Classical Spanish sonatas in the mould of Scarlatti, infused with colour and drama by a native pianist.

Born in Madrid in 1750, Manuel Blasco de Nebra died at the age of 34. He wrote around 170 keyboard works, only 30 of which survive. Some were published in his lifetime. Others are preserved in manuscript in the monasteries of Montserrat and La Encarnación (Osuna), amounting to twenty-four sonatas and six pastorelas. The sonatas are all one- or two-movement works, quick pieces with or without a slow introduction.

Pedro Piquero compares this music to innovative pop albums of our own time, ‘albums that have taken a decisive step forwards, but which nobody has followed; albums with no sequels. Blasco breaks a new path in Spain, like Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in Germany, but it has no continuity. He sets out as a precursor to the Sturm und Drang movement, a pre-Romantic, astonishingly original for his time.’

Piquero made these recordings of Blasco de Nebra's recordings in 2008-2010. They are reissued in a single set for the first time with the present issue, accompanied by an essay on the life and work of the composer by the scholar Roberto Montes. The pianist’s efforts on behalf of Blasco de Nebra have elicited enthusiastic praise from international critics.

The Melómano reviewer remarked: ‘This young musician surpasses himself, not least in the bipartite form of each sonata, evoking a contrast between the meditative calm of the slow first movement and the gentle revelry of the second. Piquero caresses the piano with the same humility with which Manuel Blasco de Nebra imbued these intimate pieces, apparently ethereal in texture, fragile or delicate, yet well-constructed. He plays with intuitive and unpretentious subtlety, and conjures up, as if through a time-machine, the worlds of Mompou, Debussy, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Scarlatti, Beethoven or Clementi.’