Costa Blanca Art Update - Alicante's ADDA Symphony Orchestra begins a new season

A new season of orchestral concerts in Alicante’s ADDA opened with a blast, rather than a bang. The blast in question came at the end of the opening work, which was appropriately enough Shostakovich’s Festival Overture. The concert cycle is called Festiva and artistic director, Josep Vicent, has assembled an impressive mix across the twenty scheduled concerts. This opener, as with all recent concerts, had to be played twice on consecutive evenings because Covid restrictions limit the hall to half capacity. Even second time through, the program shone and glittered via the superb sound the resident orchestra now generates.

Shostakovich’s Festive Overture is something of a musical joke. It raises naivety to the level of satire in that its vast triumphal fanfares celebrate a musical progression through the indisputably trite. But as ever, Shostakovich convinces us on every one of the multiple levels that the work confronts. The blast, by the way, came at the end when the audience was surprised by the standing participation of ten extra brass players who had been previously and anonymously seated in the boxes on either side of the stage. Three extra trumpets, three trombones and for horns added the extra weight to the coda and the sound was breathtakingly resplendent. It was an experience that reminded this member of the audience of the ENO’s production of Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk in the 1980s when an onstage brass band similarly emphasized the explosive and expletive elements in the operas incandescent score. Then the players were all dressed in bright red military uniform with greatcoats and officers’ hats and all impersonated Joseph Stalin.

Second on the opening concert’s program was the Double Piano Concerto by Philip Glass. The soloists were the Lebeque sisters who have admirably championed this and other contemporary works.

It was an interesting piece with which to follow the Shostakovich, since it transports the audience from a symphonic overture that glorifies the trite and crass in complicated ways, to Philip Glass’s minimalism, whose reputation for simple repetition of arpeggios belies the complex reality of this subtle music. Yes, the chord progression that underpins the work may effectively be a chaconne - is Neo-Baroque a relevant term? - but the constant rhythmic variation renders the material much more than repetitive. There are admittedly no show-off cadenzas for the soloists, no obvious technical gymnastics seeking applause for mere completion, but there is an almost constant jousting between all participants in fights for rhythmic space within the world the composer restricts to a melodic corner. The result is a fascinating interplay between the soloists, between the combined soloists and the orchestra, and even between different sections of the orchestra. The Lebeque sisters offered an encore from the Four Movements by Philip glass and by the end the hypnosis was triumphant in its own quiet, understated way.

The concert’s second half was devoted to one of the greatest masterpieces of the concert repertoire, Prokofiev’s second Romeo and Juliet Suite. This is music about which everything possible has been said, so this review will make out with your personal comments.

No matter how many times I hear the piece, I cannot but marvel at the idea, in Friar Laurence, at the genius that gave a gentle melody to the bassoon and tuba. And why, when we first hear the love theme on the clarinet, is one note lengthened, never to be repeated thereafter? The score has a stress on the note, but it’s still a crotchet. The orchestral playing was magnificent and the reading of the score superb except… Having killed off the lovers at the end of suite number two, the pianissimo ending conveying true tragedy, in this concert performance we concluded with the Death of Tybalt from the first suite. Musically it brought the evening to a brilliant close, but intellectually it made little sense. It’s a minor point.

We then had three encores. The blast from Shostakovich was repeated, complete with extra brass from the boxes and then Piazzolla’s Oblivion was just about audible! But beautiful. And finally, we had a rousing Latina American dance, the Danzon of Marquez, just a round off the opening evening. There’s 19 more like this in the season.

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Music to broaden the mind, three concerts in Alfas del Pi, nothing standard in sight.

 

Alfas del Pi Music Society offered three May concerts to complete the first part of its annual season. But these were three remarkably different concerts, each challenging in its own way, each presenting a surprising mix of the partially familiar and the less well-known. It was a repertoire to broaden a listener’s experience and it achieved that and much more.

The three concerts featured solo guitar, solo harp and a duo of cello and piano. The four musicians presented some fifteen works between them and all from different composers. There was not a single German or Austrian Classicist or Romantic within hearing distance. There was no Chopin or Liszt, no Debussy or even Shostakovich or Tchaikovsky. There was French and Hungarian music but also Argentinian, Uruguayan, American, Spanish, Swiss and Italian, alongside just a little German baroque.

