Silvia Márquez Chulilla - Herbania (2019)

Yes, there is 20th-Century Spanish music written for such an old instrument as the harpsichord! Composers do not impose limits: they love its rythm, timbre, they love dreaming the past. Following the traces of her exciting last CD Chaconnerie –including Latin Grammy nominated Montuno by Roberto Sierra–, harpsichordist Silvia Márquez Chulilla presents here a stunning bouquet of pieces composed between 1952 (on a Pleyel harpsichord!) and 1996. Apparently a feminine world, it was the charismatic Wanda Landowska who inspired Manuel de Falla, the first leading composer of the 20th century to turn his gaze to the harpsichord. Then many composers from the 20th century enthusiastically wrote for Antoinette Vischer, Annelie de Man, Elisabeth Chojnacka, and Goska Isphording. And in Spain, in the sixties, it was to be Genoveva Gálvez –the first professor of harpsichord in her country– who would manage to make that initially solitary voyage attractive to contemporary composers with its surprising sonorities –it is for good reason that three of the pieces amassed here are dedicated to her–. Three world premiere recordings –J. Homs, A. Oliver Pina, J.Mª Sánchez-Verdú– and three of the most famous Spanish composers nowadays –Tomás Marco, José Luis Turina, José Mª Sánchez-Verdú– invite you to enter into a sound world that is caustic, metallic, rhythmic, and evocative, from the Spanish second half of the 20th century.