Former Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, Juanjo Mena continues the series \u2018La M\u00fasica de Espa\u00f1a\u2019, which has seen the recording of orchestral works by de Falla, Turina, and Alb\u00e9niz, with another important Spanish composer: Juan Cris\u00f3stomo de Arriaga, known for years after his early death as the \u2018Spanish Mozart\u2019.<\/p>\n
The orchestral overture to Los esclavos felices<\/em> (The Happy Slaves) is all that survives of an opera which the child prodigy Arriaga wrote aged fourteen. When Arriaga moved to Paris in 1821 to study under F\u00e9tis, Gu\u00e9rin, and Baillot, he revised the overture, making changes to the instrumentation and removing a third theme. It is the revised version which is heard on this recording.<\/p>\n Air de l\u2019Op\u00e9ra M\u00e9d\u00e9e<\/em> and Herminie<\/em> are included in the largely autograph volume \u2018Ensayos l\u00edrico-dram\u00e1ticos\u2019 (Lyric-dramatic Essays), and here feature one of Scandinavia\u2019s most sought-after concert singers, the soprano Berit Norbakken Solset. Tonally ambiguous, the D minor Symphonie \u00e0 grand orchestre<\/em>, which begins and ends in D major, and the Overture, Op. 20, in D major, which was written \u2018without having learnt the principles of harmony\u2019, are proof that the death of Arriaga at age nineteen was a \u2018sad loss to Basque music\u2019.<\/p>\n