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In recent years we have been in luck when it comes to music book publishing. So we could and can still read «María Callas» by Fernando Fraga, “Angeles Gulín” by Santiago Vela, “Lucrecia Arana” with contributions from various authors, the reissue of “Parallel voices” by Giacomo Lauri-Volpi, “Alejo Carpentier and music” by Blas Matamoro, “Wagner y el cine” by Tony Palmer, «That was not in my book on the History of Music» by Pedro González Mira, «Easy Music» by Federico Abad and «Con el sol de México en la voz» by Albert Ferrer Flamarich … It seems that the publishers have put the batteries, although some are still waiting for the corresponding contract.
Sometimes you have to resort to solutions that were unthinkable a short time ago, such as the crowfunding the former general director of INAEM undertook, Miguel Angel Recio, for his “The Fourth Floor Office”, “The Seduction of the Fog” or, still hot, “When forgetting is impossible.” It is really worth visiting the web to learn how the world has evolved and imaginative ideas have emerged thanks to the internet. And since, however much they tell us, we are still going to have months with multiple hours at home or on a park bench, I add a few to the above.
A) Yes “Rossini and Spain” by Fernando Fraga, “Wagner and my way to Bayreuth” by Stewart Chamberlain in the edition of Blas Matamoro, “The Soviet Piano” by Luca Ciammarughi in translation by Stefano Russomano, “Paganini is alive! Vol 3 “by Ignacio Farías,” Beethoven: a Viennese portrait “by Arturo Reverter and Victoria Stapells and” Karajan, unpublished portrait of a music myth “by Leone Magiera translated by Amelia Pérez de Villar. Fraga does not want to cover Rossini’s entire life, which is why Stendhal was already there, and focuses on his relations with Spain. He only visited us once and only Madrid, but this visit would be decisive for the composition of his “Stabat Mater”. He also learned about us thanks to his first wife, the Spanish singer Isabel Colbrán, and friends such as the composer and famous singing teacher Manuel García or the banker Alejandro María Aguado. All this, together with a review of his works on a Spanish theme, is narrated by Fraga amusingly.
The second of the books tells us how the writer Stewart Chamberlain felt subjugated by Wagner, how he ascended the “holy hill” and how he ended up married to the master’s youngest and illegitimate daughter. Blas Matamoro does an excellent job of editing this first appearance in Spanish. The pianist Luca Ciammarughi presents a journey through the Soviet piano, with a review of its most prominent figures, from Horowitz to the most current Ashkenazy, Berman or Gavrilow, through Richter or Gilels, and the complicated relationships that one and the other had with him. Russian regime. Ignacio Farías continues the series on Paganini and his relationship with historical figures such as Elisa Bonaparte, Rossini, Metternich, Liszt, the Schumann, Brahms, Mendelsohn, Berlioz, Lord Byron, Goethe, etc. All this, with a historical chronology steeped in entertaining anecdotes. The Viennese portrait of Beetoven was already the focus of a monographic article and that of Karajan, just published, will be so shortly. Let’s hope that “days of a lot, eve of little” is not fulfilled and, after the pandemic, the publications continue.
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