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572515bk Soler:New 6-page template A 23/5/11 3:25 PM Page 1 Maria Canals International Music Competition Martina Filjak The Maria Canals International Music Competition of Barcelona (www.mariacanals.cat) is the most senior music The Croatian pianist Martina Filjak made her Antonio competition in Spain and one of the leading events in the world following its recognition by the World Federation of orchestral début at the age of twelve with the International Music Competitions in 1958. It was founded in 1954 by the leading pianist and pedagogue Maria Canals, Zagreb Soloists Chamber Orchestra. As a mature and her husband Rossend Llates. With Her Majesty Queen Sofia as President of Honour, since 1954 the competition artist she has performed with leading orchestras SOLER association has organised 110 competitions in the branches of piano, singing, violin, cello, guitar, flute, percussion and at home and abroad under such esteemed chamber music. During these years more than 7,000 entrants have taken part from a hundred countries from the 5 conductors as Jahja Ling, Christian Zacharias, continents, and there have been more than 180 jurors from around the world. The competition holds its auditions in Heinrich Schiff, Theodor Guschlbauer, and Keyboard Sonatas Nos. 1–15 the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, and offers the prize-winners important financial rewards, a tour of Stefan Sanderling, and has appeared in such recitals and concerts with the orchestra around the world and a recording for the Naxos label. Its winners have developed major venues as the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, important professional careers in both performance and teaching in leading centres throughout the world. Berlin Konzerthaus, Barcelona Auditori and Palau de la Música Catalana, New York’s Martina Filjak, Piano Carnegie Hall, the Strasbourg Palais des Congrès, Vienna Musikverein, Shanghai Oriental Art Centre and the Severance Hall in Cleveland. Martina Filjak won first prize in the Maria Canals competition in Barcelona in 2008, as well as in the Viotti competition in Italy. She is also a laureate of the 2007 Ferruccio Busoni Piano Competition and took first prize in 2009 at the Cleveland International Piano Competition. In October 2009 she was additionally awarded an Honorary Medal by the President of the Republic of Croatia for her artistic achievements. Born in Zagreb and raised in a family of pianists, Martina Filjak completed her studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hanover and at the Como Piano Academy. She has both Croatian and Italian nationality. www.martinafiljak.com C M Photo by Romano Grozich Y K 5 8.572515 6 8.572515 572515bk Soler:New 6-page template A 23/5/11 3:25 PM Page 2 Antonio Soler (1729–1783) contemporary composers, some of the sonatas were fast movements, but tender, serene and poetic in the piano, Volumes I-VI, Contino Press Music, Inc., New rapid movements, passages of broken octaves at high Keyboard Sonatas Nos. 1–15 written to be played consecutively in groups of two or slower movements. And in both cases, with ingenious York, 1976/82 (Sonatas Nos. 4, 6, 7 and 10); K. Gilbert in speed, repeated notes, held notes, frequent crossings of three. In this case they are usually written in the same key. twists of modulation. Antonio Soler, 14 Sonatas for Keyboard from the hands often with great leaps, some of which offer a show Father Antonio Soler was among the leading musical seems most probable, however, that they were written for Soler did not confine himself to this form and also began This first volume of sonatas begins with the only Fitzwilliam Collection, Faber Music Limited, London, of acrobatics in live performance. It should also be figures in Spain in the eighteenth century. He received his a harpsichord by Diego Fernández that Prince Gabriel to write ternary sonatas, but with more than one sonatas that were published in Soler’s time, in London. In 1987 (Sonatas Nos. 1, 4, 8, 9 and 11); J. Nin in Classiques pointed out that the same technical demands are made on early musical training from his father, and later entered acquired in 1761, an instrument with five octaves (61 movement, where we can find features of what would 1772 Soler gave them to an English amateur, Lord espagnols du piano: Sonates anciennes d’auteurs both hands and that often there is a combination of the Escolania de Montserrat, one of the most active keys), or at least most of the sonatas were. Some could later be the Viennese sonata with its characteristic two Fitzwilliam, and they were printed by Robert Birchall in espagnols, Paris, 1925 (Sonatas Nos. 2 and 15) and L. different technical difficulties in the same passage. musical centres of the time. He stayed there until he was have been written for the organ and perhaps those that are contrasting themes. 