MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS


Manuel BLANCAFORT (1897 - 1987)
Piano Concerto No. 2 Ibèric (1946) [28:22]
Ricard Lamote de GRIGNON (1899 - 1962)
Tríptico de la piel de toro for piano and orchestra (1956-58) [30:35]
Daniel Blanch (piano)
Podlasie Philharmonic Orchestra/Marcin Nałęcz-Niesiołowski
rec. Concert Hall, Filarmonia de Bialystok (Polònia), 20-22 December 2008
COLUMNA MUSICA 1CM0204 [58:57]
Experience Classicsonline


I knew of Blancafort and had mentally marked his name for further exploration. As for de Grignon, I had never heard of him. In these circumstances, having the really thorough liner-note by Xose Aviñoa helps enormously. It's in Catalan, Spanish and English and can be read in full on pdf on the Columna Musica website.

Blancafort thunders and swoons with the best in his Concerto Ibéric. It's an unreconstructed, blazing late-romantic piano concerto of the type that you can loosely pigeonhole alongside the roaring Bliss and the second and third by Bortkiewicz. A delightful piece its modestly ecstatic and warm rhapsodic facets leave room for an occasional Iberian twist as in 4:58 in the first movement. The second movement is debonair and innocently playful. It is followed by a determined yet fantastic finale which links to the belled-out barnstorming flamenco delight of the first movement. It is the second of his piano concertos and was premiered on 3 March 1950 in Barcelona by the municipal orchestra conducted by Eduard Toldrà and the soloist Maria Canals.

Ricard Lamote de Grignon was imprisoned in 1936 having written his Cartell Simfonic and having had it performed in a series of concerts held as tribute to the USSR. Like Blancafort his early career was associated with the making of paper piano-rolls for the player-piano industry. Like Blancafort he had to find a new living when radio killed the pianola. His career was marked by embitterment and a careful eye to Fascist condemnation. There are various large-scale orchestral works alongside opera (La cabeza del dragon, 1939, the first opera broadcast on television across Spain) and film music including Parsifal (1951) and the movie Concierto Magico (1952), the latter a concert piece for piano and orchestra. Toldrà also conducted the premiere of the Triptico de la piel de toro on 16 and 18 October 1959.

Triptico de la piel de toro possesses a warm idyllic atmosphere and a bell-decorative accent. Luxurious harp ‘slashes’ kindle pleasures redolent of Ravel and de Falla's Noches. There's a dreamy and confidingly tender Adagio recalling the mood of Bax's Maytime in Sussex. Indeed both these works would have appealed to Harriet Cohen. We know that she loved and performed de Falla's Noches. I wonder if either composer approached her with these works. The finale with its stuttering vitality clearly has a kinship with de Falla at his most exultant.

These works should attract anyone who is already under the sway of the de Falla or of Bax's Winter Legends, Marx's Castelli Romani or John Carmichael’s Concerto Folklorico.

I hope that we will hear much more from Blancafort and Lamote de Grignon. On this showing their music has great power to charm and storm. Thus if stunning originality (an over-prized commodity) is not demanded you will want to hear both these concertos and more. Personally I would warmly welcome hearing Cartell Simfonic and Blancafort's First Concerto. Is Columna Musica listening?

Rob Barnett

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.