Soler: Sonatas for Harpsichord, Volume II (2006)

Gilbert Rowland Plays Soler

Padre Antonio Soler (1725 -- 1783) combined a calling as priest and contemplative with a busy life as a composer. As a young man, he probably studied with Scarlatti and seems destined to remain in that great composer's shadow. But there is room in the world for the music of both Scarlatti and Soler; it is a joy to know both. The ongoing series of Soler's sonatas on Naxos will reward listening.

Unlike the Naxos series of Scarlatti sonatas, Soler's works are performed on the harpsichord (bravo!) by a single artist, Gilbert Rowland. Naxos whets the appetite of its listeners by releasing volumes in its many series slowly. Thus Rowland recorded the first volume in the Soler series in 1995. Rowland recorded this volume, number 11 and the most recent,in 2004. He performs on a double manual contemporary instrument modeled upon a Flemish harpsichord built around 1785. It has a beautiful, light tone which shows to good advantage in the many light running passages of this music but which also has an appropriate clangor for the chordal passages. Rowland also wrote the highly-informative program notes for his CDs, with a sonata-by-sonata discussion.

The CD includes 9 sonatas, of which 7 are in the single-movement, binary style derived from Scarlatti. The remaining two sonatas are multi-movement galant works, dating from 1777 and 1782. These later two works are well into the classical period music. Haydn had composed many symphonies by 1780, and, as far as keyboard music is concerned, remember that Beethoven's "Sonata Pathetique" is still an eighteenth-century work (1799).

Soler wrote joyful, highly idiomatic works for the harpsichord. Some of these works, such as the opening sonata in C major on this CD, are highly flamboyant and virtuosic. Soler also composed, long, slow, and introspective single-movement sonatas, such as the sonata in D flat major number 22.

Of the single-movement works, I especially enjoyed the E minor sonata, number 128, with its contrasts between slow and fast sections, and the dancelike sonata in C major "Por la Princess de Astorias".

I am particularly interested in the multi-movement sonatas as they show Soler moving away, to a degree, from Scarlatti's style. The three-movement sonata in a minor opens with a graceful andante, bringing out the flowing, lightly melancholy, character of A- minor. The second movement consists of a virtuosic allegro, and the work concludes with an elaborate and lyrical fugue.

The four-movement sonata in B-flat major dates from 1782 and opens with a rondo with octave skips and a long, running passage in the minor key as the movement develops. The second movement is lively and invigorating and it is followed by a short, delicate minuet. The highlight of this sonata and of the CD as a whole is the vigorous finale, marked "allegro spiritoso" with a rhythmic, catchy opening theme interspersed with long flamboyant, fluttering, highly ornamented and trilled passages which display the harpsichord to best advantage.

Robin Friedman