Programme Notes for
The Joy of Music Festival 2026
18 October 2026
HONGGI KIM, Piano
1st Prizewinner, Hong Kong International Piano Competition 2019
Catalan pianist-composer Isaac Albéniz was a free-spirited child prodigy who ran away from home, traveled widely as a touring phenomenom and later matured into a full-fledged virtuoso. His mature and greatest piano music is no better illustrated than the cycle Iberia, performed as a complete set by Honggi Kim. Published in four books, each with three pieces, it carried the title “twelve new impressions”. In these, Albéniz combined Spanish musical idioms and dance rhythms, Debussy’s impressionist palette of colours, topped with a transcendental Lisztian piano technique.
The First Book was premiered in 1906 and dedicated to the widow of French composer Ernest Chausson. It opens with Evocación (Evocation), a slow and meditative work of quiet contemplation, filled with longing and nostalgia. The reverie is broken with the lively zapateado rhythm of El Puerto, a boisterous souvenir from the port of El Puerto de Santa Maria near Cadiz. The longest piece of the set is El Corpus en Sevilla, which colourfully depicts a sacred festival day in Seville. A statue of Virgin Mary is paraded through the streets surrounded by marching bands, worshipers and revelers before retiring in an air of penitential solitude.
The Second Book, dedicated to Spanish pianist Blanche Selva (who gave the premieres of all 12 pieces of Iberia), was completed in 1906 and first performed the following year. Rondeña is named after the town of Ronda, its lively dance including elements of the popular fandango and jota. Still in Andalusia, Almeria is hauntingly beautiful as a melody, its reverie drifting into realms of lively fantasy. The highly rhythmic Triana relives the gypsy quarter of Seville, where the flamenco was born. One can easily imagine the clacking of castanets, strumming of guitars and nifty footwork of the dancers. Interestingly, Triana was included as a compulsory set-piece in earlier editions of the Hong Kong International Piano Competition.
It is a pity that Books Three and Four are relatively neglected. For example, Daniel Barenboim only recorded Books One and Two but not the latter two. Both contain music that is no less worthy or interesting. Book Three, dedicated to pianist Marguerite Hasselmans (later mistress of Gabriel Fauré) and premiered in 1908, opens with El Albaicín, its infectious rhythms reliving the hive of activity that is Granada’s gypsy district. There is a melancholic and “sobbing” quality to El Polo, which is slightly slower but no less rhythmic. This is the longest piece of the twelve in terms of numbers of bars. Moving to Madrid, Lavapiés brings about the chaos of the district known for its church and unwashed denizens, characterised by what sounds like plenty of wrong notes, part of the work’s charm.
Book Four, dedicated to the wife of critic Pierre Lalo (Edouard’s son), was first performed in 1909. The graceful malagueña is referenced in Málaga, the city where it was supposed to originate. Jerez is the Andalusian town after which the liquor sherry was named. Incidentally it is the only piece without sharps or flats in its key signature, the music which is centred around A minor is reminiscent of a soleá, a soulful and melancholic number in flamenco music. Interestingly, it replaced the popular Navarra for this book, which was ironically deemed too populist and unserious. The set (and entire cycle) closes in a most ebullient mood in Eritaña, named after a popular inn outside Seville famous for its flamenco evenings. This was the piece which Debussy loved best, which said quite something.
Programme notes by Chang Tou Liang