Granados: Suite on Galician Songs—Cor Madrigal; Barcelona Symphony/Pablo González (Naxos 573263)
Before obtaining this 2016 Naxos release, WCLV’s digital library contained only one orchestral work by the great Spanish composer Enrique Granados: the Intermezzo from Goyescas. Although he is best known for writing some of the greatest masterpieces of Spanish piano music, Granados also wrote a much less well-known collection of music for orchestra. The cinematic Marcha de los vencidos (March of the Vanquished) that opens the program here evokes the painful trudging of ‘the defeated’ in an unspecified battle, while the incidental music for the play Torrijos demonstrates Granados’s talent for lyrical writing and his love of the stage. The orchestra is joined in this 17-minute sequence by a choral ensemble founded in 1951 in Barcelona, Cor Madrigal. The ambitious Suite sobre cantos gallegos (Suite on Galician Songs) uses Galician folk melodies and dance rhythms to reflect the landscapes of the region. This is the first recording in a series marking the centenary of Granados’s death. Spanish conductor Pablo González was music director in Barcelona at the time of this recording in 2013.