Ernesto Halffter - Orchestral Works (Muhai Tang)

Information

Composer: Ernesto Halffter

• Rapsodia Portuguesa
• Deux Esquisses Symphoniques
• Sinfonietta in D

Juh Hee Suh, piano

Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra

Muhai Tang, conductor

Date: 1998

Label: CPO

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Review

A devoted disciple of Falla, Ernesto Halffter (less avant-garde a composer than his older brother Rodolfo or his more famous nephew Cristobal) gave up so much of his time and energy to the colossal task of making sense of, and completing, his mentor’s Atlantida that his own output remained modest, consisting chiefly of a chamber opera, ballets, concertos for violin and for guitar, and a handful of other works. The first of his Esquisses symphoniques (written before he was 20), the exuberant “Chanson du lanternier”, is heavily indebted to early Stravinsky: more individual (though with Debussian overtones) and very impressive both for its orchestral writing and its eloquence, is the second, “Paysage mort”. But it was his sizeable Sinfonietta, completed shortly afterwards in 1925, which really attracted attention at home and abroad. There have been three or four previous recordings of it (including the very last recording – on Spanish Columbia – made by the conductor Ataulfo Argenta), but none are currently in the catalogue. Its first movement contains conspicuous resemblances to Falla’s Harpsichord Concerto (written at the same time), and the finale is again pertly Stravinskian: as a whole the work is blithe-spirited and neo-classical, very lucid and with great charm – a piece well worth a place in the repertoire; and it here receives a warmly sympathetic performance. But CPO are wrong to bill it as having only three soloists; and they also contradict themselves about the dates both of this and of the Rapsodia Portuguesa. This effectively ear-tickling piece, composed about 15 years later on Portuguese folk themes, provides a vehicle for brilliant and delicately sensitive playing by Ju Hee Suh (once a Leeds Competition winner at the age of 16 and since then a world-travelling soloist).

— Lionel Salter

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Ernesto Halffter (16 January 1905 – 5 July 1989) was a Spanish composer and conductor, brother of Rodolfo Halffter and a protégé of Manuel de Falla. After early studies in Madrid, he met Ravel in Paris in 1924 and later travelled widely before settling in Seville, where he directed the new Conservatory, followed by a decade in Lisbon. Halffter wrote ballets, incidental music and film scores, and was commissioned to complete Falla's unfinished Atlántida. His output includes orchestral works such as Dos bocetos sinfónicos, the acclaimed Sinfonietta, a Guitar Concerto, as well as chamber and piano pieces.

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Muhai Tang (汤沐海, born 1949 in Shanghai) is a Chinese conductor. He studied at the Shanghai Conservatory and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München. His international breakthrough came in 1983 when Herbert von Karajan invited him to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic, leading to engagements with major orchestras worldwide. Tang has collaborated with renowned artists including Rostropovich, Menuhin, Perlman, Rampal, Argerich and Mutter. His leadership roles include directing the Queensland Orchestra, Finnish National Opera, Zürcher Kammerorchester and Belgrade Philharmonic.

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