El Piano Olvidado

Description

The Group of Eight, known also as the Madrid Group, Composers from the Generation of 27, the Generation of the Republic or the Generation of the Dictatorship. Four of the Group’s main names –Salvador Bacarisse, Juan José Mantecón, Julián Bautista and Gustavo Pittaluga– awoke Jorge Robaina’s interest. The pianist’s task is extraordinary in terms of the recovery of a heritage but much more because of its artistic beauty. The four titles are multifaceted notebooks, their composers offering contrasting aspects of their beliefs and technique. Deeply involved in the highly cultivated Spanish dances of Pittaluga’s Suite and Bacarisse’s 24 Preludes, surprising with the richness offered in the elaborate wake of Chopin, Mantecón’s delightful album, his major achievement, and the chromatic daring of Bautista, probably related to Messiaen, Robaina deploys a masterly range of touches, timbres and phrasing. They do express the influences as performer but also the demand of a rigorous stylistic quest within this singular repertoire that he absorbs and transforms, perfectly located in a time difficult for spirituality, happily restored to its grandeur by such initiatives.