Juan Diego Florez, Sentimiento Latino

Tracks & Durations

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Review

Juan Diego Florez was brought up with the sounds of Latin-American music. His father, Ruben, was a singer of popular Peruvian songs-- particularly those by Chabuca Granda, for which the boy developed an early affection. His mother, Maria Teresa, who is a great marinera dancer, taught him to appreciate "criollo" Peruvian music, whilst his beloved grandmother, Ena Rosa, opened his ears to the tangos of Gardel and others, which she used to play on her old piano.

At first Juan Diego followed in his father's footsteps. By the time he was fourteen, he was singing, playing the guitar and composing his own canciones, which he performed alongside Peruvian and Latin-American songs in the piano bars of the bohemian Barranco district of Lima. It was not until he was seventeen that Florez began studying classical music and opera in earnest. In a way, then, this recital of Spanish and Latin American songs is a musical homecoming. It's more than a mere exercise in nostalgia, however, as these songs have a place in Latin culture equivalent to those of Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter and other contributors to the so-called "Great American Songbook" in the United States. One could argue, too, that many of the songs here have roots that run close to an operatic source--closer, in fact, than their gringo counterparts.

Listening to, say, "Princesita" or "Estrellita," one notices a kinship with the slightly older repertory of Neapolitan songs such as "'O sole mio" or "Torna a Surriento," favourites of Italian (and Italianate) tenors since Caruso's day. Both types are sweetly, lyrically sentimental with elegantly arching melodies that offer ample opportunity for vocal display. Not surprisingly, then, many of these Latin songs were embraced by opera singers. Spanish-speaking musicians were drawn to them for obvious reasons. Mexican tenor Jose Mojica recorded "Princesita" in 1925, for example. "Princesita" was also recorded the following year by Tito Schipa, the legendary Italian lyric tenor, who was a favourite in Spain and shrewdly tailored his programmes to please his local followers.

Tracing the recorded history of this repertory charts its growing popularity and gives an impression of how its range expanded over the years. Some songs were real pop hits, like Agustin Lara's "Granada," a song that has attracted an exceptionally wide array of star talent, including recorded versions by Mario Lanza, Renata Tebaldi, Franco Corelli and Fritz Wunderlich. Of course the popularity of this genre is connected with the fact that in recent years the majority of our leading Italianate tenors have come not from Italy but from Spain and Latin America. Alfredo Kraus, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras (all three Spanish-born) have included popular songs in their recitals and recordings, and Carreras and Domingo have delved with true seriousness into certain corners of this repertory.

In cultivating, singing and recording Peruvian and other Latin-American songs, Juan Diego Florez is continuing the tradition of Peruvian tenors Alejandro Granda, Luigi Alva and Ernesto Palacio. He grounds his programme with three, time-honored hits. The oldest of these is "Estrellita" by Manuel Marma Ponce (1882-1948). Born in Mexico, Ponce studied in Europe and then directed the Mexico City Conservatory. In his later years he became friends with guitarist Andres Segovia, for whom he composed several works. "Estrellita" was written in 1914 in Mexico City. "Princesita" by Spanish composer Jose Padilla (1889-1960) was originally a number in the 1916 zarzuela (more or less the Spanish equivalent of operetta) entitled La corte del amor; the song was published separately the following year.

Another "antique" on this recital is "Alma llanera" by Pedro Elias Gutierrez (1870-1954) of Venezuela. Like "Princesita," "Alma llanera" was written for a zarzuela, first performed in Caracas in 1914, before taking on a life of its own. (The Italian baritone Apollo Granforte recorded it in 1925.)

The Argentine tango is another popular song form influenced by Italian opera -- not surprisingly, since Argentina was a magnet for Italian immigrants in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century. Carlos Gardel (1890-1935), though he was born in France and emigrated to Argentina at the age of seven, idolized Caruso, whom he met in 1915. Gardel recorded his first tango in 1917 following years working the streets and bordellos of Buenos Aires as a folk singer. By 1928, when he made his Parisian debut, the Argentine tango was all the rage on both sides of the Atlantic. "El dia que me quieras" was written in 1935, the same year Gardel was killed in an air crash.

While Gardel was touring the world bringing the tango respectability, Cuban pianist-composer Ernesto Lecuona (1895-1963) was at the height of his powers, writing songs and piano solos that bridged the gap between classical and popular music. A student of Maurice Ravel, Lecuona founded the Havana Symphony and also directed an immensely popular dance band known as Lecuona's Cuban Boys. "Siboney" was composed in 1929. Lecuona remains one of Cuba's most beloved musical figures. Noel Estrada (1918-79) maintains a similar position in Puerto Rico. During World War II, he joined the US Armed Forces, and it was this long, difficult separation from his homeland that inspired his most famous song "En mi viejo San Juan."

Mexico was especially fertile ground for the bolero (a type of lyrical, Latin love song, like Lecuona's "Aquellos ojos verdes"). Agustin Lara (1900-70) helped to build the foundation, and essentially became king, of the Mexican equivalent of Tin Pan Alley. He wrote most of his hit songs in the 1930s, including "Granada," before embarking on a successful career writing film scores. Jesus Monge Ramirez (1910-64), better known as Chucho Monge, and Jose Alfredo Jimenez (1926-73), followed suit, and each wrote hundreds of songs for Mexican films. "Mexico lindo" was the product of Monge's heyday in the early 1940s; Jimenez's "Ella" appeared a full decade later.

Maria Grever (1884-1951), one of two women composers featured on this recital, was a much earlier star of Mexican music. Born in Guanajuato, she studied in Europe with Claude Debussy and Franz Lehar (of Merry Widow fame) and eventually found her way to New York. "Jurame," composed in the mid-1920s, was her first real success, though she would go on to compose over 800 other ballads, including "Te quiero dijiste" (another favourite of operatic stars). And this being a programme by a Peruvian singer, there must be Peruvian songs. In addition to the folksong "La jarra de oro," there are three selections by Maria Isabel Granda Larco (1920-83): "La flor de la canela," "Fina estampa" and "Bello durmiente." Chabuca Granda, as she preferred to be known, grew up singing Mexican boleros and became a leading Latina singer-songwriter. Her own compositions infuse the traditional bolero with elements of native Creole (or Afro-Peruvian) folksong, resulting in especially graceful melodies and strong dance rhythms. Ruben Florez was a celebrated interpreter of Granda's music, so one could say that there are two traditions coming together in Juan Diego's performances here: the relatively recent practice of opera singers singing popular songs, and the more ancient one of songs being passed lovingly and respectfully from one generation to the next.

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