Boldly challenging Bob van Asperen, who has a head start in recording Soler’s complete keyboard sonatas (Auvidis, 7/92) – Patrick Cohen’s planned integrale for Glossa is, controversially, played on the fortepiano, whose appropriateness is debatable – Gilbert Rowland here embarks on a similar journey, with what is announced as his Vol. 1. (In fact he made a disc of seven Soler sonatas some 16 years ago for Nimbus – 3/80, nla – but that seems to have been a one-off.) His selection here is interestingly varied and includes keyboard exuberances such as hand-crossings (Nos. 16 and 90), joyous leaps (No. 101) and imitations of Spanish folk instruments (rapid quasi-mandoline repeated notes in Nos. 1 and 43, bagpipes in No. 101); and besides the chromatic lines in No. 19, Soler in several cases indulges his special enthusiasm for modulation – to such an extent in the Largo No. 110 that one wonders what system of tuning at that period would have made its chromaticism and enharmonic changes endurable. Also in this volume is one of the four-movement sonatas of 1779 in which Soler moved away from Hispanicisms in favour of a more sober and orthodox style: a feature of this No. 91 is the bass octave tremolos in the vigorous second movement.
Though the numbering of the sonatas is that of the Padre Rubio edition, Rowland does not always adhere to his text; for example, he inverts the semiquaver pattern of No. 90 (a sonata in the unusual key of F sharp major, into which even Scarlatti never ventured), and makes small rhythmic changes. The French-style harpsichord (by another Rubio, David) employed here sounds rather clattery in the open spaces of a large hall.'