Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909)
Castilla op.47 No7 or op.232 No5 Seguidillas (1886) for two Guitars
Julian Bream & John Williams
RCA 1979 Live
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Castilla Seguidillas
The final piece of the collection is Seguidillas. A seguidilla is a popular song or dance form composed from four to seven verses. The form is explained as,
"based on strong flamenco rhythms. Its seven "verses" are tied together by the similarity of the first three verses, the fact that the 4th and 5th verses begin in the same way as the first three, and that the 6th is based on their endings; the 7th verse is a free mixture of the beginning and ending materials just mentioned. The seven verses are enclosed by a four-bar introduction, which set the rhythm, and a 13-bar Coda which provides a brilliant ending."
Chants d'Espagne, Op. 232, (Spanish: Cantos de España = Songs of Spain) is a suite of originally three, later five pieces for the piano by Isaac Albéniz. Prélude (later known as Asturias (Leyenda)), Orientale and Sous le palmier were published in 1892, and Córdoba and Seguidillas were added in the 1898 edition. According to Günter Schulze, "Many...[of the works] have the flavor of the flamenco so beloved of Albéniz."
Isaac Albéniz’s Suite española, Op. 47, is a suite for solo piano. It is mainly composed of works written in 1886 which were grouped together in 1887, in honour of the Queen of Spain. Like many of Albeniz’s works for the piano, these pieces depict different regions and musical styles in Spain.
In these works the first title refers to the geographical region portrayed, and the title in parentheses is the musical form or dance from that region. From Granada in Andalusia there is a Serenata, from Catalonia a Curranda or Courante, from Sevilla a Sevillanas and from Cuba (which was still part of Spain in the 1880s) a Notturno in the style of a habanera, from Castile a seguidillas, from Aragon a Fantasia in the style of a jota, and from Cadiz a saeta. This last example, like Asturias (Leyenda), is geographically inaccurate.
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Chants d'Espagne (Cantos de Espania) Op. 232 (Paris, 1891-94)
This marvelous collection of five evocative Andalucian pieces, written between 1891 and 1894, prefaces the remarkable works of Albéniz's final years. The collection originally comprised only three items, Prélude, Orientale, and Sous le Palmier, and was first published in that form in Barcelona by Juan Bta. Pujol & Co. in 1892. This was followed in 1897 by an edition published by Union Musical Espanola in Madrid which added two further movements, Cordoba and Seguidillas. Seven years later, in 1911, the Prélude and Seguidillas were incorporated into the first Suite Espanola, where their titles were changed in order to accommodate those originally advertised in 1886, Asturias (subtitled leyenda) and Castilla (subtitled seguidillas) respectively.
5. Seguidillas
The opening harmony alone immediately removes this piece from the character of the first Suite espanola, to which it has unfortunately been attached. The seguidilla falsetta that follows recurs throughout the piece, in wide range of keys and ever-shorter snatches, in discourse with a series of short coplas. The melody of the copla finally emerges in full form from measure 94. The piece concludes in seguidilla rhythm, set in a series of ninth harmonies which, like the harmony of the opening measure, may be regarded as a transformation of the 'open-string’ sound of the guitar.
