Virtuoso marimba transcriptions of Spanish guitar and keyboard music by Albéniz, Tárrega, Granados, and Domenico Scarlatti. Distributed by LaurelRecords.com

13 MP3 Songs in this album (51:29) !
Related styles: Classical: Chamber Music, Classical: Keyboard Music, Instrumental

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MUSIC FROM SPAIN
Although many French composers had used Spanish musical ideas, it wasnât until the second half of the 19th century that Spanish composers themselves, the most famous among them Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Manuel de Falla, discovered the richness of Spanish national music.

In particular, the traditional music of Andalusia is regarded as representative of the whole country, and especially the cante jondo (deep, or profound song), also known as cante flamenco. Cante jondo includes different song types, some related by melodic or structural similarities. Originally expressing a more tragic sense of life, the cante jondo later became more popular and composers studied these songs, trying to imitate them in their own works. It was with the first performance of Bizetâs opera Carmen in 1875 that the cante jondo officially entered the field of classical music. The cante jondo plays a prominent role in the middle sections of the Malagueña and Leyenda presented here, while the outer sections are more wild dance than spiritual search.

To convey âthe sense, the life and the character of the countryâ (Granados) was the composerâs aim and intention. âDancingâ, wrote the English psychologist Havelock Ellis, âis something more than amusement in Spain. It is part of that solemn ritual which enters into the whole life of the people. It expresses their very spirit.â

A good friend of both Albéniz and Granados, but far less well-known, was the Spanish guitarist and composer Francisco Tárrega. The guitar has a percussive sound which often makes delicate expression difficult. Tárrega tried to transcend this challenge by learning to make the guitar sing through the use of tremolo in his most famous piece Memories of the Alhambra. In this recording, a one-handed roll was used to approximate the gentle rolling sound of tremolo.

The Alhambra, the oldest and best preserved Arab palace in the world, was built on the foundations of an earlier castle erected by the Jews of Granada in the 10th century. This era was the Golden Age of cooperation between Jews and their Arab neighbors, partly because both groups sought protection from the Christians. It was the residence of the last Arabic-Spanish dynasty in Granada (1238â1492), up to its conquest by King Ferdinand of Aragon and his wife Isabella, the Catholic in 1492, when the Jews were banished from Spain, and its name is a derivative of the Arabic al hamra (the red one) from the color of its bricks.

In the 19th century, writers like Victor Hugo and Washington Irving went on pilgrimages to the Alhambra and preserved its memory in their writings, as did Albéniz and Tárrega in their music.

âAnd finally, the last nightingale of the world will build its nest here and will start singing a farewell song, in the middle of the one-time splendor of the Alhambra.â
Washington Irving

The compositional life of the Italian cum Spaniard Domenico Scarlatti (1685â1757) ignited only after Scarlattiâs move to Spain in 1729, and is marked by the development of his characteristic style that can be found especially in the collections of his almost 600 harpsichord sonatas, almost entirely written for his student, Queen Maria Barbara. The designation sonata in Scarlattiâs terminology is specifically used for pieces in binary form, meaning their structure is divided into two separate parts, more harmonically symmetrical than thematically related. With the late Sonata in E Major, K. 380 (1754), we enter the âfinal glorious periodâ, featuring marvelous examples of the mature and fully developed Scarlatti style, where âthe player ⦠will find that now ⦠it is possible for Scarlatti to make him gasp with surprise and pleasure.â (Ralph Kirkpatrick, Domenico Scarlatti)

The Sonata in b minor, K. 87 (1742) is one of the first slow movements found among the harpsichord pieces and is, as the pianist Christian Zacharias describes it, an âembodiment of the Spanish past, a Vittoria madrigal reborn, austere yet unfettered by the conventions of counterpoint, polyphonic yet already with the voices blending in subordination to one single idea.â

Scarlattiâs sonatas are not narrative and their perspective basically stays the same throughout each piece, but it is the exhaustion of one idea, defined in the beginning, that dominates the music.

