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Fernando SOR (1778-1839)
Seguidillas Boleras
Cesa de atormentarme [1:22]
Prepárame la tumba [2:01]
Los canónigos madre [2:00]
Mucha tierra he corrido [1:53]
Estudio [3:24]
Las mujeres y cuerdas [1:21]
Muchacha y la vergüenza [1:27]
Cuando de tí me aparto [2:02]
El que quisiera amando [1:34]
Introducción tema y variaciones, op.9 [8:34]
Que costoso es el logro [1:10]
Me pregunta un amigo [1:29]
Lo que no quieras darme [1:25]
Mis descuidados ojos [4:18]
Sin duda que tus ojos [2:05]
Fantasía para dos guitarras, op.41 [14:48]
¿Como ha de resolverse? [1:20]
Yo no sé lo que tiene [1:26]
Cuantas naves han visto [1:54]
Acuérdate bien mío [1:26]
Si dices que mis ojos [1:39]
Puede una buena moza [1:37]
Nilo MENÉNDEZ (1902-1987)
Aquellos ojos verdes [4:11]
Laberintos Ingeniosos: Lambert Climent, Lluís Vilamajó (tenor), Jordi Ricart (baritone), Pedro Estevan (castanets), Enrike Solinís (guitar), Xavier Díaz-Latorre (guitar, director)
rec. Church of Santa Fe, Catalonia, 13-16 November 2007
Texts and translations provided. Notes in French, English and Spanish
ZIG-ZAG TERRITOIRES ZZT080201 [64:32]

Fernando Sor is most familiar to us a composer for unaccompanied guitar - and occasionally for guitar duet. He was a famously virtuosic guitarist himself; but he wrote for a variety of vocal and instrumental ensembles, not just for his own instrument – his output included lost symphonies and string quartets. This present CD concentrates attention upon some of his seguidillas for voice and guitar, colourful reworkings of Spanish folk conventions in a manner which became very fashionable in the musical salons of Spain – and far beyond Spain – in the first thirty years of the nineteenth century.

It was in 1976 that Brian Jeffrey first published an edition of some twelve such pieces, following that collection up in 1999 with a further dozen of these attractive miniatures. These pieces – some for solo voice, some for two or three singers – offer a charming blend of folk rhythms and phrasing with the polite and refined musical expectations of the aristocratic salon. The results are not, it need hardly be said, especially profound or searching – but they are entertaining and often witty. Some of the sung texts are mildly risqué. Where did these texts come from? Did Sor perhaps prepare some of them himself? How many of them are based on folksongs or popular verses?

Xavier Diaz-Latorre has put together a programme – arranged under a quasi-theatrical ‘narrative’ (with the pieces disposed in three ‘acts’ and an epilogue) – which interleaves nineteen of Sor’s seguidillas with purely instrumental pieces. Apparently when Laberintos Ingeniosos give concert performances of Sor’s boleros their encores usually take the form of boleros written in modern times by non-Spanish composers. In keeping with this habit they close this CD with a performance of a song by the Cuban Nilo Menéndez, ‘Aquilla ojos verdes’ (Those green eyes) – which has been recorded over the years by - to name but one or two members of a varied body performers – Jimmy Dorsey and his Orchestra, Nat King Cole, Lou Donaldson, Anita O’Day, Ibrahim Ferrer with the Buena Vista Social Club and Juan Diego Florez (on Sentimiento Latino, Decca 475 6932)! Now here’s a further performance, very different from all of its predecessors. It makes an intriguing conclusion to an unpretentious album of thoroughly relaxing music.

The performances are full of ease and affection. This is the case with the songs – of which highlights include ‘Cuando de tí me aparto’, which uses all three singers and all three instrumentalists, and ‘Muchacha y la vergüenza’, sung by Lambert Climent (though wouldn’t a female voice have been better?) accompanied just by the guitar of Diaz-Latorre:
 
              “Muchacha y la vergüenza                     ‘My girl, where’s your modesty?
               ¿dónde se ha ido?                                 What has become of it?’
               - Las cucuraches, madre,                      ‘It was the cockroaches, mother,
               se la han comido.                                  That devoured it.’
 
               - Muchacha, mientes,                            ‘My girl, you’re lying,
               porque las cucuraches                           Because cockroaches
               no tienen dientes.”                                 Have no teeth.’

The instrumental pieces are also well-played, with a vivid sense of colour and rhythm The Opus 9 variations – on ‘Das klinget so Herrlich’ from Die Zauberflöte – get a particularly gracious performance, the contrast between the first variation’s good humour and the second’s stateliness being particularly delightful. But, in truth, there is nothing here that doesn’t delight. This is relatively lightweight music, but it is sophisticated stuff too, and it gets very sympathetic and understanding performances here.

Glyn Pursglove
 

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