Spanish music is well-suited to this group. What makes this release interesting is that, of the five composers presented here, only one is actually Spanish. The others come from Italy, Russia, the US, and France. The playing here is top notch and the arrangments, for the most part, are very good. My main complaint here is simply that the music selected doesn't always fit inside the concept of a Spanish music CD. As group member Andrew York states, "Such is the reality of making artistic decision by committee." They might have been better off looking at works by Albéniz or Torroba. Bottom line: clean playing of wannabe Spanish music.
Tracks: The better selections here are the Introduction And Fandango by Boccherini and the arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccoi Espagnol. The original piece premiered here, Folias by American composer Ian Krouse, is a pseudo-rondo that has some interesting turns, but is so fragmented that I find it hard to listen to. Just when the piece settles into a nice section, it is interrupted by some needless contemporary compositional techniques. As a result, the whole CD suffers programmatically.
Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None
Previously revisited for the blog:
For Thy Pleasure (1996)
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