De Falla: Nights in the Gardens of Spain, The Three-Cornered Hat & Homenajes Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Raquel Lojendio, BBC Philharmonic & Juanjo Mena

• Manuel de Falla (1876 - 1946): El Sombrero de tres picos:
• 1 Falla: El Sombrero de tres picos: Introduction 01:32
• El Sombrero de tres picos, Part I:
• 2 Falla: El Sombrero de tres picos, Part I: La tarde 05:36
• 3 Falla: El Sombrero de tres picos, Part I: Danza de la Moliera. Fandango 03:36
• 4 Falla: El Sombrero de tres picos, Part I: Las uvas 04:10
• El Sombrero de tres picos, Part II:
• 5 Falla: El Sombrero de tres picos, Part II: Danza de los vecinos. Sequidillas 03:21
• 6 Falla: El Sombrero de tres picos, Part II: Danza del Molinero. Farruca 03:04
• 7 Falla: El Sombrero de tres picos, Part II: Interlude. Allegretto 01:37
• 8 Falla: El Sombrero de tres picos, Part II: Interlude. Tranquillo 03:03
• 9 Falla: El Sombrero de tres picos, Part II: Danza del Corregidor 06:26
• 10 Falla: El Sombrero de tres picos, Part II: Danza final. Jota 06:05
• Noches en los jardines de España:
• 11 Falla: Noches en los jardines de España: I. En el Generalife 10:05
• 12 Falla: Noches en los jardines de España: II. Danza lejana 04:42
• 13 Falla: Noches en los jardines de España: III. En los jardines de la Sierra de Córdoba 07:36
• Homenajes:
• 14 Falla: Homenajes: I. Fanfare sobre el nombre de E.F. Arbós 00:55
• 15 Falla: Homenajes: II. á Claude Debussy 03:23
• 16 Falla: Homenajes: III. Rappel de la Fanfare 00:18
• 17 Falla: Homenajes: IV. á Paul Dukas 04:00
• 18 Falla: Homenajes: V. Pedrelliana 07:07
• Total Runtime 01:16:36

Info for De Falla: Nights in the Gardens of Spain, The Three-Cornered Hat & Homenajes

Nights in the Gardens of Spain is among Falla’s most impressionistic and poetic works, full of shimmering textures that recall Debussy, but with a hard-edged precision brought to the forefront by the piano. Based on the novel by Alarcón, The Three-cornered Hat was commissioned in 1916 by the impresario Diaghilev for his Russian ballet company. The music is exuberant and vibrantly colourful – a great chance for the BBC Philharmonic to be put through its paces. Also on this disc is the Homenajes, in which Falla pays tribute to fellow musicians and composers. ‘Fanfare sobre el nombre de Arbós’ was written for the seventieth birthday celebrations of the conductor Enrique Fernández Arbós, while ‘Pedrelliana’ pays posthumous homage to Falla’s teacher Felipe Pedrell, who had informed so much of his musical thinking.

"...The programme presented here would seem to be the perfect calling card for the BBC Philharmonic’s new chief conductor, Juanjo Mena. And so it is. The natural affinity for this repertoire that the Spanish conductor possesses is obvious from these performances. The selection of three of Falla’s best orchestral works makes this a valuable addition to the composer’s discography. It also marks what is hoped to be just the beginning of many recordings of Spanish music from Mena and the orchestraone of my favorite discs so far this year. Bravo to Mena and the BBC Philharmonic! Chandos, Mena and the BBC Philharmonic have scored a success in the music of Falla." (Leslie Wright, MusicWeb International)

“...the BBC Philharmonic’s new chief conductor steers the players into richly coloured, rhythmically vigorous accounts of the first two stage works, hauntingly delicate sounds in the third. Idiomatic vocal contributions from soprano Raquel Lojendio; and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s piano line is by turns sensitive and sparklingly virtuosic.” (Phillip Sommerich, Classical Music)

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, piano
Raquel Lojendio, soprano
BBC Philharmonic
Juanjo Mena, conductor

Raquel Lojendio
The versatility of soprano Raquel Lojendio has enabled her to build up an extensive repertoire, which spans composers as diverse as Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky, Verdi, Shostakovich or Wagner. She has worked with conductors such as Sir Neville Marriner, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Juanjo Mena, Jun Märkl, Antoni Wit, Jesús López Cobos, Guillermo García Calvo, Víctor Pablo Pérez, Jiri Kout, Edmon Colomer and Vasily Petrenko. She has performed with all the major Spanish orchestras, and internationally with the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Turin, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Filarmonica “Giuseppe Verdi”, Trieste and the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse amongst many others. She studied at the Conservatorio Superior in her native city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, then at the Conservatorio Superior de Musica del Liceo in Barcelona with Carmen Bustamente. She has taken part in masterclasses with María Orán and Krisztina Laki. Raquel Lojendio’s operatic highlights include roles such as Pamina (The Magic Flute), Violetta (La Traviata), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni),Alice (Falstaff) Susanna (Il Segreto di Susanna by Wolf Ferrari), Marguerite (Faust), in theatres such as the Teatro Verdi in Trieste , Teatro Real Madrid, and the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville. Her concert repertoire includes Mahler’s Symphonies Nº 2, 4 and 8, Falla’s El Sombrero de Tres Picos, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, Menotti’s Muero porque no muero, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Christ on the Mount of Olives, Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras, Haydn’s The Creation, Stravinsky’s Les Noces and Frank Martin’s Maria-Triptychon, in venues such as the Berliner Philharmonie, the Tanglewood Festival, Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, the Georg Enescu Festival, Bergen’s Grieghallen, the Teatro Municipal in Cali, Halle aux Grains in Toulouse and Bogotá’s Teatro Colón amongst others. She has recorded for major record labels such as Deutsche Grammophon, Naxos, Licanus, Rtve Música and Chandos. Raquel Lojendio’s other passion is ballet, for which she has gained qualifications from the Royal Academy of Dance in London.

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet
Award-winning pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet enjoys a prolific recording and international concert career. He regularly works with orchestras such as The Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and NHK Symphony orchestras, and collaborates with conductors including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Vladimir Jurowski, Gianandrea Noseda, François-Xavier Roth, Nicholas Collon, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Edward Gardner, and Sir Andrew Davis among others.

Highlights of Bavouzet’s 2019/20 season include the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Budapest Festival Orchestra, a tour of the UK with the Iceland Symphony under Yan Pascal Tortelier and he performs all of the Beethoven piano concerti with the Orchestre National de Lyon. He will also return to Toronto and Seattle symphonies, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and embarks on a tour of Australia to include Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras.

Bavouzet will play/​direct two Beethoven programmes with both the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. As part of the Post Classical Ensemble’s Haydn Festival in Washington DC, Bavouzet will be presented in recital and concerto and will also give recitals at the Maestro Foundation in Santa Monica and Moscow International Performing Arts Center.

Bavouzet records exclusively for Chandos and his recording of Grieg’s Piano Concerto with Bergen Philharmonic under Edward Gardner was nominated for a Gramophone Award. Ongoing cycles include a five year project to perform and record the complete Mozart Piano Concertos with the Manchester Camerata and Gábor Takács-Nagy as well as the complete Haydn Piano Sonatas. His complete Prokofiev Piano Concertos with BBC Philharmonic and Gianandrea Noseda won the Concerto category of the 2014 Gramophone Awards.

Booklet for De Falla: Nights in the Gardens of Spain, The Three-Cornered Hat & Homenajes