Javier Llanes began the cycle with an evening of solo guitar music. He started with Manuel de Falla’s Homenaje a la Tumba de Debussy and then continued with the Baroque suite L’Infidele by the German composer Samuel Weiss, a composer whose identity might be in the Rococo, but his mind was clearly in the future. This was the closest our weekend approached to Classicism. The Hungarian Johan Kasper Mertz provided the next piece in the form of his Elegie, a piece of deep Romantic emotion. Mauro Giuliani’s Rossiniana Number One reminded is all how much improved Rossini’s music can become when it’s not in his own hands! And the concert ended with Una Lemnosita por el Amor de Dios of Agustin Barrios, which offered a moment of reflection to end rather than a grand rousing celebration. The effect was magical.

And speaking of magic, this is what Italian harpist Floraleda Sacchi generates from her instrument with such ease that perhaps her fingers don’t need to contact the strings. Now the harp repertoire might not be known to the average concert goer, which means that any solo recital featuring the instrument must also introduce the audience to new experience. But his did not matter in the least to this audience, such was the poetry of the playing. And by the evening’s end we all felt as if we have as if we’d like to continue hearing this music forever.

Floraleda Sacchi began with the Gitana of Alfonse Hasselmans and followed that with two pieces but Argentinian composers. Astor Piazzolla’s Oblivion was the closest the weekend came to popularity and it is a work that has become not only a familiar, but close to cliché, though not on the harp. Claudia Montero‘s Evocaciones followed and it proved to be a real revelation, given that it was both substantial and challenging, being harmonically and rhythmically varied, besides stunningly and refreshingly elegant.

Philip Glass’s Metamorphosis formed the substantial filling in this meal-sized sandwich of the program. Floraleda’s choice of repeats within an already deliberately repetitive experience metamorphosed this piece into a real meditation in which the audience willingly and profitably entered. The overall stillness of the piece was suggested by the near constant left hand arpeggio, whilst the soft commentaries in the treble contrasted, leaving the bass notes to provide what sounded like a commentary. Overall Philip Glass in Floraleda Sacchi’s hands created a landscape that was forever of interest.

Floraleda Sacchi’s program finished with two pieces by Ludovico Enaudi, Dietro l’incanto and Oltremare, whose episodic detail contrasted well with what had preceded it, and the audience’s response to the evening proved nothing less than rapturous. Two encores followed, Merengue Rojo by Alfredo Rolando Ortiz and Images by the harpist, herself. Not many in the audience had ever heard a concert of solo harp. Not many of them will ever forget the experience.

A third concert in three days would have to contrast strongly with the others to prove memorable. To say that David and Carlos Apellaniz did provide adequate contrast would be an understatement. Both the guitar and harp are soft voices in a concert hall. A cello and piano, however, can generate quite a lot of sound!

David Apellaniz was to play two cello concertos with piano accompaniment. This would be a feat in itself, but to play the Honegger concerto followed by Milhaud’s first was a task and a half.  Arthur Honegger’s music can be severely neoclassical. It can also be tender and reflective, and this performance made the most of this vivid and exciting contrast. Some of the textures in this sound are enduringly memorable. Darius Milhaud’s music always seems to have popular song nearby, though the proximity is often only hinted at through an almost transparent screen of modernism. The overall result is one of melodic and rhythmic excitement and energy.

After working very hard indeed, David left the stage for Carlos Apellaniz to bring everything to a close with a solo piano performance of Gershwin‘s Rhapsody In Blue. If we needed more energy in this concert, we truly got it by the bagfull. This was a vivid reading of a familiar work, an interpretation that had to merge the orchestral part with the original solo piano, a feat that was both challenging for the performer and rewarding for the audience, an audience perhaps familiar with the work but not in this format.

And at the end of the weekend of three concerts, one is reminded that there is a lot of music out there, that it is all worth discovering, that it is all nothing less than utterly rewarding, if only one is willing to step outside of the predictability of what we already know. There must always be space for individual voices and they should never be crowded out by our pre-directed expectations.

