Diapason d’Or
October 2019
Nouveauté

Presto Editor's Choice
September 2019

Carmen Romeu (soloist), Marina Heredia Rios (soloist)
Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Pablo Heras-Casado

The two splendid works on this album resulted from Manuel de Falla's encounter with the husband-and-wife team of dramatists Martínez Sierra-Lejárraga: Love the Magician, whose eminently ‘gypsy’ inspiration takes us to the very heart of the flamenco repertory, here magnificently embodied under the direction of maestro Pablo Heras-Casado; and the brilliant pantomime The Three-cornered Hat, for which Picasso designed the sets and costumes – exactly 100 years ago!

"Falla’s two ballets swagger, stomp and sizzle in these vivid, sun-scorched accounts from the Spanish conductor and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra – the rasping horns and almost jazzy cor anglais at the opening of the Miller’s Dance are a delight, and after enjoying Carmen Romeu’s clean soprano in El sombrero de tres picos the earthy roughness of flamenco diva Marina Heredia Rios in El Amor Brujo offers a delicious gear-change." - Katherine Cooper, Presto Classical, September 2019.