Pianist Alicia de Larrocha Pays Tribute to a Departed Friend

It was a what’s-right-with-this-picture scenario at Ventura College Theater last week, when Alicia de Larrocha came to town. It’s a rare enough experience to hear a musician of her lofty stature in this space, but it was an extra special event to catch the celebrated Spanish pianist performing an all-Spanish program, including works written for her or adapted by her. She was the star of this year’s Ventura Chamber Music Festival, and it’s reasonable to say that this was the zenith of the fest.

At 78, De Larrocha is still very much a dexterous and insightful player, wise in her interpretations and resistant to empty flashiness. She brought a dancing crispness to the Baroque terrain of a pair of Antonio Soler pieces to open a program which also included selections from Isaac Albeniz’s “Iberia” and a second half devoted to the music of Enrique Granados. Granados’ “Goyescas” music was inspired by Goya paintings, and revised by the pianist. She gave full measure of the music, which is plainly romantic but fortified with Spanish flavors and rhythms.

The main focus, and most memorable aspect of this program, though, came with a personal poignancy attached. As a concert centerpiece, she played works by a Spanish composer who deserves greater recognition, Xavier Montsalvatge, a friend who would have turned 90, but who died a week earlier. Under the circumstances, the concert turned into a Montsalvatge tribute, replete with a short, bittersweet encore written by him.

His “Sonatina para Yvette” and “Impromptu en el Generalife,” written for de Larrocha, have a post-Impressionistic flair, but with enough points of tension and wit along the way to keep the mind alert and guessing. Before leaving the stage at intermission, she came out and quietly held up one of the composer’s scores, in tribute to the artist. Her greatest homage, of course, came through her magic fingers.

Art Alert: Looking for art this weekend? Check out the current fare in Oxnard’s Carnegie Art Museum., Through Sunday, the museum is hosting a subtly fascinating traveling exhibition, “American Woodblock Prints,” from the Syracuse University art collection.

In the woodblock medium, lines and forms tend to be etched in strength more than subtlety, and the American-ness of the art here extends from “American Gothic”-esque values to experimental instincts.

* “American Woodblock Prints” and Donald Cecil’s “The California Landscape,” Carnegie Art Museum, 424 S. C St., Oxnard, through Sunday. Gallery hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m., today and Saturday; 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Friday; 1 p.m.-5 p.m., Sunday. (805) 385-8157.