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Cassado and Chopin in Alfas del Pi, Stravinsky and Elgar in Alicante

 

Just over a year ago, it would not have been anything special to declare that it had been possible to attend four quality concerts in this area over three days. And then there was covid. Here is Spain, we had a strict initial lockdown, but since then schools have stayed open and some cultural spaces have kept running in spite of restrictions on numbers. Before saying anything else, it is necessary to remind oneself that the new norm has involved social distancing, fifty per cent capacity for venues, compulsory hand sanitiser, masks, the recording of contact details and a temperature test on entry. This has severely restricted audience’s willingness to attend and has persuaded many, perhaps a majority of venues to cease activity altogether. In addition, performers’ travel has been as restricted as the population in general, despite there being the possibility of exemption permits for work. The combination of restrictions on travel, availability of travel and reluctant venues has severely curtailed cultural activity, however, and there have been many perennial supporters of live events who have expressed the opinion that such gatherings should not be happening during a pandemic. Opinion is on one side, while the law places the limits. Also, many more elderly regular attendees have decided that now is the time to lock up and stay in. Individuals have made their own choices.

And now, on the day that bars and restaurants can open until ten o’clock in the evening and when cultural venues can admit seventy-five per cent of their capacity, it was under the previous, more severe restrictions that saw concerts on Friday evening, Saturday lunchtime and evening and Sunday lunchtime in Alfas del Pi and Alicante.

On Friday in Alfas del Pi, Antonio Garcia Egea and Fernando Espi joined as Duo Arbos to play a works from the repertoire of violin and guitar. This was the kind of programme one does not encounter often. It started conventionally with Spanish Dance no5 by Granados, but Carlo Domeniconi’s Sonatina Mexicana has probably not figured often on concert programmes in the last year. It has probably never been followed by Ravi Shankar’s El Alba Encantada, and the microtones of Indian music have probably never before led into Paganini’s Cantabile! Astor Piazzolla’s Historia del Tango, Bourdel 1900 and Café 1930 followed by Libertango was conventional in comparison, as perhaps was Pablo Sarasate’s Playera Romanza Andaluza, despite the understated but stratospheric virtuosity of the ending of the violin part. We finished the evening with Fernandon Espi’s own Impromptu and we were particularly grateful in these times to be taken by the performers on such a varied journey.

On Saturday lunchtime the orchestra at ADDA (Auditori de la Diputacion de Alicante) marked fifty years since the death of Igor Stravinsky with a breath-taking performance of Petroushka. Yes, it’s a work that the majority of the audience had hear many, many times, but it remains a work that is fresh with every new exposure and particularly so in this reading by Josep Vicent, whose reading of this music is faultless. The colours were always vivid, the scenes clear and beautifully depicted in this work that paints with sound. We also heard a superb reading of the Elgar Cello Concerto by Damian Martinez and then had encores of the Valse Triste of Sibelius and, and true to the form of current concerts, a short piece of Piazzolla, Oblivion, with the leader’s violin as soloist.

Then on Saturday evening, back in Alfas del Pi Duo Fortecello, the cello and piano of Anna Mikulska and Philippe Argenty, gave the first of their two concerts. This one featured works by Chopin, Nocturne opus 9, Cello sonata and Polonaise Brillante coupled with Piazzolla (yet again!) in the form of the Triptyque "la Trilogie de l'Ange" and finally the Danse Macabre of Saint-Saens. We only just made the curfew…

Then on Sunday, Duo Fortecello presented their second programme in Albir. While their first programme was the epitome of the conventional, the second was as opposite as it is possible to be. They opened with Joaquin Nin’s Seguida Española and followed with what proved to be a rare gem. Gaspar Cassado wrote a famous sonata for cello and piano based on old Spanish tunes, but this Sonata en la menor, though from the same year, 1925, is quite different in character. Exactly how many times this work has been performed in Spain cannot be assessed, but it is certainly not many times. And it may have been performed elsewhere even less. The work itself is superb and deserves to be much more widely heard, especially when it is compared to other works that form the basis of the repertoire for cello and piano. Any music lover will find great reward in searching out this work and hearing it performed. It has to be said that the fourth movement, Paso Doble, does not live up to the quality of the first three, but the criticism is minor. How many composers, after all, were capable of writing finales that lived up to their preceding movements?

