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Classical Music Magazine, May 2010

An eclectic mix of choral works and arrangements from across Spain, representing all its languages and regions, from Madrid to the Balearic islands. Along with Rodrigo and Falla, you will find many lesser-known Spanish composers among the 25 tracks on this disc.

Classic FM Magazine, July 2010
Presenter’s Choice

As warm, colourful and sonically tasty as promised, this potpourri of mostly 20th-century choral songs by Iberian composers is as entertaining as it is enlightening. Finely shaped performances, too, from Carlos Aransay's crack specialist ensemble.

Nick Bailey

Connoisseurs’ Choice, The New CD Show, Classic FM – 12th June 2010

I could have played you any number of these items and you would have enjoyed all of them….

David Mellor

www.zarzuela.net, 28th June 2010

It’s arguable that the best professional Spanish a capella choir is based not in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao or Valencia, but in London. Carlos Aransay’s Coro Cervantes, founded with the assistance of the Instituto Cervantes in 1995, has gained many plaudits for its work in bringing the riches of Iberian choral music, sacred and profane, to a larger public. Their first CD O Crux included pieces by Vives, Bretón and Barbieri amongst many sacred rarities; and this new disc presents the profane side of the Spanish coin.

A Choral Postcard is a neat title, confounding touristic images in a cornucopia of regional styles. Only the opening track, the slow movement of Rodrigo’s ubiquitous concerto set to a chunk of verbal españolada, nods to the tourist trade; though when it’s sung with such poise, taste and impeccable tuning it’s hard not to be beguiled as ever by the bejewelled beauty of Rodrigo’s moment of genius. This is a party piece which everyone will enjoy.

What follows is a virtuoso collection of traditional songs and modern compositions covering just about every Spanish region. Mood and tempo are cunningly varied by Aransay. And the range of flavours is marvellous, from the vernal freshness of the Basque Country (Olaizola’s familiar Aurtxoa Sehaskan, with Olatz Saitua a most affecting soloist) through the light, almost French maritime melancholy of the Cantabrian Volar, to the deep fatalism of the Andalusian granadinas from Emigrantes: Valentín Ruiz-Aznar’s arrangement uses clever choral imitation of the flamenco guitar accompaniment hinted at in Barrera and Calleja’s original orchestration, without distracting from the silver thread of the quasi-improvised vocal line. What a contrast is El Vito (familiar from Giménez’s Luis Alonso zarzuelas, and earlier used by Auber in Le Domino Noir) with its fiery evocation of Andalusian women dancers imitating the movements of bullfighters.

The most recent compositions are amongst the highlights: I was spellbound by Rubén García Martín’s ¿Ondi jueron?, its juicy harmonic suspensions capitalising on the earthy strength of the Extremaduran Castúo dialect of José María Gabriel y Galán’s poem El Cristu Benditu. Here as always, the security of the choir’s tuning and sensitive response to the text make for enthralling listening.

Set apart from the main journey are a Cervantes triptych, epitaphs to Don Quixote, Sancho Panza and Dulcinea in Rodolfo Halffter’s warmly neo-classical style, seasoned with stylistic gestures towards 16th century vocal practice; and – to finish – de Falla’s late and lovely Balada de Mallorca, a five-minute setting of a Catalan text by Verdaguer, inspired by the composer’s feeling for Chopin’s Second Ballade, Op.38. Relaxed but precise, this is the best recording of this deceptively tricky little masterpiece I’ve heard.

Like a fine bottle of manzanilla, the CD is best taken at more than one setting; and in some of the more rustic songs (such as Durango’s 17th century Navarra standard Pero Grullo) Coro Cervantes’s super-smooth, sophisticated blend could perhaps have been relaxed a mite to ring the vocal changes; but that’s critical nit-picking. In truth, it’s hard to find fault with a disc so successful, in execution as much as conception. More, please!

Christopher Webber

All Music Guide, October 2010

The composers and works on this a cappella choral release are mostly unfamiliar outside Iberia, but not the melodies; the nearly two-dozen short tunes, mostly drawn on folk and regional traditions, have in several cases served as source material for or been arranged from popular symphonic works. The opening En Aranjuez con tu amor comes from Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez; Soy de Mieres (track 16) became one of the Siete canciones populares of Manuel de Falla. The charming Catalan folk song El cant dels ocells is a concert standard both for vocalists and for cello. All three of these pieces are associated with different regions of Spain, and that indicates the album's theme: it is a "postcard from Spain" not in the usual sense of sending a few colorful Spanish scenes but instead in the sense of an entire tour of the peninsula and even nearby islands. You might call it a musical travel diary of Spain. The diversity of these small pieces is what makes the program so enjoyable; each one brings a new twist of melody or melodic flavor, new imagery or kinds of humor, and even a new language; many of the multiple dialects of the languages known as Spanish and Catalan are on display, and the choir even attempts a couple of pieces in Basque. The singing by Coro Cervantes, a British group, is nothing short of gorgeous, and the album succeeds both as a kaleidoscope of light choral songs and as a useful collection of generally unfamiliar music. Notes are in English and Spanish; the song texts are given in their original languages and in English.

James Manheim

David Mellor’s Top Albums of 2010
The Daily Mail

…But of all this year’s CDs, perhaps the one that has given me greatest pleasure is Espana: A Choral Postcard From Spain.

The London-based Coro Cervantes, formed and trained by Calos Aransay, sound completely assured in a 25-item collection of short, tuneful pieces from all over Spain. Aransay’s own arrangement for choir of the slow movement of Rodrigo’s Aranjuez concerto is alone worth the price of this stunning CD.