The Choir Project al día | 27-IX-2014

Tarquinio Merula [1595-1665]: Confitebor tibi | Pegaso op[e]ra musicale l'undecima ove s'odono Salmi Motetti, Suonate, e Letaniae della B.V. a due tre quattro e cinque voci del Cavaliere Tarquinio Merula.
La Galanía | Raquel Andueza & Jesús Fernández.
Rediscovering Italian Baroque.

  Stephen Bonta wrote about Merula:
«The suggested years for Merula's birth derive from the fact that he was confirmed on 23 April 1607, probably at the customary age of 12. His earliest post was probably as organist of S Bartolomeo, the church of the Carmelite Fathers, at Cremona. On 22 October 1616 he signed a three-year contract to serve as organist of the church of the Incoronata, Lodi. He was re-engaged on 8 February 1620 but appears to have left Lodi at the end of January 1621. He probably went directly to his next known position, in Poland, since in a letter of Anton Neunhaber of about that time he is mentioned as being in Warsaw. In 1624 the nature of his position is made explicit: he was serving as ‘organista di chiesa e di camera’ to Sigismund III, King of Poland.

  Returning to Cremona, Merula was elected on 18 February 1626 provisional maestro di cappella for the Laudi della Madonna, which took place at the main altar in the cathedral on Saturdays and on vigils of Marian feasts. A regular appointment followed on 13 January 1627. In 1628 he was also holding the position of organist of the collegiate church of S Agata. His next move was to Bergamo, where on 12 April 1631 he signed a three-year contract to serve as maestro di cappella of S Maria Maggiore. As successor to Alessandro Grandi (i), who had died in the plague of 1630, Merula began the work of rebuilding the cappella. In his first year G.B. Buonamente was one of its members. Merula was, however, dismissed on 29 December 1632 for ‘indecency manifested towards several of his pupils’. Threatening a lawsuit to recover his lost salary, he was in turn faced with the prospect of a criminal complaint lodged by the governing body of S Maria Maggiore. On 11 April 1633 the matter was resolved by a statement from him in which he apologized and relinquished all claim to his salary. He again returned to Cremona and at his own request and by prior agreement was reinstated on 19 August 1633 as maestro di cappella for the Laudi della Madonna in the cathedral, thereby displacing G.B. Minzio, maestro at the time. Disagreements with the governing body there over matters of salary and responsibilities, however, led to his resignation in 1635. He is next heard of in 1638 at Bergamo, this time as maestro di cappella and organist at the cathedral, adjacent to S Maria Maggiore. Further problems with his former employers at S Maria Maggiore prompted them on 14 April 1642 to forbid any of their musicians to perform under his direction, thus disrupting the customary exchange of musicians between the two churches. He appears to have remained at Bergamo Cathedral until his final return to Cremona, which resulted from his appointment on 25 August 1646, in succession to Nicolò Corradini, as organist of the cathedral and as organist and maestro di cappella for the Laudi della Madonna. He thus held the last of these posts for the third time, and he now held all three until his death. In 1643 he collaborated with five others in composing music for La finta savia, performed in Venice. He was a member of the Accademia dei Filomusi of Bologna and a Knight of the Golden Spur.

  Merula was particularly responsive to Venetian stylistic developments, and his sacred music is thoroughly progressive. The sacred concertos for few voices resemble Monteverdi's in their skilfully wrought lines, often richly embellished. He was one of the first to write solo motets with string accompaniment. His sacred concertos for more voices are in the style of Giovanni Gabrieli, with harmonically conceived lines, strong tonal movement and formal clarity. In the mid-1630s Merula turned to writing mass and vesper psalm settings, several of which use ostinato basses. One setting of Beatus vir uses the romanesca, and an entire mass is said to be built on the Aria del Gran Duca, though in fact it is on the Ruggiero (see Kirkendale, 41). Other formal schemes encountered in his music include the ritornello principle and the ABB design common throughout Italy until the 1680s.

