Naxos has assembled an intriguingly diverse selection of music inspired by Don Quixote. The range of styles represented here dictate that the CD will be of most interest to listeners with broadly eclectic tastes because the music ranges from typically Romantic music from the mid-nineteenth century to very challenging and uncompromising modernism. For the listener with open ears, all of the pieces contribute something to an understanding of Don Quixote -- the novel is so universal in its humanism and so catholic in the range ...
Read More
Naxos has assembled an intriguingly diverse selection of music inspired by Don Quixote. The range of styles represented here dictate that the CD will be of most interest to listeners with broadly eclectic tastes because the music ranges from typically Romantic music from the mid-nineteenth century to very challenging and uncompromising modernism. For the listener with open ears, all of the pieces contribute something to an understanding of Don Quixote -- the novel is so universal in its humanism and so catholic in the range of experience it describes that no single aesthetic could adequately address it. Joaquín Rodrigo's 1948 Ausencias de Dulcinea (Dulcinea's Absence) is a quirky but hugely attractive piece. Scored for orchestra, baritone, three sopranos, and one mezzo-soprano, it is a melancholy meditation on Don Quixote's search for his ideal Dulcinea, who is given voice by the women. This is brightly colored music, fragrant with the Spanishness that's typical of much of Rodrigo's work, and it...
Read Less
