Album: Alicia De Larrocha, Manuel de Falla: Suites from El Sombrero de tres picos, El amor brujo, Fantasia Baetica, Cuatro piezas españolas (Newton Classics)

This reissue of a 1973 recording makes a fine tribute to the pianist Alicia De Larrocha, who died last September.

The pre-eminent interpreter of Spanish piano music, she brings an engagingly animated spirit to these Falla pieces, reflecting his confidence in the creation of a distinctively Spanish form – perhaps best represented by the easy, teasing shifts between tranquility and activity in the early Four Spanish Pieces. By the time of the Fantasia Baetica, there was an almost austere aloofness about his incorporation of the vividly visualised flamenco flourishes, all of which are brilliantly realised in de Larrocha's flamboyant interpretation.

DOWNLOAD THIS Cuatro piezas españolas; Fantasia Baetica