  Merula's secular music comprises monodies, dialogues and accompanied madrigals and includes some of the finest settings of his day. His arias are in the Venetian style of Berti and Grandi and are usually in triple metre. In numerous accompanied madrigals from the 1630s he adopted ostinato bass patterns, and in several the division into recitative and aria, characteristic of the mature Baroque cantata, is clearly recognizable. The title piece of his op.13 includes elements of Monteverdi's stile concitato. His instrumental music comprises works for both keyboard and ensemble. The ensemble canzonas are among his most significant works and trace the development of the form up to the 1650s, including the gradual fusion with the sonata that led to the sonata da chiesa. The earliest, like those of his north Italian contemporaries, use four-part writing and are divided into contrasting sections, which are often repeated. In his second book he adopted three-part textures, specified the violin (using notably idiomatic writing) and often re-used opening material at the end of a work. In his later canzonas the influence of violin technique is more marked, so they are indistinguishable from the early church sonatas subsequently produced by such composers as Cazzati and Legrenzi. In the 1630s and later he wrote several canzonas based on ostinatos, variations on popular tunes, chamber sonatas, sinfonias and a number of dances. He also wrote several sonatas similar to those of Buonamente and G.B. Fontana. His surviving keyboard works show similarities to those of Frescobaldi and Michelangelo Rossi. Several pieces use subjects found in his ensemble canzonas.»

  This video is recorded in the world première concert in De Bijloke Gent, last 16 september. The concert was the presentation of the complete recording of Merula's Op. XI, a wonderful album performed by La Galanía, a spanish ensemble of baroque music, directed by soprano Raquel Andueza and theorbist Jesús Fernández. In this video the singers are: Monika Mauch [soprano], Hugo Oliveira [bass] and Raquel, and instrumentalist are: José Manuel Navarro & Pablo Prieto [baroque violin], Vega Montero [violone], Bérengère Sardin [arpa doppia], Jesus Fernandez Baena & César Hualde [theorbo] and Miguel Jalôto [chamber organ].
 

 This fantastic sacred piece is constructed on the «ciaccona» ostinato, in the case of Merula, a specific type of «basso di ciaccona» that only he uses.

  Enjoy it this rediscovery and this amazing performance.

The Choir Project al día | 13-IX-2014

William Byrd [c. 1540-1623]: Ave verum corpus á 4 | Gradualia ac cantiones sacrae, 3–5vv [London, 1605].
Stile Antico.
Four parts to perfection.

  Philip Brett wrote about Byrd and his Gradualia:

  «William Byrd, the leading composer in Elizabethan England, appears to have retired from active life at court around 1593, his fiftieth year. He moved his family from Harlington (near the present Heathrow airport) to a village on the other side of London deep in the Essex countryside. His new home at Stondon Massey was a few miles from Ingatestone, the more private of the two Essex seats of a landed magnate named Sir John Petre, one of Byrd’s richest patrons. Like Byrd and his family, the Petres were Roman Catholics, and Ingatestone was a protected centre where the Roman liturgy could be celebrated with little interference from hostile authorities. Byrd’s move also marked the beginning of a new phase in his composition. Motets of protest and tribulation, written in an expansive and often madrigalian style, and clearly aimed at the situation of the Roman Catholic minority in England, had been characteristic of the Cantiones Sacrae of 1589 and 1591. From 1593 onwards Byrd conceived and brought to completion an ambitious plan to provide music for the Roman liturgy (and for extra-liturgical devotions) in a more concentrated, terse style that in many ways suited the requirements of the Catholic reformers, especially the Jesuits to whom he seems to have been especially close.

  The first works he completed in this characteristically thorough scheme were three settings of the Ordinary of the Mass, in three, four and five parts, published between 1593 and 1595. But the culmination came a decade later with two books of a collection entitled Gradualia and published in 1605 and 1607. The principal contents of these volumes are the Propers of the Mass (Introit, Gradual, Alleluia or Tract, Offertory, Communion, and sometimes the Sequence) for each of the principal feasts of the Roman Church year as well as for the votive Masses of the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Sacrament. One of the most notable features of this collection is that the texts are always those of the reformed Roman Missal of 1570. Byrd makes no attempt to rehabilitate the Sarum rite which was observed in most places in England before the Reformation and again during the reign of Mary I—even though he had paid direct tribute to England’s Catholic musical past by self-consciously making specific musical references to a Mass by John Taverner (c1495–1545) in his own four-part setting of the Ordinary. Characteristically for someone allied with the Jesuit party, however, his Gradualia eschews religious nostalgia for a rather strong dose of the militant spirit associated with Catholic reform.

