Product Review

Decca presents this 41CD set which heralds a significant program of digital releases alongside a strong social campaign by Decca for the revered Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha. Thanks to a new collaboration with the Estate, Decca have secured editorial control of her streaming and official social platforms. More on this shortly, but her daughter and biographer are both confirmed as spokespersons.

A Decca artist for nearly 20 years, her interpretations of Spanish music remain the gold standard, but she was equally at home with Bach, Mozart, 19th-century virtuoso fare and the Russian Romantics. Included are previously unreleased recordings of Grieg and Albéniz; 2 CDs of her early Hispavox/EMI Madrid recordings of piano encores; and an excerpt from a new biography of Ms Larrocha by Mònica Pagès.

If you wanted to encounter a ‘Who’s Who’ of New York City-based keyboard titans gathered in one place in the 1970s, you only had to purchase a ticket for an Alicia de Larrocha recital. At her concerts you might encounter the likes of Arthur Rubinstein, Gina Bachauer, Van Cliburn, Claudio Arrau and Vladimir Horowitz. Such was the level of reverence by fellow pianists for her musicianship and sheer technical brilliance.

• The music of Spain is central to this collection, and de Larrocha’s interpretations and characterizations brought new meaning and importance to these works and remain the gold standard – highlights include: Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain, Albéniz’ Ibéria, and Granados’ Goyescas.
• When it came to 19th-century virtuoso fare, key corners of the French repertoire, and the Russian Romantics, de Larrocha positively flourished: The Khachaturian Concerto; Rachmaninov’s Second and Third Concertos; Franck’s Symphonic Variations; Ravel’s Concerto, Grieg’s Piano Sonata [previously unreleased], Mendelssohn’s Variations
• Larrocha’s Schumann playing is fluent and poetic; notice, for example, the Concerto, Kreisleriana, Faschingsschwank aus Wien, the C Major Fantasy, the F-sharp Novelette, plus both analogue and digital versions of the rarely heard B Minor Allegro and the perpetually popular Carnaval

ALICIA DE LARROCHA
Greatly respected by her peers, not least Arthur Rubinstein, Gina Bachauer, Van Cliburn, Claudio Arrau and Vladimir Horowitz, if you wanted to witness a Who’s Who of New York City-based keyboard luminaries gathered in one place, you simply had to purchase a ticket for an Alicia de Larrocha recital.. Slight of frame, de Larrocha’s physical stature belied her considerable accomplishments, not least in key corners of the French repertoire and the Russian Romantics where she positively flourished and we marvel at the pianist’s tiny hands effortlessly traversing huge leaps on the keyboard and summoning colossal sonorities that never splinter.
Born in Barcelona on May 23, 1923. Alicia de Larrocha came from a musical family. Both her mother and her aunt were disciples of the composer and pianist Enrique Granados. Alicia began lessons at the age of three with Granados’ student and teaching assistant, Frank Marshall who insisted that his gifted student gain a solid foundation in Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin, which, in turn, helped to inform what would become her standard-setting interpretations of Spanish music. She explained in a 1973 Gramophone interview “if you can't play Bach correctly, you can't play Spanish music.”
Her first American recitals in 1954 and 1955 coincided with her first major label recordings, made in New York for American Decca, all reissued as part of the present collection. Though she broached the recording process reluctantly, she nonetheless recorded a large discography and it was her association with British Decca between 1970 and 1988 that was to be her longest and most fruitful major label relationship.