The fame and enormous output of
Domenico Scarlatti inspired various followers and imitators in Spain in the third quarter of the 18th century. The present disc is devoted to one of the least-known but potentially most interesting:
Manuel Blaso de Nebra, who worked in Seville and died in 1784 at the age of 34. Most of his music, with the exception of some 30 works, has been destroyed. The Op. 1 group of sonatas excerpted here was published in 1780; the rest of the music comes from an undated monastery manuscript but seems to come from the same period. Potential buyers of this disc ought to be sympathetic to highly pianistic recordings of
Scarlatti, but the choice of a modern instrument is reasonable in
Blasco de Nebra's case; there's a good deal of evidence that
Scarlatti, working several decades earlier, at least had the sound of a fortepiano in his head. And he took the potentially pianistic qualities of the music farther than did contemporaries like Carlos Seixas and even
Antonio Soler; the sonatas, sizable two-movement structures, stand up to the Romantic treatments given them by pianist
Javier Perianes. Sample the highly expressive material at the beginning of the Sonata in E minor Adagio movement (track 11); it's hard to imagine that really being done justice by a harpsichord. The two Pastorelas at the end of the program have clearer Baroque antecedents but are unusual in form; each opens with a slow movement, has a middle movement marked Pastorela, and ends with a minuet: they are unique adaptations of Classical multi-movement form to the pastoral idea from the Baroque universe, and they're quite charming pieces.
Perianes and annotator
Justo Romero (whose notes appear in Spanish, English, and German) succeed in their aim of stimulating further interest in this composer, whose music languished in libraries and churches until comparatively recently.