  The opening fascicle of Book I, containing music for five voices, is illustrative of this militancy. It opens with twenty-five settings of Latin texts that comprise the entire material of those parts of the Roman liturgy connected with the Blessed Virgin Mary. None of the festivals associated with her (other than the Visitation and the Purification, the latter renamed as the Presentation of Our Lord), and absolutely nothing of what Protestants regarded as the idolatrous devotion surrounding her, remained in the reformed English Church. After this formidable block of pieces occur a song and two motets. The song, Adoramus te Christe, is the setting of a text associated with the worship of the Holy Cross, and the two motets, Unam petii and Plorans plorabit, reflect the spirit of the ‘political’ motets of the 1589 and 1591 collections. The text of Plorans plorabit, which refers to a ‘captive flock’ and warns of the imminent downfall of a king and queen, would surely have been regarded as treason had it not come from a genuine biblical source. The fascicle concludes, moreover, with a setting of the Propers for the feast of All Saints, the growing significance of which for English Catholics was as a commemoration of their ever-increasing number of martyrs.

  The Marian Masses that form the contents of this recording include not only the Marian Feasts generally authorised in 1605, but also the votive Masses associated with the Virgin. A votive Mass is a Mass offered for a particular intention or purpose, either on behalf of a group of people, or, as in this case, to a saint who was thought to possess special powers of entreaty at the throne of heaven. The votive Mass of the Virgin, often called ‘Lady Mass’, was traditionally offered on Saturdays and was not part of the office of the day, though its texts always reflected the progress of the church year.

The Feasts and votive Masses of the Virgin employ a revolving cycle of texts which come from a limited number of sources (Psalms 14, 23, 44 and 47, Luke chapters 1, 2 and 10, and single passages from Isaiah and Numbers). These texts recur over and over again on occasions when supplication to or celebration of the Virgin Mary transpires. In the printed Roman Graduals of the later sixteenth century, economies were made by printing each chant associated with these texts once only (usually under the heading of an important feast such as the Nativity of the Virgin), the singers being referred to the appropriate folio when they needed to sing that chant in another liturgical context.

  Byrd emulated this system from his Gradual, but was able to take it much further because, ignoring the chant, he was free to make one polyphonic setting do for any replication of text. In the opening Mass of the Purification, for instance, the Introit and Gradual require two separate chants, but because they both employ the same verses of Psalm 47 (the Gradual stopping slightly earlier than the Introit), Byrd was able to make do with one setting for both. With characteristic doggedness, Byrd followed this scheme to its logical conclusion. In so doing he created ‘motets’ like Diffusa est gratia (22) that are a collection of verses never performed exactly as they stand on any single liturgical occasion. Gaudeamus omnes, which follows it, is the head of the ‘Assumption Introit’ joined unceremoniously to the rump of the Alleluia for that feast. And inevitably the composer made some mistakes, leaving out a phrase here (as in the Offertory of the Purification), reversing the order of a set of verses there (as in Alleluia, Ave Maria, Alleluia, Virga Iesse, whose verses are the wrong way round for the Eastertide votive Mass, one of the two occasions they serve).

  The wonder is that Byrd managed to pull off this cut-and-paste scheme at all. For what it entailed musically was the writing of twenty-five pieces, many of them extensive, in the same mode and with the same voice ranges. It also entailed striving for a certain unity of expressive effect—not of course because of any anachronistic ideals of musical organization but simply to observe liturgical decorum, a quality which Byrd’s intimate, low-keyed and ultimately rewarding polyphony admirably reflects. This music has a restrained but intense devotional spirit for which parallels are hard to find. It repays frequent and attentive hearings.

  These twenty-five pieces, then, contain the music for Mass at eight feasts of the Church (including one with a Vigil—Mass celebrated the day before—and two with Octaves—Masses celebrated during the week terminating with the eighth day after the feast), and for the five different seasons of Lady Mass. Of these Byrd acknowledged only four feasts and two (or possibly three) votive Masses in the headings he distributed somewhat laconically throughout the publication. The feasts (in the order of the print) are those of the Purification (2 February), the Nativity of the Virgin (8 September), the Annunciation (25 March), and the Assumption (15 August). The votive Masses are those of Advent and ‘post Nativitatem Domini’ (i.e. after Christmas) with a cryptic and incorrect reference to the season after Septuagesima Sunday. The Nativity’s Propers were also sung on the Feasts of the Visitation (2 July) and the Conception (8 December). The Feasts of the Dedication of Our Lady of the Snow (5 August) and of the Presentation (21 November) derive their Mass Propers from the votive Mass of the season (although Venetian Graduals from which Byrd worked assign to the Presentation the Propers of the Nativity). These were the only Marian occasions generally authorized by the Roman Missal in 1605; Catholics familiar with the Missal immediately before Vatican II will be surprised by the modesty of the late sixteenth-century liturgy of the Virgin compared with its later, more prodigal manifestations.

