Homenaje a Isaac Albéniz (I. Jaén) / Tribute to Isaac Albéniz (I. Jaén)

For Piano


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Related texts
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Commentary


This piece draws directly from the sources of Iberia, so it could well have been titled simply Jaén, which, given the fact that it was commissioned by the International Piano Competition "Prize Jaén" destined to be the obligatory work in the 2002 edition, would have been fully appropriate, and would also have meant continuing the tradition bequeathed by Albéniz. However, I have preferred to maintain for the title the explicit and direct reference to the author of the most successful and ambitious piano suite in the history of Spanish music, due to its scope and the revolutionary nature of its writing.
Thus, and within the frequent ternary structure in most of Iberia's pieces (two broad victuosistic sections, generally based on dance rhythms, that frame a couplet of deep popular feeling, which serves as a haven for the hectic treatment of those) , in this Ttibute to Isaac Albéniz I have used two quotes from Jaén's popular folklore: a fandango for the first and last sections, which appears pulverized and barely pointed in quick bursts, and an expressive song of olive harvesters. The contrast between the two is marked here not only by their character, but by the way they are inserted in the composition: the first is in a pantonal context and the second is clearly modal, without the language being simplified or artificially forced neither in one case nor the other.

In the 2002 edition of the "Prize Jaén", won by the Russian pianist Anna Vinnitskaya, the Tribute was prepared by all the contestants and performed by the finalists, with the Chinese pianist Xie-Ya Ou winning the prize for her best performance. In 2009 and 2010 it was extended with two more numbers, II. León, and III. Salamanca, thus closing the reference to a possible "fifth notebook" of the brilliant Spanish composer.

In 2003, Jaén Deputy House published a CD on the Almaviva label with the recording of the obligatory works composed for the contest between 1993 and 2002, which included the Tribute to Isaac Albéniz (I. Jaén) in the performance of Anna Vinnitskaja.

In 2009, the musicologist Marta Cureses included an extensive study on the Tribute to Issac Albéniz (I. Jaén) in the second volume of her work "Prize Jaén. A History of contemporary Spanish piano", published by Jaén Deputy House.



Related texts


Cureses, Marta
José Luis Turina (1952)
A study on his piano work in general, and the Tribute to Isaac Albéniz in particular. Volume 2 of "Prize Jaén A history of Contemporary Spanish piano". Jaén Deputy House, 2009.

Jiménez Rodríguez, Eva María
José Luis Turina: citas y homenajes en su lenguaje pianístico / José Luis Turina: Quotes and tributes in his piano language
Doctoral thesis. University of Oviedo, 2016

Villar-Taboada, Carlos, y Ríos, Rebeca
La vigencia de la Suite Iberia en Homenaje a Isaac Albéniz (I. Jaén) (2001), de José Luis Turina: análisis y significados / The validity of the "Iberia" Suite in "Tribute to Isaac Albéniz (I. Jaén)" (2001), by José Luis Turina: Analysis and meanings
Musicological research published online in the Musical Magazine of Andalusia. June 2011

Recording

Recording: Anna Vinnitskaja

Videos

Xie Ya-Ou, prize to the best performance of the Tribute to Isaac Albéniz (I. Jaén) ein the 2002 edition of the contest "Prize Jaén"

Beatriz Boizán, at the concert From Turina to Turina held at the Sala Manuel de Falla of the General Society of Authors and Publishers (Madrid, February 11, 2009)

YouTube link

Reviews and press news

Just 14 pianists have registered so far for the XLIV Jaén Prize
By F. Rosa Ruiz
(Article published in the Ideal newspaper Ideal. Jaén, February 6, 2002)

[...]
Pedro Jiménez pointed out the difficulty that this year's required piece, "Tribute to Isaac Albéniz" by José Luis Turina, represents in order to justify the number of pianists registered so far. "Last year's piece was more approachable, but with this year's one, we are returning to the level of difficulty seen in previous editions. The fact that it has to be performed from memory discourages many pianists. Additionally, this year we had less time to prepare", stated the competition's secretary. [...]
[...]



