Josep Pons already has led a fine performance of “Nights” for HM, with pianist Josep Colomb, and this one also is quite good once it gets going. At the start, pianist Javier Perianes makes a beautiful sound, but he’s a little bit droopy, perhaps too in love with the music’s impressionistic washes of tone and not concerned enough with rhythm. However, about halfway through the first movement the performance wakes up and continues with plenty of color and verve. The BBC Symphony plays well for a conductor who certainly knows how the music ought to go; in fact, this performance is about a minute quicker than Pons’ previous effort, and save for that slightly limp opening it might have been unreservedly splendid.
The solo piano works basically have the same qualities as does “Nights”. Perianes takes time to display his voluptuous tone, but especially in the Fantasía I miss the Stravinskian edge to the rhythm, the sharpness of the Flamenco guitar sonorities that permeate the music. Larrocha, for example, gets through the work about two minutes quicker on her classic EMI recording. The Four Spanish Pieces go very well, however, and so do the smaller works. In the final analysis, this is good, solid playing, just lacking the ultimate in personality and energy. It will relax you rather than set your pulse racing. In truth, it should do both, by turns.