  Byrd’s rubrics are as laconic as his liturgical headings, and a good deal less frequent, but they confirm the nature of this cryptic scheme. Following it through and singing it feast by feast and Lady Mass by Lady Mass would entail enormous repetition, especially of such perennial texts as the verse ‘Eructavit cor meum’. With the aid of technology we are fortunately able to preserve Byrd’s order and to do our own cutting and pasting at the controls of the compact-disc player.

The system is particularly advantageous to modern listeners because it puts them in a position comparable to that of contemporary users of Byrd’s publication. By those for whom the liturgy means nothing (and there were contemporary Anglican music lovers who presumably enjoyed these pieces as ‘Latin songs’ without scrutinizing them for liturgical function), the music can be heard in its printed order with no repetition. The care Byrd took to shape the pieces (ending settings of the Gradual verse, for instance, with a full-voiced alleluia, even though that alleluia belongs, liturgically speaking, to its own subsequent verse) is an indication that he was concerned about his numbers as individual pieces of music, observing an aesthetic decorum which governed all his actions.

Those who do care about liturgical occasion, or who wish to explore the ideal scheme that lurked behind Byrd’s cryptic presentation, have the ability with the track guide to realize any aspect of the scheme in a way comparable to that available to a contemporary Roman Catholic extremely well versed in the 1570 Missal. It could be argued that the repetition of the Introit after the psalm verse and doxology ought to have been obligatory, but that would have meant another disc and the impossibility of easily exploring the more ingenious and out-of-the-way aspects of Byrd’s transfer scheme. As it is, the interested student of Byrd may compare the effect of the Nativity and Advent votive Mass Propers with or without the alleluias which occur with them in the print but which belong only to Paschal time (between Easter and Pentecost); and such portmanteau numbers as Diffusa est gratia can be distributed into their correct liturgical allocations instead of being heard as a lump.

  For those who tend to regard Gradualia (or any other historical document) as unambiguously intended and to interpret it accordingly, history has preserved a suitably enigmatic piece of evidence. Among contemporary manuscripts which contain pieces from Gradualia, one (and only one) is given over largely to a copy of the contents of the first book. It comes from the household of a Roman Catholic squire of north Norfolk, Edward Paston (1550–1630). By a supreme stroke of historical irony it includes among its many pieces no single set of Propers: there is always one piece missing, and of course this missing link can indicate a variety of explanations. But it is clear that even among the circles in which Byrd was most likely to be appreciated (I have argued elsewhere that Byrd wrote songs celebrating events in Paston’s family life), the understanding of his grand design may well have been less complete or more complicated than we can now appreciate.

  It is fortunate that we can recapture an ideal form of that design today, and follow through the many permutations of the material in this kaleidoscopic collection of pieces. We will perhaps acknowledge, while doing so, the extraordinary courage it must have taken to publish the book at all during a time when, as it turned out during the fateful events of 5 November 1605, simply being Roman Catholic was itself grounds for suspicion of treason and sedition. In the aftermath of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, a man from Cambrai named Charles de Ligny was arrested at an inn near the Tower of London and thrown into Newgate prison ‘on account of certain papistical books written by William Byrd, and dedicated to the Seigneur Henry Houardo (Howard), Earl of Northampton’, which were found on him, i.e. the partbooks of the first book of Gradualia. It is possible that the book was hurriedly withdrawn or recalled—only one copy of the original edition survives. But as early as 1607 Byrd could publish a second book of the collection, and in 1610 he managed to reissue both books with a fresh imprint. It is difficult to assess the true impact on an illustrious citizen of the effect of religious persecution and political coercion during an age as far distant as Jacobean England, but Byrd’s dogged pursuit of his Roman Catholic faith and of his grand musical design is a special illustration from those difficult times of the power of the human spirit and the intensity of the artistic endeavour that it can engender.»

  In words of David Skinner:

 «Perhaps the most popular and widely performed of all Byrd’s compositions is the exquisitely understated Ave verum corpus. Written in G dorian against the mixolydian Propers it is an almost unique example of modal mismatch in the Gradualia. As befits Byrd’s earlier devotional motets for penitence Ave verum corpus contains intense homophonic statements coupled with lucid counterpoint (most notably at the plea ‘miserere mei’), which suggests that the work may significantly predate its publication. The lesser-known companion Hymn O salutaris hostia is also thought to be an early work. Here Byrd fully exploits his technical mastery of interlocking imitative phrases; the polyphony gradually intensifies and with the words ‘bella premunt’ climaxes with trumpet-like entries.»

