Jones is a consummate pianist with an enviable facility. That is a bit like Hamlet without the prince, but listeners who already know that masterwork may well be curious as to what preceded it. The choice of works here seems to be based simply on what the pianist Martin Jones thought would appeal most after excluding Goyescas. Much of the music on this disc sounds to me like improvisations which he has written down: there are simple tunes covered with a plethora of notes and occasional bravura passages to show off speed and skill. Granados was himself an excellent pianist, much given to improvisation and to embellishing the works he was scheduled to play to an enormous extent. However, he had a long previous career, which included composing several operas, some chamber music – the piano quintet and piano trio are particularly attractive – and a great deal of piano music, a selection of which appears here. Granados is best remembered, and rightly so, for his marvellous piano suite Goyescas, composed shortly before his early death, and one of the pinnacles of Spanish piano music. 1995/2000, Concert Hall of the Nimbus Foundation, Wyastone Leys, UK
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