As the talented young Spanish pianist Miguel Baselga mentions in this release’s excellent booklet notes, there’s a considerable gap between much of Isaac Albéniz’s salon-like piano output and the labyrinthine originality of Iberia’s four books. For this reason, the pianist is allotting one book from Iberia per release in his ongoing complete Albéniz cycle for BIS. The project’s second installment improves upon its predecessor in that Baselga truly is making this music his own. His assertive, communicative virtuosity uncovers all the poetic layers interwoven throughout Iberia Book Two’s technical hurdles. Similarly, the pianist makes a cogent case for the composer’s slighter but utterly charming, neo-Lisztian Seven Studies in the Natural Minor Keys. Baselga’s fanciful yet tender treatments of the two salon mazurkas (Amalia and Ricordatti) and the evocative 1897 Souvenirs are absolute delights. The disc concludes with the wild and wooly La Vega, whose elemental impressionism sizzles under Baselga’s hot hands. All the music on this disc conveys as full a scope of Albéniz’s artistic development as can be contained on one CD. In sum, a disc guaranteed to perk up anyone’s piano collection. [3/20/2000]
