INSTRUMENTAL REVIEWS, Castelnuovo-Tedesco
Platero y yo: An Andalusian Elegy Niklas Johansen gtr OUR Recordings (8 226930/31 2 " 109')
PLATERO Y YO
There is already, in the catalogue, a small number of complete and almost-complete recordings of Castelnuovo-Tedesco's elegiac masterpiece for guitar and spoken word, Platero y yo. Not to mention those excerpts, sans narration, whose presence enlivens many a recital album. I have a particular fondness for the version Frank Koonce recorded with narrator Marisol Membrillo, which has the additional virtue of featuring illustrations by Inma Naranjo. This new release by Danish guitarist Niklas Johansen, beautifully recorded in Fredensborg Palace Chapel, is however something very special indeed. All 28 of Castelnuovo-Tedesco's settings of selections from Juan Ramón Jiménez's 138 prose poems are present. Specially commissioned illustrations by award-winning artist Halfdan Pisket are reproduced next to Eloïse Roach's classic English translations of the Spanish originals. Johansen's profoundly sympathetic interpretation is the result of lengthy immersion in the music and the poems in their original language.
Platero y yo (Platero and I'), ostensibly the story of the deep bond between a poet and his donkey Platero, who suffers a premature death, is also an elegy for, and love letter to, the small Andalusian town of Moguer, birthplace of Jiménez and the setting for the collection. For Moguer, too, suffered an untimely death, devastated by ecological disasters both natural and industrial. Thus to read the poems and contemplate the illustrations while listening to the music is a hugely emotional experience, made more intimate by the lack of narration. The 28 poems are organized into four suites of seven pieces each. But one can take examples from the first suite alone as emblematic of the whole.
In 'Platero', Johansen proves as much a tone poet as Castelnuovo-Tedesco, his colourful, textured playing capturing the innocent fluidity and abruptness of the little donkey's gamboling among the flowers as much as Pisket's adorable drawing. And while he gently communicates the joyful softness and delicacy of distant bells and falling roses in 'Angelus', Johansen is equally able to bring the composer's masterly melding of lullaby and lament in 'Melancholy' to a tenebrous climax as the poet stands besides Platero's lily-covered grave beneath a pine tree in an orchard.
For those new to this music, and these poems, I cannot imagine a better introduction than this gorgeous album, which to be fully appreciated must be experienced in its physical form. William Yeoman, Award Issue, 2025