Thursday 16 December, 2021

2021, a year of a great harvest of recordings for the Basque National Orchestra

'Americascapes' (Ondine), 'Ravel' (Ondine), 'Gutizia' (Orpheus Classical) and 'Kalakan+Euskadiko Orkestra' (Elkar).

The Basque National Orchestra has recorded four new highly-relevant albums that it adds to its vast recording collection: an album of orchestral works by Maurice Ravel; a selection of works by little-known but important American authors under the title 'Americascapes'; an album with traditional Basque works recorded with the Kalakan trio; and 'Gutizia', which puts the 'txistu' centre stage with Garikoitz Mendizabal.

All of the albums are on sale at retailers and on the usual digital platforms.

After close to four decades of a prolific output, there are close to 70 of its own albums in the Basque National Orchestra's music collection, which continues to be expanded and enriched in recent times. In the year 2021 that we are about to leave behind, four new recordings have been added to this great collection of albums: Ravel, Americascapes, Kalakan + Euskadiko Orkestra and Gutizia.

Ravel **and Americascapes, the first recordings with chief conductor Robert Trevino**

Two years ago the Basque National Orchestra and its chief conductor Robert Trevino signed a two-year contract with the Finnish label Ondine Records in which they agreed to record several albums over the coming years. The first fruit of this important agreement came this year with the release of two albums that are very different to each other: Ravel and Americascapes.

On the one hand, during the first half of the year Ravel saw the light, a collection of orchestral pieces by the universally renowned composer from Ziburu and which the Basque National Orchestra makes its own. This is the first time that Trevino has recorded Ravel, but not so for the Basque National Orchestra. Its discography includes another album of Ravel recorded in 2000 with its then conductor Gilbert Varga and the pianist Joaquín Achúcarro from Bilbao. The record included Ravel's two piano concertos performed by Achúcarro along with Alborada del gracioso, which also features on this new recording together with La Valse, Boléro, Rapsodie espagnole, Pavane pour une infante défunte and Une barque sur l´océan.

On the other hand, for the second recording, Americascapes, Robert Trevino and the Basque National Orchestra have chosen four American composers who wrote music that received widespread recognition, though none of them enjoyed popular ‘success’: Charles Martin Loeffler, Henry Cowell, Carl Ruggles and Howard Hanson. Relatively little-known works by them have been chosen, in a repertoire that does not feature in the big concert circuits. This album released in early October has recently received glowing reviews from specialised publications of worldwide prestige. To highlight a few of them, last week one of the most important portals for classical music album sales, Presto Music, put Americascapes on its list of the ten best classical music albums of 2021; and important magazines such as Gramophone and Limelight have recently made special mentions of the album.

Basque tradition takes centre stage in ‘Kalakan+Basque National Orchestra’ and ‘Gutizia’

The other two albums that the Basque National Orchestra has released this year have focused on recovering a traditional Basque repertoire.

On the one hand, the orchestra has partnered with the Kalakan trio to collect traditional Basque pieces and turn them into symphonies thanks to the orchestration of Jagoba Astiazaran in an album also released in October with the Elkar label. Several of the traditional instruments that the Kalakan group uses habitually play a major role in this album. These include the txalaparta, the txirula and the alboka, all instruments that have been combined with the rest of the instrumental sections of the orchestra. This album was also presented during a concert tour across the Basque Country between October and November.

On the other hand, two worlds which, on the face of it, are completely unrelated, have come together in Gutizia – a smorgasbord that directly links the txistu, an instrument deeply rooted in Basque culture, with a symphony orchestra. This is what Garikoitz Mendizabal and the Basque National Orchestra have worked on in Miramon under the direction of Jaume Santonja, as they prepare to record and promote a compendium of works for txistu and orchestra. The record, published by Orpheus Classical, includes a total of eight works written or arranged by authors of diverse origins, rendering this collection of music a journey in itself. For most of them this has been their première and they are accompanied by different stories and motivations.

The orchestra will also be recording this week

After the release of the four albums described above, the orchestra's recording activity continues. This very week the musicians are back under the baton of Robert Trevino to record a second volume of orchestral pieces by Maurice Ravel, which will also be released by the Ondine Records label during 2022. This new recording will include the works Shéhérazade, Menuet Antique, Valses nobles et sentimentales, Ma mère l’oye and Frontispice.