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Paul Corfield Godfrey's Review of "Goyescas"
Posted by Andreas Bendlin on March 31, 2022, 3:23 am
Pace Paul Corfield Godfrey's review, I don't think de Larrocha's 1976 Decca recording of "Goyescas" "now reissued thanks to Presto Classics, was her last of the cycle." A digital recording, made in 1989/90 as part of a series of (re-)recordings for RCA, was her last, me thinks, although it does not seem widely available at the moment.
Mr Bendlin is quite correct, and I must apologise for overlooking the later RCA recording, which is however perhaps excusable since it is not - as he notes - readily available in its original form at present. However I note from the very brief review of that RCA release by Leslie Gerber in Fanfare that he described the earlier recording which I was reviewing as "perfectly fine" and its replacement as "not a matter of great urgency."
However the later RCA issue does contain some additional items by Granados, although what precisely they are seems to vary from reissue to reissue; and the two RCA versions currently shown on Amazon (one a Japanese reissue, and the other described as "remastered") both claim to include not only Goyescas but also the Spanish Dances, a claim that must surely mean that one of both the major works is not given complete. None of the reviews on Amazon provide any enlightenment on this point, I'm afraid.
On the other hand I should have noted the comment by Jed Distler in his March 2020 Gramophone review of the various versions of the score where he referred to the Decca recording now reissued by Presto as "the third and arguably most satisfying of her four recorded versions." But at the same time he too totally disregards the existence of the later RCA recording.
Thank you for your kind reply; there is no need to apologize, though: if an artist decides, or is prompted, to record the same repertoire over and over again, confusion among collectors and reviewers is bound to occur.
May I put in a good word on behalf of De Larrocha's second recording, made in the early 1960s (I think) for Histavox? It was distributed internationally by EMI and is now in Warner's inexpensive Icons box. That recording seems to have been displaced in most people's affection by the later Decca recording, but it is still very much worth hearing.