The Naxos label's Spanish Classics series has gravitated heavily toward the comparatively neglected Joaquín Turina, whose musical language, though conservative compared with the likes of Falla, drew on the same mixture of Spanish folk traditions and French impressionism that animated the work of his more famous colleagues. In a way, his subtle fusions are all the more attractive for their conservative idiom: Turina has to work harder to work it all in. That said, the violin-and-piano combination heard here doesn't show him ...
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The Naxos label's Spanish Classics series has gravitated heavily toward the comparatively neglected Joaquín Turina, whose musical language, though conservative compared with the likes of Falla, drew on the same mixture of Spanish folk traditions and French impressionism that animated the work of his more famous colleagues. In a way, his subtle fusions are all the more attractive for their conservative idiom: Turina has to work harder to work it all in. That said, the violin-and-piano combination heard here doesn't show him at its best; the melodies of the two violin sonatas are for the most part sentimental and safe. Perhaps the most interesting work is the four-movement El poema de una sanluqueña (Fantasía para violin y piano), Op. 28, of 1923, whose programmatic qualities are of the kind that best exploit the tension in Turina's work. The title means The Poem of a Sanlúcar Girl, a poem about her rather than by her. Sanlúcar, a town in Spain's southern Cádiz province, was a favored vacation spot for...
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