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FLORIAN NOACK 23
Can you tell us something about Joaquín Nin’s
Danza Ibérica ‘En Sevilla
una noche de Mayo’
?
2
I discovered Joaquín Nin only recently. At first I had naturally thought of including
music by better-known Spanish composers (Falla in particular), but this work, so
powerfully evocative of flamenco – even if the composer specified that, in fact,
he didn’t use any genuine flamenco themes – naturally found its place in the
programme. It’s a fantasia on a large scale, whose piano writing is sometimes
reminiscent of the guitar. The dominant characteristic of the piece is the feeling of
improvisation.
And I find that same spirit in Schubert’s Waltzes D145. There too, choice was
difficult, because there are more than three hundred dances by Schubert. At one
stage I thought of including the waltz in the more sophisticated garb in which
Liszt decked it in his
Soirées deVienne
(which is based on these same waltzes) before
eventually deciding I preferred the original version, whose simplicity and freshness
appealed to me more.
2. Spanish Dance, ‘A May night in Seville’. (Translator’s note)