Post Description

Produced by Philip Hobbs


Recorded at Julius Blüthner Pianofortefabrik GmbH, Leipzig, Germany from 2-6 September 2009
Post-production by Julia Thomas, Finesplice, UK
Design by John Haxby
Photography by Sven Arnstein
Piano Technician - Tsuyoshi Yamazaki 

Artur Pizarro plays a Blüthner concert grand piano (*** number 151893, born on September 1 2009) 

  

My travels through the Spain of Albéniz and Granados 

Some of the earliest memories I have of listening to piano music are of repertoire by Spanish composers. In the apartment building where my maternal grandparents, my parents and I lived, my grandmother, Berta da Nóbrega, kept her two pianos. There she practised, taught and rehearsed with Evaristo Campos Coelho, her piano duo partner. Many different works by Albéniz, Granados, Turina, Maláts and others were not only played but taught to the numerous students with whom my grandmother and Campos Coelho shared teaching hours. Most repeated among these works were ‘Requiebros' and ‘Quejas, ó la Maja y el Ruiseñor' from Goyescas by Granados. I can honestly say that I have known these works all my life. 

Campos Coelho, one of the leading pianists and teachers of his day, counted amongst his pupils - in addition to my grandmother and myself - the composer António Victorino d'Almeida and the pianist Maria João Pires. He was never given the support or the opportunity by any Portuguese organisation or promoter to perform Goyescas in public, a work he mastered. I was privileged to hear one of his private performances of Goyescas at his home surrounded by his students and friends. The importance of mentioning him is simply that he came specifically from the world that Granados and Albéniz frequented. He studied firstly in Portugal with José Vianna da Motta and then in Paris with Isidor Philipp. He formed a trio with two other Portuguese students in Paris and was one of many frequent guests at Princesse de Polignac's soirées where the trio often performed. Subsequently Campos Coelho studied with Ricardo Viñes in France and in Spain where his knowledge of the piano repertoire from this country became encyclopaedic. Ricardo Viñes had premiered many works of composers such as Debussy, Ravel, Albéniz and Granados and his first-hand information would have been invaluable to Campos Coelho. He, in turn, passed this information not only to his students, but also to publishers such as Durand, who acknowledge him in the preface to their new Urtext edition of the preludes of Debussy. Such was the rich atmosphere in which my first contact with the piano occurred. 

The second phase of my piano studies began when I was five years old and accepted as a student of José Carlos Sequeira Costa. His first gift to me was an LP he had recorded in Prague of Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit (which I have also had the pleasure to record) and four movements of Iberia (‘El Puerto', ‘Triana', ‘Malaga' and ‘Eritaña'). That LP, which was very quickly worn out on both sides, was my first contact with those two works and have been part of my musical world ever since. I must admit I had to physically grow up before I was able to play either, but the time waiting was spent listening, reading and researching all I could find on those works. Sequeira Costa, who was also a pupil of José Vianna da Motta, later studied with Mark Hambourg and Edwin Fischer, and in Paris with Marguerite Long and Jaques Février. The latter two of these great pianists and pedagogues were intimately linked with the musical and intellectual circles in which Albéniz and Granados moved. Albéniz dedicated his work Navarra to Marguerite Long. I think it is also of interest to note that Albéniz dedicated the work La Vega from his incomplete Suite Alhambra to José Vianna da Motta, making my links to these works and composers more and more convoluted! 

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