  At last, Peter Phillips said:

  «Finally we come to a composition from the 1605 Gradualia, a set of liturgical settings which were amongst the last things Byrd wrote. The famous hymn to the Blessed Sacrament, customarily sung as a Communion motet, Ave verum corpus, has the same intensity of expression as the Mass for four voices, though its compositional style is even more direct. Here he took a leaf out of the Protestants’ book and set the words in chords, so that they may be heard. True, they are in Latin, but every Catholic knew the meaning of this text. The only slight elaboration in the music is at the words ‘miserere mei’, where there is some simple imitation between the voices and a beautiful semitonal clash in the harmony.

  The music on this disc has shown that Byrd was capable both of great complexity and great simplicity; but for many people there is enough power in the Ave verum corpus for them to need nothing more.»

  This is a fantastic live performance by Stile Antico, recorded in concert at the Wigmore Hall on 30th May 2013 and later broadcast by Sky Arts. Their sonority is simply exquisite. Stile Antico is for me one of the best five vocal ensembles in the world. Renaissance polyphony is simply stunning in their voices and versions. Here, elegance, delicacy, expression and an impressive and an impressive and deep knowledge of the characteristics of the particular language of Byrd's compositions.

One of the best pieces in Western Music History in voices of one of the best ensembles in this moment.

  Absolute paradise!

The Choir Project al día | 15-VIII-2014

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart [1756-1791]: Introitus | Requiem KV 626.
Nederlands Kamerkoor | Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century | Frans Brüggen.
Requiescat in Pace, maestro.

  Today no more words, no more explanations. Only music, only Brüggen.
Thanks forever for your musical soul.

Arriaga de... | Crítica para Codalario del último disco de La Ritirata en el sello Glossa

Arriaga de premio
La Ritirata nos presenta un Arriaga camerístico reconstruido en búsqueda de sonoridades lo más cercanas a su creación y contexto.

The complete strings quartets. Obras de Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga. La Ritirata. Glossa Music, 1 CD [GCD 923102], 2014. T.T.: 76:39.

  Estamos ante un registro brillante, no en vano ha sido premiado como «Mejor producto musical» en los Premios Codalario de la Música 2014 –cuya entrega se hará efectiva en una gala el próximo 11 de octubre en Madrid. El jurado, formado por el equipo de redacción de la revista –entre los que me encuentro–, decidió otorgar dicho galardón a este disco por diversas razones, las cuáles, obviamente, comparto punto por punto, y que a lo largo de la presenta crítica intentaremos ir desgranando.

  Y es que La Ritirata, con Josetxu Obregón a la cabeza –aunque aquí no se le haga constar como director– se han afanado en presentar en este álbum la integral de los tres cuartetos de cuerda que compusiera en su corta vida Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga [1806-1826] de una manera novedosa en lo que a las otras grabaciones existentes se refiere. Si bien la obra de Arriaga –escasa, por razones obvias– no es excesivamente conocida en general, sí que destacan por su popularidad algunas de sus piezas, entre las que se encuentran estos cuartetos, que han sido grabados en numerosas ocasiones. No obstante esta grabación parece ser la primera realmente historicista, al menos en cuanto a que usa instrumentos originales o copias de estos –con sus correspondientes cuerdas de tripa–, puesto que la grabación del Quatour Mosaïques utiliza los instrumentos de Antonio Stradivari conservados en el Palacio Real, que a lo largo de los años han sufrido tantas transformaciones que mantienen ya muy poco de lo original en su construcción, que son tocados, además, con arcos modernos y cuerdas de metal. El conjunto vasco se ha empeñado en hacer de los detalles una garantía de calidad. Es por eso que los arcos son modelos de finales del XVIII, cercanos ya al modelo de François Tourte, pero un poco más ligero, teniendo incluso el privilegio de tener Hiro Kurosaki –el primer violín de la grabación– un arco original de este período, lo que resulta absolutamente impresionante, pues son muy pocos los originales que se conservan de los siglos XVII y XVIII. 

