• The British pianist Imogen Cooper, among the most versatile and lyrical of performers, has been associated with exploratory Schubert cycles, with Liszt, Brahms, Schumann, Mozart, all authoritatively committed to disc. Her new album, Iberia y Francia (Chandos), takes a different direction: the French composers Ravel and Debussy are matched with their Spanish near contemporaries De Falla, Albéniz and Mompou, displaying the elusive but audible musical resonances between the two cultures. As Cooper writes, the connections are “more felt than proven”.
Ravel, born in the French Basque region just a long walk from the Spanish border, is represented by the Pavane pour une infante défunte and Alborada del gracioso. Cooper gives vitality and style to four pieces from Albéniz’s hot, atmospheric Iberia suite and two Canción y Danza by Mompou. A favourite from this recital disc is her account of Debussy’s L’isle joyeuse, played with crystalline precision and dreamy freedom.
• For complementary listening, a Spanish thread runs through Andrew Tyson’s Landscapes: Scarlatti, Schubert, Albéniz, Mompou (Alpha Classics). The young American pianist, fast making a name, explores ideas of landscape, like Cooper driven by instinct and musical sense rather than anything more literal. Four sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti frame Schubert’s early Sonata in A, D664, Albéniz’s Iberia, Book 1 and Mompou’s three Paisajes, inspired by Barcelona, the composer’s home city. Tyson’s playing in the Scarlatti is crisp and incisive, his Schubert buoyant and unburdened by melancholy, his Albéniz poetic and seductive. He and Cooper overlap on only one piece: Albéniz’s Evocación, his febrile, hers more languid. Two pianists, two contrasting styles, both entirely persuasive.
• Radio 3 this week focuses on the music and culture of Al-Andalus. Hannah French is joined by musicologist Jonathan Shannon and Islamic art historian Sabiha al Khemir on The Early Music Show (today, 12 noon). Words and Music: Al-Andalus, Nights in the Gardens of Spain (today, 5.30pm) visits Granada and the Alhambra.
