Overview
Introduction
Joaquín Turina, during a café meeting with Albéniz and Falla that followed the debut of Turina's Piano Quintet, Op. 1, in 1907, affirmed his desire to compose in a distinctively Spanish modern style. What followed was a series of works evoking the scenery and the local music of Turina's native Andalucía and its ancient city of Seville: the "suite pintoresca" for piano entitled Sevilla (1909), the Rincones sevillanas (Seville Streetcorners) for piano (1911), the Escena andaluza (Andalusian Scene) for viola, piano, and string quartet (1912), and the Tres danzas andaluzas (Three Andalusian Dances) for piano, Op. 8, of 1912. These three short pieces, lasting about 12 minutes in all, offer an ideal introduction to Turina's pleasantly impressionist-inflected Spanish style: though they have neither Falla's edginess nor the flamenco fire one might expect, they are fleet pieces, with lovely splashes of Debussy-like color, that would add flair to any piano recital. The name of the opening Petenera denotes a flamenco dance originally used to accompany a song with a certain prescribed form, but in Turina's hands the dance rhythms merely animate the piece rather than setting the feet to tapping. Given the pan-ethnic qualities of Debussy's piano output, one might guess that he was the composer here. The second dance, called a Tango, bears little relation to the Argentine type (the word "tango," which probably has an African root, had various meanings before the modern Afro-Latin dance emerged). It is a limpid piece in common time, with each measure consisting of dotted rhythms on the first and third beats and full quarter notes on the second and fourth. The final Zapateado (Shoe Dance), often extracted from the set and performed separately, finally delivers some percussiveness, effectively presented by allowing it to emerge from more legato music in which the dance's rhythms are partially hidden. The Danzas andaluzas also exist, and work well, in guitar versions.
