5 stars: Johansen is not the first guitarist to record this entire collection, but he might be the best to do so.
Some people, myself included, have better relationships with animal friends than they do with other human beings. Even so, friendships between men and animals have their own complications, in part because of the element of control. For example, I don't let my cats run free outside, and they pretty much eat what I expect them to eat when I expect them to eat it. I can't do that with any of my human friends! Platero y Yo (“Platero and I”) is Juan Ramón Jiménez's collection ("an Andalusian elegy"), published in 1914, of 138 prose poems about the relationship between a first-person poet, in a Spanish village that has seen better days, and a small silver-colored donkey named Platero. Stylistically, the poems are simple, but emotionally, they are thought-provoking in their examination of life's joys, tragedies, and existential challenges. In 1960, Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco created a collection of 28 short guitar pieces inspired by Platero y Yo, and anticipated that, in performance, the guitarist would be joined by a narrator, who would read from Jiménez's text—perhaps in the English translations by Eloise Roach printed in the booklet. Castelnuovo-Tedesco had already written music for Andrés Segovia, and it seems likely that the Spanish guitarist was the composer's first performer of choice. There is, however, no evidence that Segovia ever performed the work in toto with narrator. It has been up to other guitarists to do that, but most (like Segovia) have contented themselves with a selection from the 28 pieces, with or without a narrator.
As you might have gathered already from the headnote, Johansen does not use a narrator on this new two-CD set of all 28 pieces. The booklet reprints the corresponding English texts, however, so listeners can pause between each piece and read the text silently or aloud. I confess I was too lazy to do it that way, preferring to read the texts ahead of time and to consult them again as the music played. I suspect that some listeners would have liked to hear the texts read to them, while others would prefer to do without in the interest of time. This new recording could have offered both options to listeners by tracking the texts and the music separately, but that would have necessitated a third CD. At least one other guitarist (Catherine Liolios on EMEC) plays all 28 pieces; those recordings that bring a narrator in omit a chunk of the individual pieces to fit them on one CD. Then there are guitarists like Segovia who recorded only selections from the work, and without a narrator. I mention all of this to alert readers that comparing recordings of Platero y Yo can be like comparing manzanas to naranjas. At this point in my review, I think it is worth noting that Castelnuovo-Tedesco did not arrange these 28 pieces in an order that makes narrative sense—for example, Platero dies in No. 21 (Muerte) but he is alive again in later pieces, so one wonders what Castelnuovo-Tedesco was thinking, and if he seriously intended all 28 pieces to be performed in concert with a narrator. (Liolios reordered the pieces to create a more linear narrative. Johansen leaves the order alone.) I am guessing that a performance with narrator would require three hours or so, unless the narrator speaks over the guitarist. That's a lot of donkey.
Niklas Johansen is just 36. Born in Copenhagen, he studied all over Europe and his teachers have included prominent guitarists such as Manuel Barrueco and David Russell. He also has won several awards. His feelings about this music seem very different from those of Liolios, a French guitarist who is almost three decades his senior. Their overall timings are very similar, but if you look at the timings of individual pieces, even before you hear the performances it becomes clear that the two guitarists have very different ideas about the music. For example, in the opening piece, which is a portrait of Platero himself, Liolios surges forward as if she cannot wait to tell us the whole story, whereas Johansen is much more introspective, taking a slower tempo and also adjusting that tempo to create arch-like phrasing. In the next piece (Angelus), Liolios again is significantly faster, while Johansen takes time to create both a mood and an approximation of the tolling of bells. In contrast, Johansen is more lively than Liolios in Golondrinas (Swallows) and more bird-like in his articulation. And so it goes. If you are getting the idea that I prefer Johansen to Liolios, you are on target. To me, her playing seems correct, technically speaking, but rather on the surface. Johansen is more specific in his response to Castelnuovo-Tedesco's score, and so there is more story-telling here. I question whether listening to all of these pieces in one sitting is the best way to approach Platero y Yo, but Johansen makes a better case for that approach than Liolios. As for Segovia, I think he recorded only a handful of the pieces, on various occasions. His ultra-sensitive performances are well-worth hearing, but his technique was less strong later in his career, so as I stated previously, it really is a case of comparing apples with oranges.
OUR Recordings gives Johansen's guitar a warm and intimate sound, so there are no concerns on that account. I should also mention that, in addition to the English texts, OUR Recordings's booklet includes original illustrative drawings by artist Halfdan Pisket, although the ones illustrating Platero's death are perhaps unnecessarily dark, especially if you are impressionable. Raymond Tuttle