  Pero el uso del instrumentario original del período no es lo único que hace a esta grabación digna de poseer el calificativo de on period instruments –calificativo que hace extensiva la visión de una interpretación historicista y que se hace constar en la portada del disco–, puesto que los miembros de La Ritirata se han empeñado en utilizar para el estudio y grabación las fuentes primarias que se conservan de las partituras, esto es, el manuscrito original del Tema variado en cuarteto, Op. 17 –que se graba por primera vez en un registro discográfico no analógico–, así como la primera edición publicada en vida del autor de los tres cuartetos –la única obra que publicó–, que es la fuente prioritaria ante la pérdida del manuscrito original, además de una copia existente de dicho manuscrito con la que han podido detectar y eliminar alguna que otra errata que se encontraba en esa primera edición. Y por si esto no fuera poco, hasta el orden en el que se graban está basado en un criterio musicológico fundado, puesto que al abrigo de los últimos estudios La Ritirata defiende que el orden de los cuartetos no es exactamente el de su publicación, sino que se graba por ello primeramente el segundo cuarteto, seguido del primero y finalmente el tercero, orden que ellos consideran real –todos c. 1823. La consecución de la sonoridad de la época termina de redondearse con la colocación orgánica del propio cuarteto, distinta a la habitual ya avanzado el siglo XIX hasta la actualidad, puesto que se sigue el modelo heredado del Barroco que todavía se usaba en la época –en las veladas camerísticas–, disposición en cuasi círculo en la que los dos violines se encontraban enfrentados, mientras el violoncelo se situaba al lado del violín I sobre un estrado para situar su caja de resonancia a la misma altura que la del resto del cuarteto.

  Con todo ello se consigue una sonoridad singular, que gracias a una toma de sonido realmente delicada –realizada por Federico Prieto–, nos aporta una nueva visión de la música de cámara del XIX. Los violines suenan verdaderamente definidos de este modo, potenciando mucho la escritura de pregunta-respuesta o los juegos imitativos. El cello suena siempre presente en su justa medida, dejando todos lugar para la sonoridad de la viola, quizá el instrumento menos privilegiado en este tipo de escrituras y grabaciones. Es este, pues, un registrode detalles, de búsqueda, de colores y de descubrimientos. La limpidez de la interpretación es absoluta, consiguiendo una recepción acústica fascinante y novedosa

  La música de Arriaga debe quedar a estas alturas fuera de toda duda. En estos cuartetos hay Mozart, Haydn y hasta Beethoven –realmente interesante el estudio de Marie Winkelmüller sobre la recepción de su música en el Paris de Arriaga c. 1820 que se menciona en las notas críticas del disco–, y lo hay con una calidad a la altura de las producciones de los mejores compositores del momento. Con el orden de la grabación y especialmente con la inclusión del Tema variado Op. 17 –compuesto c. 1820– se observa la impresionante evolución sufrida por Arriaga en estos pocos años. Si bien es muy complejo hablar de etapas compositivas en la producción de un compositor de tan solo 20 años, si es bien cierto que su lenguaje no es el mismo entre sus cuartetos y ese Op. 17, aunque tan solo haya tres años de diferencia entre ellos.

  Los cuatro miembros de La Ritirata rutilan con esplendorosa luz: magníficos Hiro Kurosaki y Miren Zeberio a los violines, provocando y acentuando de manera absolutamente fluida el diálogo propuesto, como si se tratase de un camino paralelo, solventando con facilidad las a veces arduas líneas que Arriaga les depara. La viola de Daniel Lorenzo suena poderosa, consiguiendo extraer de ella un hermoso y cálido sonido, que complementa la escritura melódica y armónica por partes iguales con una solvencia magnífica. Josetxu Obregón, experimentado ya en aportar con su violoncelo el color necesario en este tipo de escrituras camerísticas, sigue demostrando que este lenguaje le va que «ni pintado», y tras su fantástico Luigi Boccherini, presenta un Arriaga sólido, carnoso, casi tangible.

  Un disco que se detiene en lo pequeño para hacer algo grande, pues solo así es posible llegar a la exquisitez y la excelencia. La Ritirata propone aquí un Arriaga a la altura de cualquiera de sus coetáneos, presentando un historicismo tardío que puede competir sin ningún tipo de prejuicios con el de cualquier agrupación a nivel mundial. Glossa, que vuelve a demostrar que tiene un olfato al alcance de muy pocos, ha sabido reunir todo lo necesario para conseguir producir un disco cercano a la perfección, en el que a la excelsa música e interpretación se unen una hermosa presentación y un contenido editorial a la altura del resto del producto. Un disco bien merecedor de este premio. Enhorabuena por ello. 

Publicado en Codalario el 05-VIII-2014.