Description
The idea of “Ranges of Érard” was to put together a sort of labyrinthine program, in which it would be possible after each piece to take a different path. Thus “La puerto del vino” by Claude Debussy, together with the pieces by Manuel de Falla and Ignacio Cervantes, became a gate to this new, Spanish-coloured story. The clear, characteristic sound of an Érard Grand seemed perfectly suitable to the coloristic properties and expression of Spanish and South American music. Again it was a fascinating quest to what has become a lively, many-sided program. Playing “Lindaraja” by Debussy Ksenia discovered that the arrangement made by Roger-Ducasse was sometimes flawed. Luckily the four-hands manuscript by Debussy was available, so she could make the necessary changes in the score. The the short pieces of Cervantes became a sort of toys, Kouzmenko play them with slightly varied repeats, as was usual at that time. An inspiring journey through the Pyrenees and the Cerdaña, can we hear in the tracks of the Suite “Cerdaña” by Séverac, to the picturesque mountain villages of Puigcerdá, Llivia and Font-Romeu. The wooden Crucifix in the church of Llivia, in front of which the mule drivers had stood. It was not an idealized Christ figure, a young man, with an ordinary haircut and a small dark beard. It made a very realistic impression, and perhaps that’s why it was so gripping. The house where Albéniz was born in Camprodon, the place where his Bechstein Grand still is, the sound of the Catalan Cobla in Céret, where Séverac lived for a long period.
The enveloping heat and the sweet, inimitable aroma of Cuba, and when Ksenia close her eyes she see her parents next to each other, playing the Cuban dances of Cervantes four hands on an old piano in Camagüey…
