Home listening - a good week for Spanish composers

The Guardian 0

De Falla, Albéniz and Mompou feature on new releases from Imogen Cooper and Andrew Tyson

• The British pianist Imogen Cooper, among the most versatile and lyrical of performers, has been associated with exploratory Schubert cycles, with Liszt, Brahms, Schumann, Mozart, all authoritatively committed to disc. Her new album, Iberia y Francia (Chandos), takes a different direction: the French composers Ravel and Debussy are matched with their Spanish near contemporaries De Falla, Albéniz and Mompou, displaying the elusive but audible musical resonances between the two cultures. As Cooper writes, the connections are “more felt than proven”.

Ravel, born in the French Basque region just a long walk from the Spanish border, is represented by the Pavane pour une infante défunte and Alborada del gracioso. Cooper gives vitality and style to four pieces from Albéniz’s hot, atmospheric Iberia suite and two Canción y Danza by Mompou. A favourite from this recital disc is her account of Debussy’s L’isle joyeuse, played with crystalline precision and dreamy freedom.