Anna and Philippe continued with a Flamenco solo for cello by Rogelio Huguet y Tagell and then Andaluza by Granados. Manuel de Falla’s Siete Canciones Populares Españolas is music of genius and Gaspar Cassado’s Requiebros, though derivative, is a superb way to finish any concert. And so the duo had given a musical tour of Spain, visiting most regions and sampling its musical soul. Superb. And what a relief from current preoccupations!

Costa Blanca Arts Update, Claudi Arimany, Eduard Sanchez, Joaquin Palomares, Elena Segura

 

There are not many concerts around these days. In addition, audiences are reluctant to attend and the travel and accommodation restrictions make it hard for musicians to perform. Let’s hope things change sooner rather than later, because when music is shared it is truly capable of enriching lives. This was admirably demonstrated in the pair of concerts presented by Alfas del Pi Music Society on the weekend of 6 and 7 March.

On Saturday 6 March in Casa Cultura, the society presented a quintet of musicians led by flautists Claudi Arimany and Eduard Sánchez. The program was an intriguing mix of styles and genres, which would be suggested by the group’s title for the concert, Classic Meets Jazz. Now, anyone familiar with the flute knows the name Theobald Böhm. Indeed, without him the modern flute may never have existed, since it was his invention in the mid-19th century that established the modern fingering system for the instrument, the system that still bears his name. As a composer, Theobald Böhm may not be the most inventive, but he certainly knew his instrument and knew how to write for it. His Three Little Trios create an insider´s view of how the capabilities of the instrument can be best demonstrated and Claudi Arimany and Eduard Sánchez rendered these challenges with complete musicality, so the virtuosity blended into the music and made sense of it, rather than being an end in itself, as can be the case with such showcase pieces.

Haydn´s Duo No.4 is an arrangement of music originally composed for two violins. This version for two flutes is the composer´s own and is a substantial piece. The delicacy, skill and intricacy with which Joseph Haydn presents his ideas via this unusual pairing we probably take for granted, such is the composer´s stature. But this is music that is rarely heard in concert and so it is possible to approach the piece without the trappings and assumptions of familiarity. The restrained understatement of this music gradually grew to become its power. Well before the end, the playing and performance had completely outshone in ensemble and virtuosity the showpiece that had preceded it and the interpretation underlined Haydn status as one of the great all-time great composers.

The Andante and Rondo of Karl Doppler returned the audience to the familiar, at least those present with detailed knowledge of the flute repertoire, which probably wasn’t many! But this is a piece that is more familiar than its title or origin, since snippets of it often appear as call signs for radio stations, or advertisements.

And then the musicians reconstituted to form a jazz quartet fronted by Claudi Arimany to play the Suite for Flute and Jazz Trio by Claude Bolling. Now this is a substantial work that interleaves classical style ensemble with drum beats, jazz chords and a rhythmic, plucked bass. There is much that is familiar here, many quotations from popular song and folk melodies, as well as jazz standards and Broadway. But overall there is real compositional skill and invention, in this case not dissimilar in concept to Matisse´s collage-making, to bring everything together into a musically convincing whole. This is music that is original in style, if not often in content, but Claude Bolling´s skill in creating something greater than pastiche is considerable.

After the standing ovation and rapturous applause, the group offered two encores of Scott Joplin Rags and the concert without an interval closed over 90 minutes after it started, leaving attendees just 20 minutes to get home before the 10 o’clock curfew!

On Sunday 7 March, Alfas del Pi Music Society presented what was probably a first in the history of Spanish musical performance, and a program that has probably been replicated just a handful of times in its possible century and a half of existence. This was the coupling two great Romantic violin concertos, those of Beethoven and Brahms, in one program, played by the same soloist. It has to be said that on a Sunday lunchtime in lockdown the concert could neither accommodate nor afford to employ a full symphony orchestra, that part being performed in piano arrangement in the hands of Elena Segura. And this is music that was probably originally conceived on the piano, so the arrangement carried all the musical messages, though obviously not all of its orchestral timbres. What was unchanged from the full versions of these works was the challenge posed to the soloist, Joaquín Palomares. Now, in front of an orchestra, the soloist always does have the possibility, though none would admit to it of course, of playing a little softer here and there, to blend a little more with the orchestra, not to hide of course, but merely to rest.

