To most listeners, the name of Spanish composer Enrique Fernández Arbos is seen between parentheses or with a dash before it, as it was he who famously orchestrated parts of Isaac Albéniz's piano suite Iberia. This is not the case with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, as Arbos both founded and led it for its first 34 years. In observing its centennial in 2005, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid paid tribute to his memory in making this Verso disc, Enrique Fernández Arbos: La Obra de Camara, the first recording devoted solely to Arbos' work.
Musicians from the orchestra, including a combo named Trio Bellas Arte, perform two large-scale chamber pieces of Arbos probably dating from the 1880s -- Trez piezas originales en estilo español, Op. 1, and Tango, Op. 2, in addition to his last known work, a Pieza de concurso for cello and piano dating from 1920. These performances are unapologetically and unabashedly given in a late Romantic idiom with florid ornaments, generous rubato, wide vibrato, and a quality of string portamento little heard since this style went out of fashion perhaps 80 to 100 years ago. Nonetheless, it sounds anything but stale -- it liberates this music, giving it a sense of toughness and lilt unlike anything heard since the early days of electrical recording. The first two works also benefit by virtue of being based on Spanish dance rhythms that Arbos dresses up in a riot of colorful finery. It is splendid music, strikingly well recorded and performed.
There are also two song cycles here sung in Spanish and French by tenor Emilio Sánchez that would be fine if he weren't so LOUD! Sánchez gives it all he has for every bar of these 10 songs in a bullhorn voice so powerful it could blow down a half-mile of drywall. It's a shame, as the Cuatro canciones para la marquesa de Bolaños, Op. 4, sung in French, are beautiful settings that could have benefited a lot from a little give and take and some sensitivity from the singer. Thankfully, the vocal selections only occupy 25 of the 64 minutes on this disc, and for the curious, that well might be enough to justify purchase of this title.