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Padre Antonio Soler 1729–1783 Complete Keyboard Sonatas – Volume 4 Compact Disc 1
Sonata R94 in G Op.4 No.4 I. Andante gracioso e con moto II. Allegro ma non troppo III. Menuetto I & II IV. Allegro Compact Disc 2
1 2 3 4
Sonata R91 in C Op.4 No.1 I. Andantino con moto II. Allegro di molto III. Menuetto I & II IV. Allegro pastoril
5’30 3’28 4’34 3’39
5 6 7 8
Sonata R92 in D Op.4 No.2 I. Andante con moto II. Presto assai III. Menuetto I & II IV. Allegro pastoril
4’59 4’37 6’22 5’05
Sonata R93 in F Op.4 No.3 I. Andante amabile expressivo II. Allegro ma non presto III. Menuetto I & II IV. Allegro molto
5’27 3’59 8’16 4’52
9 10 11 12
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75’46
13 14 15 16
2’51 3’37 5’20 3’03 70’30
1 2 3 4
Sonata R95 in A Op.4 No.5 I. Andante gracioso con moto II. Allegro espressivo non presto III. Menuetto I & II IV. Allegro pastoril
4’10 3’41 4’54 3’58
5 6 7 8
Sonata R96 in E flat Op.4 No.6 I. Andante gracioso II. Allegro cantabile III. Menuetto I & II IV. Pastoral: Allegro non molto
3’24 4’07 3’35 4’08
9 10 11 12
Sonata R97 in A Op.8 No.1 I. Allegretto II. Menuetto I & II III. Rondo: Andantino con moto IV. Allegro
2’28 2’21 2’36 3’28
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13 14 15 16
Sonata R98 in B flat Op.8 No.2 I. Allegretto II. (Menuet I & II) III. (Rondo) IV. (Allegro)
5’42 3’08 3’14 2’33
17 18 19 20
Sonata R99 in G Op.8 No.3 I. Andantino II. Menuetto I & II III. Rondo pastoral IV. Allegro
4’13 2’22 3’40 2’39
Padre Antonio Soler (1729–1783)
Pieter-Jan Belder fortepiano (Kobald, Apeldoorn 2001)
The numbering of the sonatas is according to the Rubio edition Recorded: October/November 2010, Doopsgezinde Kerk, Deventer Recorded by Peter Arts Fortepiano: Kobald, Apeldoorn 2001 Cover image: Goya: Maria Teresa de Vallabriga on horseback; Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy/ The Bridgeman Art Library. P & C 2011 Brilliant Classics
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Origins Antonio Soler was baptized on 3 December 1729 in the church of Sant Esteve of Olot (in the province of Girona) as Antonio Francisco Xavier Joseph, the son of Mateo Soler (born 1685 in the village of Porrera, province of Tarragona, military musician of the Regimiento de Numancia) and his wife Teresa Ramos (born 1702 in Daroca, province of Zaragoza). Knowing this, we can suppose that he received his first musical instruction from his father, who took him to the Abbey of Montserrat at the age of six to become a choir boy in the renowned escolania. There he would have ten years under the tutelage of the masters Benet Valls (chapel master) and Benet Esteve (organist at the same time). At first he learned solfeggio; later he studied composition and to play the organ. The pupils at that time mainly studied organ works by Juan Bautista Cabanilles, Miguel López and Josep Elias. Soler is later stated to have studied ‘twenty four works by Joseph Elias’. Professional development The account written after his death by an anonymous monk of the Escorial who knew him well refers to the time after his studies in Montserrat: ‘And he was such advanced [in his skills] that he competed in two cathedrals for the chapel master post.’ There is no extant document proving that Soler had a post in Lerida, but the Bishop of Urgell, who had formerly been the prior of El Escorial, asked Soler if there was a young organist willing to become a clergyman at El Escorial, and Soler declared that he wanted to take the habit and ‘retire from the world’. Regarding his vivid and studious personality, we can guess that the ‘world’ consisted for him of uncultivated people who did not understand his skills, and that he was keen to move to an environment where high culture was better appreciated.
