Roberto Sierra’s music is fun. However self-conscious his Spanishisms may be (he hails from Puerto Rico), he has forged a personal style at once original, and approachable. Fandangos borrows music by Boccherini, Soler, and Scarlatti and uses it to create a colorful contemporary take on the Fandango of old. If you know the pieces to which Sierra refers, you will enjoy the music all the more, but you certainly don’t need to know anything at all to get the full experience.
Symphony No. 4 has four brief movements lasting a bit less than 25 minutes. There are fewer overtly Spanish references here, though the use of color and rhythm has a Latin flair. The third movement is marked “Tempo de bolero”, but the nifty thing about Sierra’s music is his use of avant-garde playing techniques and textures in handling mostly traditionally tonal material. In this respect he resembles Leonardo Balada, but his style is more direct, less obviously modernist in its gestural language.
Carnaval is a delightful suite illustrating five mythological creatures: Gargoyles, Sphinxes, Unicorns, Dragons, and The Phoenix. The juxtaposition of the last two may look like an item from a Chinese restaurant menu, but the actual music makes reference to Schumann’s Carnaval, as well as Papillons. It’s all done with good taste and a light touch, and as with the other two works the performances by the Nashville Symphony under Giancarlo Guerrero sound very confident.
The engineering captures Sierra’s brilliant scoring while maintaining good balances and textural clarity, but the notes, by Sierra himself, prove that composers should let professionals do this sort of thing. They are full of big words that tell us little that is useful. Recommended for the music alone.
