Roque Cordero: The Complete Works for Solo Piano

"One would think that, since he [Roque Cordero] is a Panamanian composer of considerable skill and imagination, people agitating for more people of color to be represented in today's music scene might champion his work At least Tuyen Tonnu, an associate professor at Illinois State University, believes in the music and has the skill necessary to realize it effectively and inspirationally. Professor Tonnu performs Cordero with considerable authority and verve. "

"The long-lived Roque Cordero (1917–2008) is Panama's most famous composer. He is not spectacularly represented on the Fanfare Archive, it has to be said, so to have a full twofer devoted exclusively to his piano music, in uniformly superb performances, feels like a luxury indeed. It is lovely when recording projects can bring music to the public for the first time, as here It is certainly the world's loss up to now regarding the brilliant Miniatura of 1941. The Preludio para la Cuna Vacia (Prelude for the Empty Cradle) marked a return to composition after a four-year hiatus and is a charming, gently rocking lullaby; Vietnamese-American pianist Tuyen Tonnu clearly not only understands the idiom but also feels it deeply. It shows real thought into how to present this music that there is a more extended gap between Nostalgia and the Sonatina Rítmica, the first work that could be described in any way as extended on this conspectus. There's no missing the inherent life in the Sonatina Rítmica (1943), and Tuyen Tonnu is a fabulously equipped performer; her tone can sing, too, as the central Adagietto shows. Tonnu places the slowly pulsing element perfectly, and note how the piece is characterized by its cross-handed writing. It's a rather nice happenstance that the final work here, the three Tres Meditaciones Poéticas, written in 1995, is also deliciously reflective. While these pieces have some scrunchier moments, perhaps the most touching is the central Adagio angoscioso (slow and grieving), inspired by a New Year's Eve vision of his deceased sister, Natividad, dancing joyfully in the street. Heartbreakingly tender, it is this of all the music on this release that is impossible to forget, and Tonnu traces the pieces' shapes marvelously. "