ALEX JACOBOWITZ was born in 1960 in New York. An undergraduate at the State University of New York, he had to study all percussion instruments, but he fell in love with the special sound of the xylophone. He asked his percussion professor what was necessary to become a world class xylophonist, who only laughed and answered: âThere is no such thing!â â Thatâs when Mr. Jacobowitz decided to become such a thing. He went to study with Gordon Stout and Leigh Howard Stevens, in 1981 won the DCI Individual Keyboard Competition in Montreal and became one of the few professional xylophone soloists in the world. After a year with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, he left the life of an orchestral percussionist behind and ever since tours the world as a xylophone soloist. Solo performances on European television, radio shows and countless newspaper articles in the past years mark his search for the âTrue, the Beautiful and the Goodâ. Mr. Jacobowitz participated in 7 feature films, among them Magic Marimbas (mdr & 3sat) and the BBC/WDR production Klezmer in Germany that was broadcast in the fall of 2007.

While working as a kibbutz volunteer in Israel in 1982-3, he returned to traditional Judaism, and since 1989 calls Jerusalem his home. âMusic is a language that brings me closer to the Creator,â says Jacobowitz. Therefore one of his major goals as a performer is to combine his love of music and his personal musical growth with the search for closeness to the Creator â to learn how to combine service of the hands with dedication of the heart. Alex Jacobowitz wishes to share his message of humanity, communication and tolerance, along with the beauty of music, with as many people as possible. Every summer he travels throughout Europe, playing in the pedestrian areas of the larger cities. This way he can more directly contact his audience. Every day he reaches out to thousands of people in this way, and delights them with his special mixture of classical concert and New York street show. During the winter months he prepares new recordings and follows a more conventional career inside concert halls.

THE XYLOPHONE is one of the oldest instruments in the world, and is similar to the more primitive African instrument, the marimba. In modern times, the concert xylophone (from Greek xylos = wood, phonos = sound) has been tuned and arranged similar to the keyboard, following the principle of rows of white and black keys. Rosewood bars resting over columns of air and struck with two mallets in each hand, achieve the instrumentâs distinctively warm and sometimes mystical sound.

Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909)
Suite Español, op. 165
Prelude - Although composed for the piano, this is a flamenco-based foretaste of the following five moments. The unmistakable guitar-like arpeggios evoke the soul of Spain - much like Albéniz' Evocation from Iberia - but here in a smaller scale.

Tango - When Argentina exported the tango to Spain at the end of the 19th century, it captured the attention of a broad swath of Spanish society. Albéniz' relatively simple piano version here is interpreted by American virtuoso Alex Jacobowitz on the marimba, an instrument that Spain's Conquistadores exported (through black African slaves) to Central and South America in the 16th century.

Malagueña - Every major city of Spain has its own musical flavor, and Malaga in the south is no exception. The arpeggiation here reminds the listener immediately of the strumming of guitars, the energy of Andalusia, the modes of the Moors of Spain. Although Albéniz originally envisioned this music on a piano, listeners agree that the rendering of the sound here by Alex Jacobowitz on the marimba adds a bit more Spanish spice to the recipe.

Leyenda, opus 232, is quite probably Albéniz most famous work, also known as Prelude, Canto de España Number one, and Asturias. Composed for the piano, this brilliant work is usually heard in its guitar version. This 'legend" is a story told masterfully in three sections. The first part of the tale is told in a classical version of flamenco style. The second section is known as "cante jondo", or the deep song, and is a melancholy melody that was usually sung among the Gypsies of Spain. The third section is a reprise of the first section, but with a flamenco finale.

Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909)
Recuerdos de la Alhambra
A thousand years ago, in southern Spain, in Andalucia, in Granada, Jews and Muslims lived together in peace. In those times, the Jews and Muslims of Spain - together - built the beautiful castle known today as "The Alhambra" (from Arabic, "the red one"). Inside this castle, the Jews and the Muslims of Granada lived hundreds of years in harmony. Not fighting, not arguing - and because both religions needed to pray, they decided to build a chapel in the Alhambra - a room where ALL inhabitants could pray. Jews. Muslims. Christians. In other words, a thousand years ago, there was tolerance between the three religions of Granada. But that all changed, when suddenly there was a new king in Spain - and a new queen â and with them came new laws. With the so-called "Law of the Alhambra" in 1492, the Jews and the Muslims were thrown out of Spain, and the castle they had built together - the Alhambra - was suddenly empty, and through the next centuries, it was neglected and ruined. But today - the 21st century - the castle has been repaired.

Once again, the Alhambra is beautiful - but the Jews and the Muslims of Spain, who built that castle - are no longer there. Still, people can still learn something from this story today - how peoples and religions can work together, to build - or work against each other, to destroy. Alex Jacobowitz, in his marimba version of this guitar classic, reminds listeners here to bring the message of the music into their hearts, and not merely to listen to the beautiful sounds.

Capricho Arabe
This classic, composed by the father of the modern guitar, Francisco Tárrega, brings Arabic modes to the Iberian style. In this marimba version, virtuoso Alex Jacobowitz shows a new side of this masterpiece

Enrique Granados (1867-1916)
Villanesca is the fourth dance from the composer's immortal "12 Spanish Dances", originally for the piano. Alex Jacobowitz borrowed the idea of transcribing this miniature masterpiece from the piano to the marimba, as guitar gurus of Spanish-speaking lands had already done for many years. Although this Villanesca, No. 4 isn't the most famous of the group, its relaxed motions bring a sense of serenity before the stormy No. 5.

Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
Although Domenico Scarlatti was born in Italy, he spent virtually all of his adult life - and wrote all of his mature keyboard works - in Spain, where he was employed as official music teacher to the Spanish court. The music of Spain, its style, its flavors, were incorporated in Scarlatti's compositions. One might be tempted to brand Domenico Scarlatti as an Italian composer, like his father Alessandro, but that would be, musically speaking, a gross oversimplification and misleading. Alex Jacobowitz here creates his own special version of Scarlatti's voicings to these virtuoso marimba transcriptions.

Sonata in E major K.380 - This is one of the most brilliant of Domenico Scarlatti's approximately 600 harpsichord sonatas, and is known to many listeners through the guitar version recorded by John Williams in the 1980's. In this version, virtuoso Alex Jacobowitz captures Scarlatti's abrupt mood and texture changes on a five-octave xylophone, also known as a marimba. With the late Sonata in E Major, we enter the âfinal glorious periodâ, featuring marvelous examples of the mature and fully developed Scarlatti style, where âthe player ... will find that now ... it is possible for Scarlatti to make him gasp with surprise and pleasure.â (Ralph Kirkpatrick, Domenico Scarlatti)

Sonata in b minor K.87 (1742) - The Sonata in b minor is one of the first slow movements found among the harpsichord pieces and is, as the pianist Christian Zacharias describes it, an âembodiment of the Spanish past, a Vittoria madrigal reborn, austere yet unfettered by the conventions of counterpoint, polyphonic yet already with the voices blending in subordination to one single idea.â This Scarlatti sonata was one of Vladimir Horowitz's favorites, and his piano recording influenced marimba virtuoso Alex Jacobowitz in 1995 to interpret it in his own fashion - on the relatively unusual percussion-keyboard instrument. Here, Jacobowitz engraves Scarlatti's streaming melancholic circles of fifths in Honduran rosewood, giving this baroque sonata its special autumn flavors.

Scarlattiâs sonatas are not narrative and their perspective basically stays the same throughout each piece, but it is the exhaustion of one idea, defined in the beginning, that dominates the music.

La Romanza is probably the world's most famous solo guitar piece, even though it's anonymous. Around 1960, this simple melody was used as the theme to the French film Jeux Interdits (forbidden games), which only partly explains its great popularity. The brevity and strength of this pearl - switching easily between major and minor - have made it a favorite of guitar performers and listeners for many years. This marimba version adds a haunting quality to the usual guitarist's diet.