Granados - Dante

I have to admit that I was somewhat disappointed by this disc. Granados is of course well-known for his colorful piano music and it may have seemed like a mystery to many listeners why record companies haven't paid attention to his orchestral works earlier. Well, at least this disc suggests why. The half-hour, grandiose, late romantic tone poem Dante was his most ambitious orchestral work, and I have to admit that I am able to curb my enthusiasm. The style is completely anonymous; the music consists of stock late romantic gestures with few if any memorable ideas, wallowing in sugary, dense and completely unsubtle orchestration. It also lacks drama. One would assume that both the first part "Dante and Virgil" and the second "Paolo and Francesca" would attempt some storming drama, but there is really nothing of the sort. Granados's vision of hell sounds more like the aural equivalent of stale sour cream, and there is no real musical development apart from repetition. Adding the mezzo part singing the story of Paolo and Francesca underlines the fact that Granados was unable to capture the narrative in sound alone - it is an extremely unsubtle touch verging on the bizarre.

Oh well, it is easy to heap scorn on something like this, and I wish to say that, despite my misgivings, I did manage to sit through the whole work without problems - it isn't completely worthless, but it is surely a disappointment to those who know and love Granados's piano music, and there are an almost infinite supply of more interesting late romantic tone poems out there. Now, I am not sure I would completely exonerate the performance either. While it is surely not the fault of the Orquesta Filarmonica de Gran Canaria that Dante lacks any memorable themes or drama, or even that it is somewhat clumsily scored, the performance they give sounds perfunctory and very literal (somewhat understandable when the music contains few traces of a narrative development, but still). They could not have saved Granados's bloated beast, but some more flair and power might have relieved its suffering (but again I do empathize with Leaper and his players and can imagine them scratching their heads and wondering "what on Earth are we going to do with this one").

The 5 Pieces on Popular Spanish Songs, orchestrated by Anselm Ferrer, present the Granados we know; tuneful and colorful music in skillful orchestrations. The playing is still a tad heavy and dutiful, but this is certainly worth hearing. The excerpts from Goyescas (the opera version, that is) are insubstantial and on the verge of dullness. ASV's sound is somewhat artificial and hollow; that might add extra weight to the performances of the Spanish Songs but cannot really be to blame for the somewhat disappointing nature of the main course. All in all this is not a horrible disc, and it might be worth considering for those particularly curious about the composer or with a particular interest in late romantic tone poems - the reason I may come across sounding completely negative and dismissive is the undeniable disappointment I experienced when hearing this music.

› Go to Amazon U.S. to see the review  3.0 out of 5 stars