José F. Vásquez: The Complete Impresiones for Piano
José F. Vásquez (1896‒1961) – composer, pianist, conductor and educationalist – was one of the leading figures in Mexican classical music from the 1910s to the 1950s, but since many of his scores were lost after his death, his star soon sank from the sky. Four decades of research by his son, the writer José Jesús Vásquez Torres, have recovered much of the missing music, allowing a re-assessment of his father’s standing. These five books of Impresiones for piano (from c. 1922‒27) – fifteen predominantly slow, introspective miniatures – reveal a debt to French Impressionism, Debussy in particular, with occasional nods to Schumann, Liszt and Brahms, and some harmonies that suggest Wagner. Vásquez was a fine pianist himself, but the textures here have a surprising simplicity, throwing the emphasis on tonal colour.
Vladimir Curiel, piano
Listen To This Recording:
- I Romanza
- II Barcarola
- III Melodía
- I Nocturno
- II La oración de la tarde
- III Elegía
- I Reverie
- II Impromptu
- III Berceuse
- I Preludio
- II Hoja de álbum
- III Plegaria
- I Madrigal
- II Serenata
- III Intermezzo
First Series
Second Series
Third Series
Fourth Series
Fifth Series
FIRST DIGITAL RECORDING
Classical Music Daily :
‘[…]the fifteen movements showcase a great deal of textural, harmonic and rhythmic variety. […]
In conclusion, José F Vásquez: The Complete Impresiones for Piano is a release that challenges the notion of historical teleology in musical canons and serves as a stark reminder that not all pioneers who fundamentally shape a musical tradition will necessarily make it into that tradition’s standard repertoire. In this case, building on Casillas’s observations, it seems clear that the nationalist composers who now form the backbone of Mexico’s twentieth-century canon – Revueltas and others – needed the opposing dialectic force of the Impressionists to galvanize the articulation of their own idiom. If it really is innovation that we admire in our composers, and not just canonization, then we are urged by releases like this to rethink our approach to composers like Vásquez and not simply default to the precedent of curatorial habit. Otherwise, we may risk propagating the misleading impression that musical aesthetics can only be fruitfully advanced through the dichotomous model of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ – by prioritizing the adversarial over the symbiotic.’
—John Dante Prevedini, Classical Music Daily