Granados: Goyescas, Op. 11

Album review

There are dozens of active recordings of Enrique Granados' masterpiece Goyescas in the catalog, and the standard one by Alicia de Larrocha is still entirely viable, but this 2021 release by pianist Viviana Lasaracina has hit the charts, and it's easy to see why. The Goyescas (Pieces Inspired by Goya) tell a little love story; Granados specified paintings for only two of the seven movements, but the work is a bit like Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. It has hints of flamenco and other Spanish folk forms, and its glittering ornamentation brings to mind Domenico Scarlatti. However, the major influence is Liszt, and it is by appreciating this that Lasaracina manages to stand out from the crowd. Her technical equipment in this score, one of the most difficult in the entire piano repertory, is superb, yet it is her way with the improvisatory quality of the music that brings it alive. Her playing is charismatic even with no physical presence of the pianist involved. Listen to the fourth goyesca, "Quejas, ó La Maja y el ruiseñor" ("Complaints, or The Girl and the Nightingale"), for a scene that will unroll before the listener's mind's eye (and bring out the relationship to the song Bésame mucho besides). Lasaracina closes the program with the Allegro concierto, Op. 46, a showpiece work that resolves the Goyescas' dreamlike atmosphere. The Dynamic label's rather closed-in studio sound doesn't fit the ambiance in which Granados, a great touring virtuoso, would have performed these pieces, but Lasaracina's precision and power come through undisturbed. An entirely absorbing recording of these pieces.
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