Albeniz, from the piano to the wind

Celia Matamoro

Albéniz was one of Celia’s favorite composers from her childhood and always felt a special connection to his work. However, in the fifteen long years that she has been studying music, she has never been able to play any of his pieces on the bassoon. Now that she has finished her master's degree -and she had to reflect on where she comes from and, ultimately, who she is-, she decided to investigate the composer in depth with the aim of arranging his Spanish Suite, originally written for piano, so that at the end of so many things, she can interpret it with her reed quintet. Thanks to its flexibility and wide palette of colors, sound, and articulation, the combination of reed instruments achieves a greater range of register and color, and provides Albéniz's music, inspired by elements of flamenco and Spanish folklore such as cante jondo, a texture and expressiveness that evokes the human voice. Caire Reed Quintet was formed in 2020, in the midst of the Covid19 pandemic crisis. The five of them are from Spain and they share the same passion for Albéniz. With this work the author wishes to offer other composers and performers the opportunity to discover, learn and experience how much the reed quintet's sonority can contribute to certain styles of music such as Spanish nationalist, reaching a greater range of register and color, and endowing this style of music from a new perspective.

Figure 3 (m.1-15): 1st theme of the piece where the character of dance is appreciated from the repetition bar. The four introductory bars would represent a guitar arpeggio, typical of introductions to cante.

Figure 4 (m.46-51): Variation of the 1st theme, where the tenor voice in sixteenth notes generates a sensation of acceleration and guitar character.

Cataluña (corranda)

Cataluña is one of the few pieces that Albéniz wrote inspired by his native region; it is dedicated to his mother, who was Catalan. The subtitle refers to a traditional Catalan dance, related to the French courante or the Italian current. The corranda is a typical dance from the Catalonian area in Spain, which is danced in couples where the women place their hands on the men's shoulders. It is the only piece in the suite that is not in ternary form, this being a binary re-expository where the 6/8 dance rhythm is maintained throughout the piece.

The very lively character of the 1st theme typically of the dance is not harmonically complex, however, in its re-exposition the chromatic design of the inner voice that accompanies the same rhythmic and melodic design of the dance at the beginning, gives it a sensation of acceleration due to the decrease in duration values, which also reaffirms a certain guitar character in the work that was not so evident in its first part.

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