilient charm can be gauged from the Iberian tang of Chaminade’s La Morena. The Olsen is a sparkling vignette piece, deftly handled. Naturally, as I’ve noted so many times before in this and allied series, much of the performance on a roll has to be taken on trust. The tonal individuality that she may have brought to bear is subsumed to a generic one. Nevertheless it’s unarguable that this disc offers an insight into a now forgotten talent. She eventually drifted away from concert performance but the notes don’t tell us when Paquita Madriguera Segovia died.
 
The rolls were transferred a while ago now, in 1992. There’s some ambient noise and a slightly noisy piano action and also what sounds like a degree of tape hiss.
 
Jonathan Woolf
 

BUY NOW 

Crotchet   ArkivMusic

 

Advertising Rates
Visitor stats
MusicWeb International
has over 21,000 Classical CD reviews on offer

Gerard Hoffnung Concerts &
The Bricklayer Story

New Releases

New Releases

23rd-27th May

MusicWeb Recommended Recordings 2007

DISCS OF THE YEAR 2007