Hyperion Records

Antonio Soler, like so many leaders of the Spanish artistic community, was from Catalonia, an area where the boundaries between France and Spain blur to produce a distinctive language, voice and culture. As a self-confessed disciple of Scarlatti, Soler wrote many sonatas, chiefly in binary form, and these, together with an audacious treatise, were considered so outlandish that he became known as ‘a devil dressed as a monk’ (Soler had taken holy orders at an early age). In the F sharp major Sonata convention is indeed turned topsy-turvy with one witty and characterful surprise after another. Alternately melancholy and exuberant the Sonata achieves a typically Spanish whimsy and volatility.

from notes by Bryce Morrison © 2006