The combination of cello and castanets may seem a strange one, but at least one and possibly two of the pieces (the sparse booklet notes don't make it clear) on this Spanish release were written for that combination. The Suite para castañuelas, zapateado (a flamenco dancer who adds rhythms), y violoncello of Jordi Sansa (2005) is a programmatic work depicting a day in the life of a child in a small village, and it's a rare example of a chamber work that is densely evocative of a variety of scenes. That and the concluding Crótalo of Ignasi Adiego, inspired by a poem of
Lorca that is itself about castanets, are the strongest pieces on the album. The rest of the music adds castanets to solo cello music, with mixed results at best. The notes proffer a speculative scenario in which
Bach might have heard castanets somehow through his French connections, but from that idea to furnishing the Suite No. 3 in C major for solo cello, BWV 1009, with castanets, is an unwarranted leap. It's not even carried off very well; the entrances of the castanets seem random and tentative. In an excerpt from a
Boccherini quintet and in
Gaspar Cassadò's Suite for cello the castanets are at least more idiomatic if not more confidently integrated. Cellist
Iñaki Etxepare and castanet player
Ludovica Mosca sound as though they were hastily recruited for the project, which could have been executed much more thoughtfully and effectively than it is here.