The Jaén Piano Prize already has more than 30 registrations
By Andrea García Parra
(Article published in the Ideal newspaper Ideal. Jaén, March 3, 2002)

[...]
The compulsory piece
The compulsory piece for this edition has been composed by José Luis Turina and is titled "Tribute to Isaac Albéniz". Turina was born in Madrid in 1952 and has been awarded various prizes, including the National Music Prize from the Ministry of Education and Culture (1996). In October 2000, he premiered the opera "D.Q. (Don Quijote en Barcelona)", with a libretto by Justo Navarro and staging by La Fura dels Baus, as part of the 2000-2001 season at the Gran Teatro del Liceo in Barcelona. He has many other compositions and awards to his name.
"Tribute to Isaac Albéniz," according to its creator, is a piece that "drinks directly from the sources of 'Iberia,' so it could well have been titled 'Jaén,' which, given the fact that it was composed by commission of the International Piano Competition Jaén Prize to be the compulsory piece, would have been entirely appropriate." In the piece, Turina has used two quotes from the popular folklore of Jaén: a fandango for the first and last sections, and an expressive song of olive pickers for the central one. "The contrast between both is marked not only by their character but by the way they are inserted into the composition, in a pantonal context for the first and clearly modal for the second, without the language being simplified or artificially forced in either case," explains the composer José Luis Turina in the justification of the work. The competition's secretary, Pedro Jiménez Caballé, has highlighted the difficulty of the compulsory piece. In his opinion, last year's composition was more approachable. This piece has to be performed from memory. Nevertheless, the compulsory piece in many editions has followed a fairly significant difficulty level. With the compulsory piece, the Provincial Council of Jaén has set itself the objective of promoting Spanish music, which was present in the early editions of the international competition.
[...]



Provincial folklore
Bay Andrea García Parra
(Commentary published in the Ideal newspaper. Jaén, March 13, 2002)

«I feel honored to have been selected to write the compulsory piece.» These were the words of José Luis Turina, grandson of Joaquín Turina, composer of the compulsory piece for this edition, who was present at yesterday's presentation of the Jaén Piano Prize in its current edition. The piece is titled "Tribute to Albéniz" and «draws», as its author said, from the sources of 'Iberia,' so it could have been called 'Jaén'. Turina, grandson of Joaquín Turina, has used Jaén folklore for this piece. He confesses to being a great admirer of Albéniz and, for that reason, has chosen this work. He expressed pride in being called to collaborate with the competition because «this piece will endure over time and will be interpreted by many pianists». José Luis Turina is the author of more than 100 works and has received numerous awards, including the National Music Prize.



Arrives the second trial
By Gonzalo Pérez Chamorro
(Article published in the Jaén newspaper. Jaén, March 17, 2002)

[...]
"Tribute to Isaac Albéniz"
The compulsory piece for this 44th edition is "Tribute to Isaac Albéniz," by the Madrilenian composer José Luis Turina (1952). The composer of the opera "D.Q. (Don Quijote en Barcelona)" and the recent "Clémisos y Sustalos," premiered by the Tokyo Quartet in Madrid, has written music with a tripartite structure, flanked by two fandangos that surround a song of olive pickers, taken to tremendous sophistication. The pianist faces a complex piece with a dark beginning and thrilling contrasts, very complex in technique and refined in its writing.
[...]



A piece that drinks from the source of Iberia
By F. Rosa Ruiz
(Article published in the Ideal newspaper. Jaén, March 18, 2002)

«This piece drinks directly from the sources of 'Iberia,' so it could well have been titled 'Jaén,' which would have been fully appropriate». This is the assertion made by José Luis Turina regarding his own piece, which is compulsory for participants this year and commissioned by the Provincial Council and the Center for the Diffusion of Contemporary Music for the 44th edition of the International Piano Competition Jaén Prize.
"Tribute to Isaac Albéniz," as the piece is titled, includes quotes from the popular folklore of Jaén, a fandango for the first and last sections, which appears pulverized and barely hinted at in rapid bursts, and an expressive song of olive pickers for the central section. The contrast between the two is particularly marked by the way they are inserted into the composition, with a pantonal context for the first and a clearly modal one for the second.
José Luis Turina has won numerous awards, including the International Composition Competition Centennial of the Conservatory Orchestra of Valencia, the 4th International Prize for Musical Composition, and the National Music Prize from the Ministry of Education and Culture.



The first phase leaves a musical glimmer of good impressions
By Rafael Andújar
(Article published in the Jaén newspaper. Jaén, March 18, 2002)

José Luis Turina. "Tribute to Isaac Albéniz"
The music written by José Luis Turina for this year's compulsory piece can be considered excellent.
Imbued with rhythms in the low register, syncopated and Bartokian (doesn't the Sonata of the Hungarian peek out at the beginning?), this "Tribute" "sings" in the right hand over C-C, with a triplet in B flat-C-B (114-115), a clear reference to the Catalan. There is still an opportunity to listen to it this afternoon and verify the tremendous sophistication that makes it popular music, characteristic of the surname from which it comes.



