Coruscating Brilliance Spanish inspirations for two pianists - heard by ROBERT ANDERSON '[A] joyous recital ...'

It so happens I have been immersing myself recently in the less satisfactory aspects of Spanish history. Soon after her greatest sixteenth-century composer, Tomás Luis de Victoria, returned from Italy to his native land, Philip II launched his armada against Elizabeth's England, suffering far more than a singed beard. And the Inquisition had already been supervising its bonfires for more than a century, an entertainment that continued till 1834, only a few years before the birth of certain composers on this CD.

Ravel may indeed have considered Boléro his masterpiece, and that 'Unfortunately, there's no music in it.' Its music, so far as its endless crescendo takes it, was inspired by the Arab legacy of El-Andalus, before Catholic Spain reasserted itself with such a vengeance...

SPAIN

EMMANUEL CHABRIER

CAMILLE SAINT-SAENS

ENRIQUE GRANADOS

JOAQUIN RODRIGO

MANUEL DE FALLA

NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV

PIANO

DIVINE ART LTD