Niklas Johansen - Platero y yo An Andalusian Elegy (2025) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

5 stars: Johansen is not the first guitarist to record this entire collection, but he might be the best to do so.

Some people, myself included, have better relationships with animal friends than they do with other human beings. Even so, friendships between men and animals have their own complications, in part because of the element of control. For example, I don't let my cats run free outside, and they pretty much eat what I expect them to eat when I expect them to eat it. I can't do that with any of my human friends! Platero y Yo (“Platero and I”) is Juan Ramón Jiménez's collection ("an Andalusian elegy"), published in 1914, of 138 prose poems about the relationship between a first-person poet, in a Spanish village that has seen better days, and a small silver-colored donkey named Platero. Stylistically, the poems are simple, but emotionally, they are thought-provoking in their examination of life's joys, tragedies, and existential challenges. In 1960, Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco created a collection of 28 short guitar pieces inspired by Platero y Yo, and anticipated that, in performance, the guitarist would be joined by a narrator, who would read from Jiménez's text—perhaps in the English translations by Eloise Roach printed in the booklet. Castelnuovo-Tedesco had already written music for Andrés Segovia, and it seems likely that the Spanish guitarist was the composer's first performer of choice. There is, however, no evidence that Segovia ever performed the work in toto with narrator. It has been up to other guitarists to do that, but most (like Segovia) have contented themselves with a selection from the 28 pieces, with or without a narrator.

TRACKLIST

1. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): I. Platero
2. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): II. Angelus
3. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): III. Return
4. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): IV. Spring
5. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): V. The Well
6. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): VI. Sparrows
7. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): VII. Melancholy
8. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): VIII. Friendship
9. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): IX. The Moon
10. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): X. Twilight Games
11. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XI. Ronsard
12. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XII. The Crazy Man
13. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XIII. The Consumptive Girl
14. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XIV. Nostalgia
15. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XV. White Butterflies
16. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XVI. April Idyll
17. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XVII. The Canary's Flight
18. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XVIII. Lullaby
19. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XIX. The Canary Dies
20. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XX. November Idyll
21. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XXI. Death
22. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XXII. Convalescence
23. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XXIII. Swallows
24. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XXIV. Wayside Flower
25. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XXV. Sunday
26. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XXVI. The Gypsies
27. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XXVII. Carnival
28. Niklas Johansen - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Platero y yo, Op. 190 (Version for Solo Guitar): XXVIII. To Platero in the Heaven of Moguer



Thanks to the Original customer.