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There is a document, the Chapter Act, reporting that Antonio Soler was admitted as a novice to the monks’ community in El Escorial on 25 September 1752. He was competent in Latin but prodigiously talented on the organ and in composition. His presence there is documented on two other occasions. In one of them, there is the declaration before his fellow novices and monks, that ‘all were pleased with his behaviour’, on 29 September 1753. For this occasion he composed a Veni Creator Spiritus for eight voices and violins. No reports survive to confirm the dates he became deacon, priest and chapel master, but they must have been after 1757, the last active year of the former chapel master, Father Moratilla. The point that Soler had been ‘a pupil’ of Domenico Scarlatti and José de Nebra seems unimportant. He would certainly have met them, because the Spanish court in which the two old masters were exclusively employed spent some months each year at El Escorial. Soler would have appreciated having access to two of the best composers in Spain and is likely to have adopted some of their ideas for his own compositional work. Regarding the possible influence of Scarlatti on Spanish keyboard music, it is worth remembering that Farinelli, the famous castrato, left a brilliant career in the London opera to sing for the Spanish royal family. He was not allowed to sing outside the court. In the same way it seems that the Scarlatti sonatas were also exclusive to the royal family and that they were dispersed only after the death of Queen María Bárbara in 1759. More Scarlatti sonatas are being found (often anonymous or falsely attributed) in Spanish sources, but these are generally written after 1760. Some of the tocatas (sonatas) published by Vicente Rodríguez in Valencia in 1744 are rather ‘Scarlattian’. Does this mean that he knew the Essercizi per gravicembalo (1738) in London by Thomas Roseingrave? The influence of the brilliant Scarlatti sonatas may rather be seen in the fact that many Spanish composers went on writing in the same form even in the late 18th century, and the most probable reason is that this directly expressive form, rather far from Viennese formalisms, closely reflects Iberian landscapes and culture.
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From 1766, Soler received a commission to teach the sons of Carlos III, Antonio and Gabriel. The latter seems to have been the more talented. All further documents name Infante Don Gabriel as his pupil. Especially for him, Soler wrote his six concertos for two organs and the rarely performed quintets for string quartet and harpsichord. In addition, since Soler was a master of keyboard improvisation, we can guess that it was for Don Gabriel that he wrote most of his 150-plus pieces for solo keyboard, including a few works for the organ. He would have welcomed the departure from his normal routine, which included the composition of religious vocal works (more than 350). The keyboard pieces are unusual; some of them exceed the compass of contemporary harpsichords or fortepianos (F to g’’’), with dazzling and original passages requiring great dexterity. Lord Fitzwilliam visited Soler and received a manuscript containing 27 sonatas, which was published 1796 in London by Rt. Birchall. Soler was also skilled in mathematics and instrument building. In 1762 he published his treatise about tonal relations Llave de la Modulación, and in 1765 he produced a second book in response to critics of Modulación. In 1766 he wrote that he was working on a large treatise about ‘Church music of old tradition, clear, innocent and devote’, which has since been lost. In 1771 he published a manual for converting Catalan and Castilian metallic currency. In 1778 he wrote an extensive letter defending the work of the organ builder Casas in the cathedral of Sevilla. Examples of his wide circle of contacts outside the monastery appear in 14 letters to the Duke of Medina Sidonia and 7 letters to P. Giambattista Martini in Italy. Further evidence of his fame was the publication of the motet Super Flumina Babilonis, written for the ‘Concours du meilleur grand motet’, a competition organised by the director of the Concerts Spirituels of Paris in 1767. These papers were published in 2008. C Martin Voortman, 2010 http://voortman-musik.npage.de
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Padre Antonio Soler: Volume 4 During the 18th century musical taste changed rapidly from a Baroque style into a more galant and Classical style. Perhaps due to the slightly isolated character of the Iberian peninsula, changes were a bit behind in Spain. Nevertheless, the changes of taste described before are clearly recognisable in the œuvre of Soler. He considered himself as a ‘disciple’ (whatever that may mean) of Scarlatti, and there is a clear kinship between the works of the two composers. In 1768 Luigi Boccherini settled in Spain and obviously had a great influence on our padre. He also might have known works by Haydn whose music was circulated in Spain and who even received a commission from Spain (The Seven Last Words). In fact, in his later works Soler left the single-movement sonata form which he inherited from Scarlatti, and started to use a four-movement sonata form. The style is also quite different from the Scarlattian sonata, and bears witness of the influence Classical composers from abroad had on Soler. The sonatas usually start with a cantabile-like movement, followed by a fast movement. The minuettos are striking, with tempo indications like maestoso, not the first characterisation one would expect of a minuet. The first slow minuet is followed by a second quick minuet which usually has the tempo indication Allegro, after which the first minuet is repeated. In the Opus 4 sonatas the fourth movement is fast, often with the additional indication of pastoril or non molto. These last movements have a kind of naivety, often found in Soler’s villancicos, a kind of madrigalistic cantata, often connected with Christmas. The Opus 8 sonatas are arranged slightly differently from the Opus 4 sonatas. As with the Opus 4 sonatas, the first movement is usually an Andante or Moderato movement, cantabile in character, the second movement is a minuet, the third movement is a rondo and the sonatas finish with a virtuoso fourth movement.
