Classical Works Spotlight #602--Roberto Sierra

[erik]

Puerto Rico's own Roberto Sierra gets into the Classical Works Spotlight this week with the Caribbean equivalent of a not-often-played Beethoven work.

Roberto Sierra: TRIPLE CONCERTO

Though it is a part of the United States that has been much maligned in recent times, the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico has given us one of the greatest composers of modern American classical music in Roberto Sierra. His works frequently touch on the rhythms and music of his native Puerto Rico and the Caribbean region that spawned them; and they are among some of the most performed contemporary works, with major orchestras in Boston, Los Angeles, Atlanta, New Mexico, Dallas, Phoenix, and Milwaukee giving them their world premieres. In 2015, he composed a typically complex but energetic work for an unusual combination of instruments in the form of his Triple Concerto for violin, cello, and piano. In essence, this work is a work for piano trio and large orchestra, paralleling Beethoven’s own Triple Concerto from 1805, but with much larger orchestration to allow for the integration of Sierra’s native style. The Triple Concerto was composed specifically for Trio Arbos, a chamber group from Spain named after the early 20th century Spanish composer Enrique Fernandez Arbos. At twenty-eight minutes in length, it is a sizeable handful because of its large orchestration (even in comparison with the very demanding Beethoven one of more than two centuries before), but it received its world premiere with this group with the Xalapa Symphony Orchestra (in the Mexican state of Veracruz) under its music director Lanfranco Macelletti.



Violin: CECILIA BERKOVICH
Cello: JOSE MIGUEL GOMEZ
Piano: JUAN CARLOS GARVAYO

Xalapa Symphony Orchestra/LANFRANCO MARCELLETTI (Naxos)

Included:
CANTARES (Cornell University Chorus and Glee Club)
LOIZA

[egoodstein]

Not familiar with this work or indeed the composer. Sounds very interesting though. Always wondered why not more 'triple concertos' with such instruments. Glad to see more 'Latin' composers and music getting attention in the past 20 years or so too. I'll definitely check it out.

[erik]

This Triple Concerto is a very new work, being only five years old, and so it has not quite taken hold yet. But Sierra, in combining modern orchestration with the Latin/Caribbean roots that he has, nevertheless has done a great deal to enhance ethnic and indigenous styles over the last forty years, and has thus become one of our nation's greatest classical composers (IMHO).