- Artists:
- Ataúlfo Argenta,
- Enrique Jordá
Ataúlfo Argenta; Enrique Jordá - The Decca Masters (20CD Box Set)
Ataúlfo Argenta and Enrique Jordá – two Spanish maestri in a single Decca collection, newly remastered, with ‘original jackets’, and several recordings receiving their CD premieres. LIMITED EDITION.
When Decca developed its revolutionary new ‘ffrr’ technology in the postwar 1940s, the label promoted it with a list of new recordings made by their most distinguished artists: Kathleen Ferrier, Victor de Sabata… and Enrique Jordá. Likewise, when Decca embraced the step-change of LP a few years later, they advertised its high fidelity and convenience with recordings made in Geneva by Ernest Ansermet and the young conductor he had determined upon as his successor in charge of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande: Ataúlfo Argenta.
This set includes, for the first time, all the recordings made by Jordá in the 78 era, and receiving their first official digital remastering; his LP discography is also included. Jordá (born in 1911) and Argenta (born in 1913) were the first Spanish conductors to win an international reputation. They did so with the unmannered, dynamically vital interpretations of Romantic and 20th-century repertoire which Decca preserved in these recordings.
Both Argenta and Jordá were valued by orchestras and record labels as guarantors of authenticity in the Spanish orchestral repertoire by Falla, Albéniz, Turina, Rodrigo and others. But both conductors yearned to be recognised for their equal mastery of French and German repertoire. Listening now to Argenta conduct the Faust Symphony of Liszt and Schubert’s ‘Great’ C major, and Jordá in Haydn No. 88 and Mozart’s ‘Linz’ Symphony, we can hear the insights they bring to the Austro-German symphonic repertoire from a Hispanic angle.
Both conductors made early and near-definitive recordings of Nights in the Gardens of Spain, by Falla, and this set presents a fascinating opportunity to compare their approaches. Argenta’s career tragically ended with his death in 1958, aged just 44, while Jordá made a series of erratic career moves which culminated in an ill-starred tenure as music director in San Francisco. Under other circumstances, both conductors could have established a ‘Spanish school’ of conducting in the stereo age of the 1960s. This set illuminates the virtues of their common approaches to music, which through their Franco-German training in both cases brought together a sure grasp of form and rigour with a sensitivity to orchestral colour. The nature of that formation is explored in a new booklet essay written by Peter Quantrill, and the recordings are reissued in Eloquence’s ‘Original Jackets’ format.