5046 Tango

from España

Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909)

arranged for Brass Quintet

by Roger Harvey

Price: £22.50

Difficulty: Medium

Programme note:
Albeniz was considered in his childhood to be as great a prodigy as Mozart. His expertise as a pianist from a very young age certainly supports this claim. As a composer, though, his large output is crowned by his last group of works, Iberia, for solo piano. He had taken up the idea of writing 'nationalist' music based on Spanish folk idioms many years before but it was only with this last set, after dabbling with various other styles, that he felt that he had become a serious composer of Spanish music. The set consists of 4 books of 3 pieces. The subtitle calls them 'twelve new impressions' and they are pieces of considerable technical difficulty and sophistication.

Performance note:
Play in a steady and slightly rubato style making sure that the tango rhythm is always a bit cheeky. The melodic lines should be cantabile and and very sostenuto but shape the phrases with character.