Recordando is the maiden voyage on disc of Cuban pianist Elena Casanova, presented courtesy of MSR Classics. It's a swell disc, fabulously well recorded and beautifully played. The names of Cervantes, Saumell, and
Lecuona certainly will not be new to listeners already in the know about Cuban piano music, but that of
René Touzet may come as a surprise, as he is better known as a commercial bandleader of mambos and other Latin dance music. Yet, like
Agustín Lara,
Lecuona, and for that matter
Scott Joplin, the piano versions of
Touzet's popularly intended numbers play like classical piano music, with a sense of flexibility that breathes. Yet
Touzet's music does not sound compromised in being shorn of its Latin dance beat, in the manner that, say, a
Cole Porter song loses some if its integrity when sung by an operatic soprano.
Casanova plays all 21 of these short pieces with great care and respect, and employs a singing line that subtly pulls the dance rhythm along with it. Any listeners who already enjoy
Nohema Fernandez or
Thomas Tirino's work in this vein will also like Recordando. Naturally, the approach to Cuban music varies among these three and the few others who tackle this literature, but Cuban piano music isn't exactly an over-recorded commodity in the domestic U.S. market, so the more the merrier. You'll have to look hard for this one though -- with its Havana street scene with a big yellow Chevy on the front, Recordando doesn't look like a classical music album.