OCTOBER 2024 | Impresiones y Paisajes (Como el primer libro de Lorca) | Samuel Diz | Poliedrica
OCTOBER 2024 | Impresiones y Paisajes (Como el primer libro de Lorca) | Samuel Diz | PoliedricaBY RAY PCOT
I reviewed this outstanding album back in 2018 as part of an overview of new guitar music recordings. We are this year welcoming Samuel Diz to our Echoes Festival, and as he will be playing some of the music featured on that album I felt it deserved a revisit, and I’ve also got to know it better.
The Spanish guitarist, Samuel Diz has developed a successful international career and in particular has done valuable work researching and performing the music of the (musical) Generation of ’27. He is also an active emissary for the the music of his native Galicia, which he splendidly celebrated in first album, Guitarra Clásica Galega.
Taking the title from Impresiones y paisajes, the groundbreaking book by the young Federico García Lorca, Samuel Diz has created an album that celebrates the work of this great poet who lost his life under tragic circumstances. The music selected is from that rising generation of artists of the 1920’s who resonated with the work of Lorca and the groundbreaking work of Manuel de Falla.
Lorca’s book published Impresiones y paisajes, covers his own impressions of what he saw and heard throughout his travels in Spain, which has enabled Diz to select a wide diversity of music, both musical and idealogical.
Just listen to the wonderful dynamic flamenco evocations in Danza del molinero, matched by subtle phrasing, and you can easily believe Falla’s original intentions were for a solo guitar piece. This is followed by the end-of-the-day evocations of Mantecon’s Atardeca, which is no less magical and fascinating, leaving one to ask why this piece is not better known. There is a direct tribute to the poet, who also wrote music with Diz’s atmospheric arrangement of pieces from the Canciones populares españolas.
The ordering of the music on the album is excellent and completely involves the listener, with the opening and closing tracks being by composers who had a strong connection with de Falla. Both the beguiling Española by Rosa García Ascot, and the unpublished La maja de Goya by Angel Barrios deserve to be better known. The remaining pieces are no less rewarding and Diz successfully contrasts the varied styles of this innovative generation, who’s music has had to wait until now for rehabilitation in the repertoire. Salvador Bacarisse, Rodolfo Halffter, Regino Sainz de la Maza (who premiered Rodrigo’s Concerto de Aranjuez) and Roberto Gerhard all write expressively and idiomatically for the guitar
Whilst some of this music may not be familiar, it is so well chosen and has become one of my favourite guitar recital discs of Spanish music of this era. Samuel Diz has without a doubt an excellent technique, he allies his easy virtuosity with his expressive playing and alert rhythmic phrasing. The production is also enhances this excellent album which is nicely complemented by artistic packaging though the booklet notes are all in Spanish.
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