Iberia y Francia

Composed by Maurice Ravel, Manuel de Falla, Achille-Claude Debussy, Isaac Albéniz, Federico Mompou

Chandos / CHAN20119 / Concert Hall, Snape Maltings, Suffolk

Recorded March 2019

Imogen Cooper explores the links between French and Spanish styles in a programme ranging from Albéniz to Mompou via Debussy, Ravel, and Falla.

‘It is difficult to imagine Debussy-playing more personal, suggestive or voluptuous. Cooper has lived with this music long and well . . . She gives us an Albéniz entirely her own, all the more vivid perhaps for its vantage from the outside looking in. Piquant, understated, with a sultry heat that smoulders rather than bursting into flame, these are compelling performances informed by the palette of Goya and undergirded with an inherently zesty rhythmic élan.’

Patrick Rucker, Gramophone, September 2019