The title chosen for this recording comes from the second piece of Estampes (1903) by Claude Debussy, who becomes the leitmotif of this project. Soirée dans Grenade refers to afternoons recording in the Nogal baths of the city (Hamman to Yauza) or Bañuelo, an impressive vestige of the Arab past of the city (C11), which surrounds us with columns, arches, vaults and fanciful starry- shaped octagonal skylights. These elements give the recording a sound ambiance of crisp, precise reverberation, and on occasions, the distant singing of birds that seem to accompany the guitar. There, the spring sun fades in the skylights until the room is left in complete darkness, flooded by the guitar of Lazhar Cherouana, where there is only the music of Falla, Turina, Rodrigo ... Soirée dans Grenade is also the work that inaugurated the series which Debussy composed, inspired by Spain, resulting in Iberia (Images pour Orchestre, II, 1905-8) and La Puerta del Vino (Preludes, II, 1913). These compositions in some way anticipate the sound atmosphere of the works contained in the present recording up to the textuality: a motif of the Soirée appears cited at the end of the Homenaje (Homage) that Manuel de Falla devoted to the French musician.
Here he demonstrates the guitar’s versatility and capacity to absorb many styles and idioms. Rameau’s mimicry of birdsong is the spectacular opening to a program which unites Dusan Bogdanovic’s Serbian energy with the Basque lyricism of Manjón’s Aire Vasco, and the delicate colors of Asencio’s Collectici íntim to the 19th-century Italianate virtuosity of Legnani and Regondi.
Copyright © 2012 / 2017. Lazhar Cherouana
