Arriaga / Berit Solset / Bbc Philharmonic - Symphony In D Minor / Herminie - Music CD

Spanish music specialist and former Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic Juanjo Mena continues the series La Msica de Espaa, which has seen the recording of some of the orchestral works of de Falla, Turina and Albniz, with another important Spanish composer: Juan Crisstomo de Arriaga, nicknamed after his death as 'the Spanish Mozart'.The orchestral overture to 'Los esclavos felices' (The Happy Slaves) is all that remains of the opera the child prodigy Arriaga wrote aged 14. When Arriaga moved to Paris to study under Ftis, Gurin and Baillot in 1821, he revised the overture, making changes to the instrumentation and removing a third theme group. It is the revised version heard on this recording. Air from Mde and Herminie form parts of the autograph volume 'Ensayos lrico-dramticos' (Lyric-dramatic essays) that completes this release, here sung by one of Scandinavia's most sought after concert singers, Berit Norbakken Solset. Tonally ambiguous Symphony in D minor (which begins and ends in D major) alongside the Overture in D major, which was written 'without having learnt the principles of harmony' are proof that Arriaga's premature death aged 19 was a 'sad loss to Basque music'.