Jaén Prize
By Arturo Reverter
(Article published in the Canarias 7 newspaper. Las Palmas, April 10, 2002)

[...]
Well into the 60s, the competition, presided over for many years by Javier Alfonso and currently governed by the professor in Madrid, Guillermo González, gained international status and, since 1993, has included a commissioned compulsory performance piece, enriching the Spanish pianistic landscape with truly valuable scores in some cases. The composers of this compulsory piece have been such important figures as Castillo, Cruz de Castro, García Abril, Ruiz, Oliver, de la Cruz, Marco, García Román, Montsalvatge, and José Luis Turina, who composed the piece for this competition. It is a beautiful, stylized work, drawn with the proverbial finesse of the Madrid-born musician, titled "Tribute to Isaac Albéniz." It is an evocation, nothing mimetic, of the spirit and structure of the pieces from the Suite Iberia.
[...]



Tribute to Albéniz
By Luis Mazorra Incera
(Review published in the Internet magazine Ritmo. Madrid, February 29, 2024)

A piano of resounding sonority was presented by Josu de Solaun at his concert for the CNDM: SERIES 20/21 where homage was paid to Isaac Albéniz.
A musical tribute where three pieces by this Gerundian composer were alternated, taken from the first two notebooks of his Suite Iberia, along with José Luis Turina's Tribute to Albéniz, presented in three expansive works.
[...]
Interchanged, as I mentioned earlier, were three expansive pieces by José Luis Turina that demanded manifest technical versatility. It was his personal Tribute to Isaac Albéniz in three chapters of increasing abstraction.
Jaén was the first of them, where passion found form, in an assimilable structure, with turns and textures inspired by Albéniz's music. A pianistic technique deserving of this homage and all the consideration we wish to give it, in many aspects ahead of its time, inspired and universal compared to the all-powerful Chopin-Liszt heritage.
León was the second, with a firm aspiration to suggest those sustained textures that characterized the aesthetic nationalism of Camprodón's.
The third, more formally ambitious, Salamanca, maintained greater contrasts than the previous two, with higher aspirations and abstraction as well, seeking yes, Albéniz-like textures and technical leaps, but within a more ambitious formal structure and a much more varied, stratified, polyrhythmic, fragmented, and impulsive language at times.



Josu de Solaun places Isaac Albéniz and José Luis Turina at the keys.
By Ismael G. Cabral
(Review published in the Internet magazine Scherzo. Madrid, march 3, 2024)
On paper, a proposal that admirably acclimatizes two composers of yesterday and today with the necessary intermediary of a pianist (primarily) of repertoire. Also, a program that, by its seams, seemed inserted in the most contemporary cycle of the National Center for Musical Diffusion as a nod and an outstretched hand to the audience less inclined towards present-day music.
Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909) and José Luis Turina (1952) share some similarities that tie them together; both possess a complex grammar that doesn't make the situation easy for the soloist, both indulge in sequences that accelerate in search of virtuosity, and equally, they combine popular allusions with a unique writing style that carefully avoids ethnomusicological copy-and-paste. For his part, Josu de Solaun understood that it was, before contrasting, about weaving; ultimately, Turina's three pieces (Homage to Isaac Albéniz I, II & III) are in turn very personal attempts to sketch an improbable fifth notebook of Iberia.
With Evocación, De Solaun offered the first glimpses of his way of being and playing the piano, devoid of showiness, immersed in technique, and possessing controlled pyrotechnics that delighted in the embellishment of melody but also in the exposition of a generous chromatic palette, in the colors that Albéniz dispatched in this and many other parts of the work. With Rondeña, there were sparks but also, and it is rare on this page, a certain point of severity and parsimony in the pedal that gave it an unexpected veneer, well received. Certainly, his vision of Iberia did not skimp on rubato, much less on the uninhibited character that rhythmically snakes through one piece and another, but nor did it surrender to that openly danceable side. For example, in El Puerto, the Basque pianist did not lose the melodic line while knowing how to give intensity, meaning, and argument to the voices that round off the atmosphere here and there.
Turina, in his contributions, does not stray from the keyboard; his is a language that, time and again in his catalog, asserts itself in the quotation, in homage, in rethinking the past perhaps, yes, with the aspiration to thus link himself to it. It is a legitimate path, as it could not be otherwise. As much as any other. And surely, in that obstinate look at what has happened, he finds listeners who feel appealed to by an aesthetic that, already in the first piece of his Homage to Albéniz, Jaén, gave evidence of its sparkling scholasticism. De Solaun interpreted the three works being aware that what interested were the consonances and cascades of notes, the intertextuality, and the melodic sketches. A score like Salamanca is difficult, very much so, to interpret, and in its sounding, it also wants the audience to participate in the applause for the virtuoso who is capable of -satisfactorily- dealing with it. That desire, which at its core is a perception, leads more to the epidermal than to the sanguine, more to the relevance of the notes than to that of the sound, ultimately. But surely, in this labyrinth of counterpoints and motifs, there are those who find form and substance. That's why it's good that it happens; there will always be those who feel that pleasurable tingling in their ears.

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(Score without watermarks availale at www.asesores-musicales.com )