Ana Vidović - Federico Moreno Torroba: Guitar Music, Vol. 1 (2007)

Federico Moreno Torroba (1891-1982) was, along with Rodrigo, the great crowd-pleaser of Spanish music in the twentieth century. Known in the field of the operetta-like zarzuela as well as for guitar music, he cultivated an art that was recognizably Spanish without either coming deeply to grips with the flamenco substrate of Spanish music on one hand, or confronting Spanish music's relationship to France on the other. His music demands exactly the qualities furnished by the young Croatian guitarist Ana Vidovic: fluency, confidence, and a winning light lyricism. Vidovic excels in the gentle colorations of the two representational works that make up the bulk of the program, Castillos de España (Castles of Spain) and Puertas de Madrid (Gates of Madrid). The slow movements of Castillos de España, miniature impressionist portraits of complicated buildings at twilight, are rendered in a manner at once dreamy and perfectly smooth. The recording was made in a suburban Toronto church -- not, at first glance, the ideal setting for music suffused with old Spanish lore, but the guitar sound is clean and entirely sympathetic to the performer's graceful, undramatic style. A promising beginning indeed to what appears to be a series of discs devoted to a somewhat neglected member of the fraternity of Spanish guitar composers.