Music for String Orchestra
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Eduardo Toldrá, Xavier Montsalvatge, Pablo Casals
Label: Nimbus
Magazine Review Date: 2/1997
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 64
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: NI5482
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Vistas al mar |
Eduardo Toldrá, Composer
Andorra National Chamber Orchestra Eduardo Toldrá, Composer Gerard Claret, Conductor |
String Quartet in C minor, "Per l'art" |
Eduardo Toldrá, Composer
Andorra National Chamber Orchestra Eduardo Toldrá, Composer Gerard Claret, Conductor |
Sardana, "Sant Martí del Canigó" |
Pablo Casals, Composer
Andorra National Chamber Orchestra Gerard Claret, Violin Pablo Casals, Composer |
Concertino 1 + 13 |
Xavier Montsalvatge, Composer
Andorra National Chamber Orchestra Gerard Claret, Violin Xavier Montsalvatge, Composer |
(3) Postals illuminades |
Xavier Montsalvatge, Composer
Andorra National Chamber Orchestra Gerard Claret, Violin Xavier Montsalvatge, Composer |
Author: Lionel Salter
This 14-piece string orchestra from Andorra, which made its debut only four years ago, has usefully devoted its first Nimbus disc to three Catalan composers. Eduard Toldra had founded and led a successful string quartet in his teens, but in 1942, aged 45, started the Barcelona Municipal Orchestra with which his name is most closely associated, directing it until his death 20 years later. His 1921 Views of the sea (which despite the movement titles is not really programmatic) is undemandingly late-romantic in idiom, with a pleasantly vivacious finale. It is considerably more mature in thought and technique than the post-Mendelssohn-cum-Schubertian quartet he wrote at the age of 19: he later withdrew this, but the long cantilena of its third movement and its jolly finale were certainly worth saving.
The stylized sardana by Casals is an attractive work, the melancholy underlying whose dance steps (and how complicated they are can be appreciated only by those who have essayed them!) is at least partly due to its having been written while Casals was in voluntary exile across the Spanish/French border. Those who know Montsalvatge (the most recent of these composers, but a very senior figure in Catalan music) only by his popular Canciones negras may well be startled by the angularity of the more acidulated Concertino, written 30 years later, featuring a solo violin (admirably played by the ensemble’s conductor), with its Stravinskian dissonances and, in the central movement, constant and sometimes aggressive pizzicatos; but the 1990 Picture postcards (of Provence, Havana and New York) are easy on the ear and show a warmer texture and a smoother lyricism (the “Havana” movement slyly quoting from his early songs).
The young orchestra’s eagerness, zest and lively attack go far to make one forgive several small imperfections in the unanimity of the violins’ intonation: the most polished performance here is probably of the Casals piece.'
The stylized sardana by Casals is an attractive work, the melancholy underlying whose dance steps (and how complicated they are can be appreciated only by those who have essayed them!) is at least partly due to its having been written while Casals was in voluntary exile across the Spanish/French border. Those who know Montsalvatge (the most recent of these composers, but a very senior figure in Catalan music) only by his popular Canciones negras may well be startled by the angularity of the more acidulated Concertino, written 30 years later, featuring a solo violin (admirably played by the ensemble’s conductor), with its Stravinskian dissonances and, in the central movement, constant and sometimes aggressive pizzicatos; but the 1990 Picture postcards (of Provence, Havana and New York) are easy on the ear and show a warmer texture and a smoother lyricism (the “Havana” movement slyly quoting from his early songs).
The young orchestra’s eagerness, zest and lively attack go far to make one forgive several small imperfections in the unanimity of the violins’ intonation: the most polished performance here is probably of the Casals piece.'
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