When a pianist in his mid-fifties makes his Decca debut release, you can be sure that there is a story attached – and that is certainly the case with the Cuban virtuoso, Jorge Luis Prats
Prats was a prodigiously talented young pianist in the early 1970s, studying in Moscow, Paris and Vienna, and winning the Marguerite Long Prize in 1977 (and, as a prize winner, even making a recital LP for Deutsche Grammophon). But the young Cuban had then to decide whether to leave his native country and young family for an international career abroad - and naturally chose to stay with his family. Apart from occasional performances in neighbouring countries, during the following decades he was rarely heard outside Cuba and effectively disappeared from the international piano scene
Only recently did he return to the international stage, giving key recitals in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in 2008 – and was immediately hailed as a long-lost virtuoso in the grand tradition. Subsequent recitals and concerto appearances have consolidated his reputation, and he is now performing in many of Europe’s major cities
• His métier is the 19th century virtuoso repertoire, with a strong emphasis on the Spanish/Latin American/Cuban School -- Villa-Lobos, Granados, Albéniz, Lecuona and Cervantes, together with such Romantic giants as Liszt, Chopin, Rachmaninov and Scriabin
Decca’s debut CD with Jorge Luis is the live recital he gave in the Sala Mozart, in the new arts centre in Zaragoza (northern Spain), on 2 March 2011 – for release in September 2011. The repertoire consists of Granados’s Goyescas, Villa-Lobos’s Bachiana Brasileira No.4, Farinas’s Alta Gracia, Cervantes’s Danzas Cubanas and Lecuona’s Malagueña – a programme that plays superbly to his strengths and offers a spectacular showcase for the wizardry of this recently-rediscovered giant of the keyboard