Introducing... TAPEO
This is part two in a series of posts all January long telling stories from behind the scenes of my new album TAPEO, out on January 22.
In last week's post, I wrote about how the Spanish cello on loan to me right now was in many ways at the origin of my inspiration for TAPEO. However, it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing from initial inspiration to final product. It took me a year and a half after receiving the Guillami cello to come up with the idea for this album. Honestly, if it weren't for the pandemic it probably would've been even longer (and maybe never). At end of February 2020 I was planning a completely different CD; by the end of April, TAPEO was born, complete with title and most of the final program. In anticipation of the album's launch on Friday, I want to take the time this week to share a bit of the journey to TAPEO.
Whenever I'm imagining a new idea for a recording, I can't help but start by think of the words of Canadian pianist Glenn Gould:
"If you haven't got something new to say in a recording, don't bother saying it."
Even if it might not always be possible to live up to Gould's standards, I've always liked the sentiment of his words. And so I always try to find a way to add my own new perspective whenever I make a CD, particularly when it comes to the choice of which pieces to record.
Unfortunately, this meant that coming up with an idea for a Spanish disc was going to be challenging. Two factors were conspiring against me:
I) as it turns out I wasn't the first cellist to ever think of recording a Spanish album (I know, big surprise)
II) For some reason there just isn't a whole lot of Spanish music for cello.
It's always baffled me how with Pablo Casals — one of the greatest cellist of all time — as their countryman, so few notable Spanish composers wrote significant works for cello. Instead, what we're left with is mostly a small handful of arrangements of their more popular works, all of which have been recorded more times than I can count.
The ghost of Glenn Gould just wouldn't allow me to record the exact same music that so many other cellists had already put to disc. But I also didn't really feel like picking through the music of little known Spanish composers hoping to find some lost gem. I struggled a lot with trying to figure out what I, as a non-Spanish speaking Canadian, had to say about Spanish music and culture. I ended up putting the whole project on ice.
It wasn't until the pandemic hit in March 2020 that I finally had time and space to revisit the idea of a Spanish album. And now I had a deadline as well — my label unexpectedly had some recording dates open up in August.
I had been enjoying cooking Spanish food during the first month of the lockdown, and it wasn’t long before the idea of combining my love of Spanish food and music to create a sort of musical tapas came to me (along with it the title for the CD). At the same time, a fortuitous Youtube rabbit hole led me to Heifetz's wonderful recording of Estrellita, and I started thinking about incorporating some music from Hispanic America into my program.
Behind the scenes from the TAPEO photoshoot at Bar Raval in Toronto
Soon, trying my best to feature as many different musical flavours as possible, an initial list of pieces had come together (which I proceeded to then tweak and revise up to a month before the recording… Philip Chiu is a hero for putting up with my indecisiveness). Ultimately, I ended up embracing the idea that much of the music on the CD would not be originally for cello. Somehow it also felt fitting; after all if a Canadian could make Spanish tapas at home in Montreal, why couldn't a cellist play a piece written for piano?
In fact, I embraced the idea of arrangements so much so that I even made my own new version of a piece I've listened to since my childhood: Albéniz's Asturias. This turned out to be enormously influential, it gave me first hand experience with how much arranging is the art of approximating of the original, and that there was always a degree artistic licence involved. It’s not so unlike how you might take a classic recipe and add an extra spice or two according to your own taste. It helped me approach the rest of the music on the CD with more freedom, and make each and every one of the many arrangements my own.
Of the 10 pieces on the album, only 3 were originally written for cello, but in my opinion, the cello adds something unique to all of them. If I’m lucky, it might also just add enough of something “new” to live up to Glenn Gould's words.
TAPEO is available for pre-order on iTunes, and you can already listen to some of the tracks! If you'd like to purchase a physical copy, sign up to my mailing list below, they'll be on sale on my website after the official release.
In the spirit of the times, Phil and I will be doing a virtual album launch on Jan 24 presented by Pontiac Enchanté, a great chamber music series run by our friend Carson Becke just outside of Ottawa. We'd love to see you there! Click here for more info.