Composer: Carlos Chávez
Performer: Jan Karlin, Tom Peters, Lorenz Gamma, Peter Jacobson, Stuart Horn, Suzanna Guzman, Jim Foschia, Lawrence Kaplan, Allen Savedoff, Shalini Vijayan, Lynn Vartan, Amy Wilkins, Beth Pflueger, Valerie DiCarlo, Tony Ellis, Jeff Olsen, Ming Tsu, Alba Quezada, Ricardo Gallardo, Southwest Chamber Music, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble
Conductor: Jeff von der Schmidt
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Cambria
Catalogue: CAMCD-8852
Release: 2005
Size: 278 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Xochipili
01. I. Allegro animato
02. II. Lento
03. III. Vivo
Toccata for Percussion
04. I. Allegro sempre giusto
05. II. Largo
06. III. Allegro un poco marziale
4 Melodias tradicionales indias del Ecuador
07. No. 1. Que te parece, Pirucha?
08. No. 2. Santo, San Juanito
09. No. 3. Tristezas me depara
10. No. 4. Quisiera ser danzantito
Tambuco
11. I. Vivo
12. II. Lento
13. III. Animato, non troppo mosso
14. Lamentaciones
Cantos de México
15. I. Poco movido
16. II. Lento
17. III. Vivo
Antigona
18. I. Prologo
19. II. Episodio y treno
3 Exagonos
20. No. 1. Amar, toda la vida en llamas
21. No. 2. Llegad, oh dulces horas
22. No. 3. Amada, dejame ver la luna
Otros 3 Exagonos
23. No. 1. El buque ha chocado
24. No. 2. A donde va mi corazon?
25. No. 3. Cuando el transatlantico
Partita
26. I. Praeludium
27. II. Sarabande
28. III. Allemande
29. IV. Giga
Carlos Chávez: Complete Chamber Works, Vol. 3, is the third installment in Southwest Chamber Music’s traversal of the complete chamber music of Mexican composer Carlos Chávez. This volume focuses on the part of his chamber music that incorporates percussion in a significant way, and presses into service the percussion ensemble Tambuco, a group that takes its name from the title of a Chávez percussion piece. Tambuco has recorded Chávez’s Xochipili, Tambuco and Toccata for Percussion before for the now defunct Dorian label, but all the recordings on this Cambria disc are new. The second time around represents an improvement in all three cases, as these are much sharper and focused performances than the previous ones, in addition to being in better sound.
There are a couple of vocal works here, being Cuatro Melodías Tradicionales and Lamentaciónes sung by mezzo-soprano Suzanna Guzmán and Tres Exágonos and Otros Tres Exágonos as performed by soprano Alba Quezada. Guzmán is a Los Angeles-based opera singer renowned for her portrayal of Carmen, and her voice may seem a little heavy in these spindly settings. Nonetheless, the vocal quality employed by Guzmán is in keeping with the type of singer that Chávez would have heard performing these pieces were they new. By comparison, Quezada, a singing actress, brings the right balance of voice, ensemble, and characterization together in Chávez’s two sets of Exágonos. Conductor Jeff von der Schmidt delivers appropriately tart and taut readings of Chávez’s Cantos de México and the first-ever recording of Antígona, incidental music written for Jean Cocteau’s Antigone that was eventually revised into Chávez’s oft-recorded Sinfonia de Antígona.
The real surprise here, though, is the Partita for Solo Timpani, a late work that shows Chávez’s mastery of percussion to its best advantage, expertly played by Ricardo Gallardo of Tambuco. The sound quality of Carlos Chávez: Complete Chamber Works, Vol. 3, is terrific, and one need not go farther than here to experience the best-ever recordings of such Chávez staples as Xochipili and Toccata for Percussion. The first two discs in this series both won Grammy awards; in this case, the third time might again prove a charm, as unusual as that would be.