ANTÓN GARCÍA ABRIL (b.1933): Variaciones Concertantes, Alba de soledades, Salmo de Laegría para el siglo XXI for Soprano and String Orchestra.

Description: A senior figure in Spanish music, with a distinctive, emotionally communicative and thoroughly accessible voice, Abril wrote music based firmly in tonality, with a strong vein of lyricism. The substantial Variations present a long sinuous theme, presented on solo strings at the outset and immediately accumulating overlapping variants, then diversifying and continuously evolving in texture and density in a Straussian or late Mahlerian Romantic idiom of great expressivity and Ravelian lushness and color of orchestration. Each section leader is given a concertante role in a succession of micro-concertos that function as the varied bulding blocks that make up the whole. The Psalm sets poetry of Rafael Alberti expressing joy, hope and optimism, to gorgeously melodic music, the soprano's celebration of love soaring above a rich accompaniment alternating broad, serenely expressive contemplation and dramatic passages of Bartókian pungency and energy. "Dawn of Solitudes" is an eloquently lyrical tone poem, lush and atmospheric, its luminous serenity enlivened by a irresistible dancelike episodes, which finally take over to bring the work to an exhilarating conclusion. Spanish texts. María Bayo (soprano), Real Filharmoniá de Galicia; Antoni Ros Marbà.