1796 (XXVII Sonatas for harpsichord by Father Antonio Duck in Six Sonatas for Pianoforte (Vol. 1-2), Mills According to the practice of the time, perhaps one of seventeen, when, in 1753, he entered the Monastery of El stylistically more advanced could have been written with Nonetheless the work of Soler remains relatively little Soler. Robert Birchall, 133 New Benet St., London). The Music, New York, 1950 (Sonatas 6 and 11). these sonatas was written to be played in groups of two or Escorial as a monk, to remain there until his death. His the possibilities of the pianoforte in mind. known. The difficulty in finding a complete published original is held in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. In all fifteen sonatas we find the two sections that are three. These are normally sonatas that are in the same key work in the monastery was essentially musical, and he Approximately 150 keyboard sonatas by Soler have edition of the sonatas has not helped. The principal editors Of the fifteen sonatas included here, this is the only typically repeated in the bipartite sonata. These sections and only in one case is there a change of mode, even eventually became maestro de capilla, apparently from survived. Musicians and musicologists have affirmed of printed sonatas, Father Samuel Rubio and F. Marvin, surviving source, with the exception of No. 3 and No. 4, are not symmetrical, but are of more or less the same though the keys are the same. These groups may be 1757, and then, from 1766, music master to the princes their quality and originality, equivalent to the contemp- did not publish all of them (120 and 44 respectively). As which are also found in manuscripts in Montserrat (Ms. length. Sometimes the first section is longer and formed by Sonatas Nos. 5-6, Nos. 7-8-9, Nos. 10-11, and Antonio and Gabriel of Bourbon, sons of Charles III, in orary and better known works by Domenico Scarlatti far as recordings are concerned, there are only two, and in 110 and 58, Ms. 27 and 48 respectively) and fifteen found sometimes the second, with no perceptible pattern. Within Nos. 12-13-14. The harpsichordist Bob van Asperen the months that the court was installed in El Escorial. As (those he wrote in bipartite form), of whom Soler himself both cases, they have been recorded with harpsichord, in the archive of the Royal Conservatory of Madrid (Ms. each section there are often internal sections, marked in suggests that Sonata No. 15 should be paired with No. 54. maestro de capilla, as well as directing the music of the is thought to have been a pupil, although that is still a while much less is available on the piano, although some 3/429).* The pieces in this manuscript have been the score with a double bar, which indicate a change of The reason, he suggests, is that in Ms. 3/429 of the Royal establishment, he had the task of composing all the matter open to debate among musicologists. It is not clear of the sonatas have played a part in the training of pianists published by B. Ife and R. Truby (Antonio Soler, Twelve key. As compositional resources, there is imitation and Conservatory of Madrid they appear successively, as well liturgical and religious music that was required, and a very whether this presumed connection should be taken and were found in the repertoire of great players such as Sonatas (The Madrid Conservatory Manuscript), Oxford the repetition of small fragments, the juxtaposition of as being written in the same key. Nevertheless, this sonata extensive and very interesting sample of this has remained literally or if it indicates only admiration by Soler for the Alicia de Larrocha. University Press, Oxford and New York, 1989). melodic and short rhythmic motifs, broken chords, clear does not appear in the contemporary London edition and in the musical archive of El Escorial. As master to the Italian-born composer, mirrored in his compositions. In Volume 1 offers sonatas using the catalogue number- It was with these 27 sonatas that Rubio began his rococo ornamentation, especially in the slow movements, in this case was published from copies from the princes, his compositions show another, secular aspect of any case, contact between the musicians and composers of ing of Father Samuel Rubio. Those which do not appear catalogue of Soler’s compositions (Rubio, S., Antonio and a wide range of technical requirements that show the composer’s own hand. For this reason No. 54 has not been his work, and this is where we find the best known of his the Madrid court and other religious institutions of the in this catalogue but have come to light over time will be Soler, catálogo crítico, Cuenca, 1980) and, according to didactic aims of this type of repertoire, ornamentation included in this recording.