Sylvia Marlowe Plays Falla, Surinach and Rieti

After my recent post of harpsichordist Sylvia Marlowe playing the music of Vittorio Rieti, friend of the blog centuri asked if I had her recording of the Falla Harpsichord Concerto.

I do, indeed, and it is the centerpiece of this 1955 Capitol LP. Also on the record are Carlos Surinach's "Tientos" and the second of Marlowe's three traversals of Rieti's Partita.

Sylvia Marlowe

Marlowe is accompanied by the Concert Arts Players. "Concert Arts" was a nom de disque that Capitol hung on a variety of studio ensembles in the 1950s. I haven't been able to track down any further information about the musicians. The lack of credit seems ungenerous on the part of Capitol and perhaps Marlowe - these are all chamber works. The Falla is scored for six instruments, the Rieti for seven and the Surinach only three!

Regardless, it is a good record. The Falla is widely considered a masterpiece and the beguiling Rieti work is here even more persuasive than in the 1966 recording I posted not long ago. If I don't much care for the overbearing timps in "Tientos," it is a relatively brief work. (It seems to me that I also own Surinach's own recording of this piece, made in the same year for M-G-M.)

As I mentioned in my earlier Marlowe post, she specialized in contemporary music as much as the more often-heard baroque repertoire for the harpsichord. She also ventured into the realm of popular music - earlier in her career she made a living as a cabaret and radio attraction, and her first records were of popular music. Earlier this week I posted two boogie-woogie pieces that she borrowed from the repertoire of pianist Meade "Lux" Lewis, from a 78 dating from about a decade before this LP. Boogie on down to my other blog for those sides.

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