The Three-Cornered Hat (album)

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The Three-Cornered Hat
Three Cornered Hat Previn CD.jpg
Philips CD: 411 046-2
Studio album by
André Previn
Released1983
Genre Classical ballet
Length42:55
LanguageSpanish
Label Philips Classics
Le Tricorne, Danse du Feu
The Three Cornered Hat Previn French LP.jpg
Philips French LP: 6514 281

The Three-Cornered Hat is a 42-minute classical studio album in which the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under André Previn perform the whole of Manuel de Falla's ballet The Three-Cornered Hat and, as a filler, the Ritual Fire Dance from his ballet Love the Magician . The longer work's two brief vocal passages are sung by the American mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade. The album was released in 1983.

Contents

Recording

The booklet accompanying the CD release of the album does not name its producer or engineer or reveal where it was taped, but does state that it was recorded digitally. [1]

Cover art

Apart from minor differences in lettering, the covers of the American and British LP, cassette and CD versions of the album are all the same, and were designed and illustrated by Chris Verschoor. [1] [2] [3]

Critical reception

A statue of Manuel de Falla in Avenida de la Constitucion, Granada, Spain EstatuaFalla - cropped.jpg
A statue of Manuel de Falla in Avenida de la Constitución, Granada, Spain

Edward Greenfield reviewed the album on LP in Gramophone in April 1983, comparing it with previous recordings of The Three-Cornered Hat conducted by Ernest Ansermet, [4] Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos [5] and Eduardo Mata. [6] Ansermet and Frühbeck de Burgos, he thought, had conveyed the music's "earthier qualities" better than Previn, and Frühbeck de Burgos was "more idiomatically Spanish". The chief virtue of Previn's album was that it was more successful than its predecessors in bringing out "a chamber-like quality in the detail and precision of the orchestral writing". The lucidity of Previn's performance reminded Greenfield of "Stravinsky and Ravel ballets on the one hand [and] neo-classic models on the other". "The ear is ravished by the texture", he wrote. The other salient feature of Previn's reading was his "characteristic emphasis on rhythmic qualities". Greenfield was ambivalent about the brief vocal passage at the beginning of the work. Frederica von Stade's voice was "lovely", he thought, but it was so prominent in the mix that she seemed to be introducing the ballet as if standing in a spotlight at the front of the stage. On the comparison discs, the soprano soloists sounded further away, providing "instant evocation of Spanish atmosphere". In every other respect the album's engineering was exemplary, and certain to delight audiophiles. "A modern digital recording, even by Philips standards unusually refined and beautifully balanced, brings out beauties in Falla's scoring in this, his masterpiece, that one might not expect". [7]

Costume designs for the ballet's premiere in 1919, created by Picasso for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes Picasso's costume design for "Le Tricorne" (1919-1920).jpg
Costume designs for the ballet's première in 1919, created by Picasso for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes

Greenfield revisited the album in Gramophone in August 1984 to assess how it sounded after being remastered for CD. On this occasion, he compared it with a new Decca release of The Three-Cornered Hat performed by Huguette Tourangeau and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Charles Dutoit. [8] Once again he relished the way in which "Previn's crisp and rhythmic account of the Falla ballet [brought out its] Stravinskian associations", but he felt that the sound of the newer recording was preferable to the "closeness and dryness" of the old. "Outstandingly warm and evocative", Dutoit's disc had "far more space round the instruments" than Previn's, yet was no less revealing of inner detail. Philips's forward balancing of von Stade seemed as unfortunate an error of judgment as ever - Tourangeau, like the singers on Ansermet's, Frühbeck de Burgos's and Mata's recordings, had been recorded as if from a distance, and was "far more effective" as a result. It was clear that, all in all, Dutoit's CD was the better of the two. [9]

The album was included in BBC Radio 3's Release on 4 June 1983, [10] and was also reviewed in The complete Penguin stereo record and cassette guide, [11] The Penguin guide to compact discs, cassettes and LPs, [12] Dance and Dancers, [13] Fanfare [14] and High Fidelity [15] (where von Stade's contribution was judged disappointingly "bland").

CD track listing

Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)

El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat) (1919)

Part One

Part Two

El Amor Brujo (Love the Magician) (1915)

Personnel

Release history

In 1983, Philips released the album on LP (catalogue number 6514 281) [2] and on cassette (catalogue number 7337 281). [3]

In 1984, Philips issued the album on CD (catalogue number 411 046-2) with a 12-page insert booklet lacking texts or translations but providing notes by Gerald Norris in English, French and German. [1]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Falla, Manuel de: The Three-Cornered Hat, cond. André Previn, Philips CD, 411 046-2, 1984
  2. 1 2 Falla, Manuel de: The Three-Cornered Hat, cond. André Previn, Philips LP, 6514 281, 1983
  3. 1 2 Falla, Manuel de: The Three-Cornered Hat, cond. André Previn, Philips MC, 7337 281, 1983
  4. ↑ Falla, Manuel de: The Three-Cornered Hat, cond. Ernest Ansermet, Contour Classics LP, CC 7560, 1962
  5. ↑ Falla, Manuel de: The Three-Cornered Hat, cond. Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, EMI LP, SXLP 30187, 1964
  6. ↑ Falla, Manuel de: The Three-Cornered Hat, cond. Eduardo Mata, RCA LP, RL 12387, 1977
  7. ↑ Gramophone, April 1983, pp. 1151-1152
  8. ↑ Falla, Manuel de: The Three-Cornered Hat, cond. Charles Dutoit, Decca CD, 410 008-2, 1983
  9. ↑ Gramophone, August 1984, p. 218
  10. ↑ "Search - BBC Programme Index".
  11. ↑ Edward Greenfield, Robert Layton and Ivan March: The complete Penguin stereo record and cassette guide, Penguin, 1984, p. 403
  12. ↑ Edward Greenfield: The Penguin guide to compact discs, cassettes and LPs, Penguin, 1986, p. 338
  13. ↑ Dance and Dancers, 1985, p. 12
  14. ↑ Fanfare, Vol. 7, Issues 1-2, 1983, p. 182
  15. ↑ High Fidelity, Vol. 34, Issues 1-5, p. 75
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