Description

RICARDO VIÑES Y RODA (LERIDA, SPAIN 5 FEBRUARY 1875 – BARCELONA, SPAIN 29 APRIL 1943)

 

 

 

 

Ricardo Viñes was a Spanish pianist. He gave the premieres of works by Ravel, Debussy, Satie, Falla and Albéniz. He was the piano teacher of the composer Francis Poulenc and the pianists Marcelle Meyer, Joaquín Nin-Culmell and Léo-Pol Morin. Viñes was born in Lleida, Spain. He studied the piano at the Paris Conservatoire under Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot, and composition and harmony with Benjamin Godard and Albert Lavignac. In 1895 Viñes made his début at the Salle Pleyel, Paris. From 1900 he had an international career, touring in Russia and throughout Europe and South America. Between 1930 and 1936 he lived in Argentina, returning to Paris in 1936 where he continued to play until the final year of his life. According to Charles Timbrell and Esperanza Berrocal in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Viñes’s keyboard technique was magnificent and his repertoire extensive. In addition to the established classics he championed new works by the many composers of whom he was a close friend. They included Ravel, Debussy, Satie, Falla, Granados, Albéniz and Déodat de Séverac. He was also a proponent of Russian music, and introduced to France pieces by Mussorgsky (Pictures at an Exhibition), Balakirev (Islamey) and Prokofiev (Sarcasmes). Grove lists among the many works dedicated to him Ravel’s Oiseaux tristes, Debussy’s Poissons d’or and Falla’s Noches en los jardines de España. Viñes composed a small number of works, the best known of which are the two Hommages, for Séverac and Satie. He also wrote several articles, mostly on Spanish music, and his diaries are much quoted by biographers of his musical contemporaries. His piano students included Marcelle Meyer, Joaquín Nin-Culmell, Léo-Pol Morin and Francis Poulenc. Viñes was a delightful character, some kind of strange Hidalgo with an enormous moustache, a brown sombrero in true Barcelona style, and button boots with which he used to kick me in the shins whenever I was clumsy at the pedals. No one could teach the art of using the pedals, an essential feature of modern piano music, better than Viñes. He somehow managed to extract clarity precisely from the ambiguities of the pedals. His staccato playing was equally remarkable. Marcelle Meyer, his most brilliant pupil, declared that he made even Petrushka seem easy. An annual International piano competition “Ricard Viñes” has been held since 1995 in his birth town Lleida. The city council named one of the city’s most popular squares the “Plaça Ricard Vinyes”, and the main room of the Llotja de Lleida theatre and congress centre (opened in 2010) is also named after him. Viñes died in Barcelona at the age of 68. He was unmarried.

 

 

TRACKLIST

 

 

1. Bailecito (Lopez-Buchardo) HMV DA 4910 OLA 1211-1
2. Dance of Terror (Falla) Columbia LFX 72 WLX 1166
3. Dans les Jardins de Murcia (Turina) Columbia LF 12 WL 1888
4. 5. Dos Tonadas Chilenas (Allende) HMV DA 4910 OLA 1210-1
5. Etude No. 10, “Pour les sonorités opposées” (Debussy) (incomplete; measures 31-75 only)
6. Gavotte in A (Gluck-Brahms) Columbia D 13102 WL 1741
7. Granada (Serenata), Op. 47 No. 1 (Albeniz) Columbia LFX 73 WLX 1416
8. Hommage à Rameau (from Images, Book I) (incomplete; measures 31-76 only)
9. Introduction and Ritual Fire Dance (Falla) Columbia LFX 72 WLX 1167
10. Le Parc d’Attractions L’Orgue du Carroussel (Blancafort) Columbia LFX 73 WLX 1146
11. Le Parc d’Attractions Polka de l’Equilibriste (Blancafort) Columbia LFX 73 WLX 1146
12. Milonga (Troiani) HMV DA 4910 OLA 1211-1
13. Miramar (from Chants d’Espagne) (Turina) Columbia LF 12 WL 1889
14. Orientale, Op. 232 No. 2 (Albeniz) Columbia LF 42 WL 2330-1
15. Poissons d’or (from Images, Book 1) (Debussy) Columbia LF 41 WL 2203
16. Récit du Pêcheur (Falla) Columbia LFX 72 WLX 1166
17. Torre bermeja, Op. 92 No. 12 (Albeniz) Columbia D 15245 WLX 1147
18. Scherzo in A-flat (Borodin) Columbia LF 41 WL 2204-1
19. Seguidillas, Op. 232 No. 5 (Albeniz) Columbia LF 42 WL 2331-1
20. Serenata española, Op. 181 (Albeniz) HMV DA 4885 OLA 1209-1
21. Soirée dans Grenade (from Estampes) (Debussy) Columbia D 15245 WLX 1150
22. Sonata in D, K. 29 (L. 461) (Scarlatti) Columbia D 13102 WL 1742
23. Tango in A Minor, Op. 164 No. 2 (Albeniz) HMV DA 4885 OLA 1208-1
24. Ricardo Viñes speaks on Debussy [translation] (radio address commemorating the 20th anniversary of Debussy’s death)