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The nine sonatas recorded here are numbered by the composer himself with ‘opus’ (obras) numbers. Perhaps Soler intended the sonatas to be published or considered it to be fashionable to provide them with opus numbers. Along with the development of musical taste, the taste for instruments changed during the 18th century. For over 300 years, the harpsichord and, in some countries including Spain, the clavichord were the common keyboard instruments for chamber music. The fortepiano, invented by Christofori at the end of the 17th century, only had a minor influence on mainstream musical life. The Spanish court used to have some fortepianos by Cristofori or by his student Ferrini, but these instruments were probably intended to accompany singers. Scarlatti definitely played these instruments and Soler might have played them as well. However, the piano in the early 18th century was a novelty only courts were able to afford, but in the second half of the century the influence of the fortepiano became more evident and gradually took over from the harpsichord. Stylistically, the later works by Soler ask for (at least according to my taste) the use of the fortepiano. In particular, the common use of ‘alberti basses’ and repeated notes in the left hand as accompanying figures for the more melodic right hand, makes it very hard to realise a convincing interpretation on the harpsichord. Therefore I used a fortepiano for this recording, although one is never sure if Soler had this instrument in mind when he composed these pieces. There are Spanish pianos known from the period, heavily influenced by the Christofori model. However, for practical reasons too, I used my own Viennese fortepiano after an instrument from 1795 by Anton Walter. I don’t actually know if there is a copy of a Spanish 18th-century fortepiano with the range Soler requires in these sonatas. Although in the last couple of years more efforts have been made to revive the Florentine fortepiano, the revival of 18th-century Spanish fortepiano still is in its infancy. C Pieter-Jan Belder, 2011
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Pieter-Jan Belder (1966) studied recorder with Ricardo Kanji at the Royal Conservatorium of the Hague, and harpsichord with Bob van Asperen at the Amsterdam Sweelinck Conservatorium. He graduated in 1990 and since then has pursued a flourishing career as a harpsichordist, clavichord player, organist, fortepianist and recorder player. He has played at many international festivals, such as the Barcelona Festival de Musica Antiga, the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, the Berlin Tage für Alte Musik, the Festival Potsdam Sans Souci, the Festival van Vlaanderen, the KLARA Festival and the Leipzig Bachfest. He gives solo recitals, and is in demand as a continuo player with such ensembles as the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Collegium Vocale Gent, Camarata Trajectina and the Netherlands Bach Society. He has worked with conductors such as Frans Brüggen, Ton Koopman, Jos van Veldhoven, Paul Dombrecht, Philippe Herreweghe, Kenneth Montgomery and René Jacobs. Belder has also accompanied soloists such as Johannette Zomer, Nico van der Meel, Harry van der Kamp, Sigiswald Kuijken, Rémy Baudet, Wilbert Hazelzet, Kate Clark and Saskia Coolen. Belder conducts his own ensemble Musica Amphion.
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