Word: larrocha
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Albeniz: Iberia (complete); Navarra. (Michel Block pianist, Connoisseur Society; 2 LPs.) Enrique Fernandez Arbos' glittering orchestrations helped make El Puerto, Triana and the ten other pieces in Iberia popular throughout the world. But, as Alicia de Larrocha has proved over the years in three recordings of the suite, the piano originals are as atmospherically Spanish as one could wish and, in the end, preferable. Here is a recording by the French American Michel Block that not only challenges De Larrocha's supremacy, but topples it. Block's playing has an earthy swagger and poetic sweep that...
David Rubin, concert and artists manager at Steinway & Sons, also cites a decline in service. Two weeks ago, Spanish Pianist Alicia de Larrocha struggled valiantly with the stiff action of a Steinway at a recital near Washington, D.C., after a local dealer's technician denied her request for a minor adjustment, insisting that the instrument was in "perfect condition." Misha Dichter, 27, still smarts from the rebuff of a tuner in St. Paul who responded to his complaint about the house piano: "Listen, young whippersnapper, Liberace played it and he liked...
Bach, Italian Concerto, English Suite No. 2, French Suite No. 6, Fantasia in C Minor (Pianist Alicia de Larrocha; London, $5.98). Once best known for her exquisite interpretations of fellow Spaniards like De Falla, Turina and Granados, De Larrocha has been cutting a new Continental image for herself in recent years. That includes some scintillating Chopin and Mozart, and now this disk, which is breathtaking in its dramatic separation of contrapuntal lines, ravishing ornamentations and sheer pianistic delight...