When accompanied by a piano in a small auditorium, such opportunity does not exist. In such a setting, there is simply nowhere to hide. On stage with an orchestra, the soloist is ten metres or so from the nearest audience. In a small room with piano accompaniment, ten metres covers the entire audience! But under these conditions, the quality of the writing comes to the fore, and the musical communication becomes nothing less than intense, as long as the soloist has the skill, musicality and, not least, the stamina to do the job.

There is no need to restate the greatness of these two concerti, since the violin concertos of Beethoven and Brahms are unquestioned masterpieces. What needs to be recorded and in the most emphatic way possible was the playing, virtuosity, and the achievement of Joaquin Palomares. Superb. Superb. Superb. Da capo al fine.

 

Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers by Paul Rosenfeld

 

Tastes change. Fashions change. Presumptions, through whose refracting prisms each new age interprets its aesthetics, also change, but usually unpredictably because we absorb the restrictions without being conscious of their control. It’s probably called culture, and perhaps we are all imprisoned by its inherently commercial pressure. And we only rarely perceive change in our ability to respond to stimuli, often surprisingly perceived when we remove our experience into a different culture, a different aesthetic and possibly another time. This is precisely why exploration of criticism from the past can be so rewarding and, in a way that the writing would never have achieved in its contemporary setting, challenging. It was this kind of experience that flowed from every page of Paul Rosenfeld’s Musical Portraits.

These “Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers” were published in 1920, having previously appeared as occasional pieces elsewhere. A hundred years on, of course, the first challenge is the meaning of the word “modern” in its title, especially when the presented list of composers starts with Wagner and finishes with Bloch. Personally, I have nothing against classifying Bloch as “modern” in the 1920s, but the inclusion of Wagner is surely pushing the definition, since he had already been dead for over 35 years.

Reading Rosenfeld’s text, however, one quickly understands Wagner‘s inclusion. For the writer, Wagner’s work created the cusp between the feudal and modern worlds. His stature and influence was still so great, his achievements still considered so monumental, that this work of critical appraisal just had to begin with his name. Rosenfeld sees his music dramas as manifestations of a new industrial age, reflecting the unprecedented might of the new coal-powered civilization.

Strauss, Richard, of course, comes next. Pure genius, he is judged, at least on the evidence of his early symphonic poems, which approached a realization of the Nietzschean dream via colours that suggested impressionist painting. By the time we reach Salome, however, he had become “a bad composer”, “once so electric, so vital, so brilliant a figure” had transformed into someone “dreary and outward and stupid”. Rosenkavalier is judged “singularly hollow and flat and dun, joyless and soggy”. One must recall that this was 1920 and that Richard Strauss still had over 20 years of creative life remaining.

Mussorgsky’s “marvelous originality” was an expression of the true nature of Russian folklore, culture and peasant life. Liszt, on the other hand, was offering work like “satin robes covering foul, unsightly rags”, “designed by the pompous and classicizing Palladio, but executed in stucco and other cheap materials”. The impression was vivid, but the substance close to zero.

Berlioz, on the other hand, had grown in stature. His music was judged barbarous and radical and revolutionary, “beside which so much modern music dwindles”. He was the first to write directly for the orchestra as an instrument.

Cesar Franck suffers the ignominy of having a good part of his section devoted discussions of Saint-Saens. He can be gratified, however, that the author judges his work greater than that of this more famous composer, who seemed to seek only an increase in opus numbers. Franck’s own music  is seen as an expression of the silent majority, those who feel “forsaken and alone and powerless”, the army of society’s workers. The basis for this is that Franck had himself to work for a living.

Claude Debussy, by contrast, already seems to Rosenfeld to have achieved the status of a god, so elevated by aesthetic and achievement from the rest of humanity that it could hardly be considered he had ever composed a bad note. The piano of this most perfect living musician, becomes “satins and liqueurs”, his orchestra sparkling “with iridescent fires ... delicate violets and argents and shades of rose”.

Ravel is something of a problem child, certainly impressive, but whose judgment is not quite trusted, no matter how engaging it might sound. “Permitted to remain, in all his manhood, the child that we all were”, he seems to receive a pat on the head to encourage him to try harder.

Borodin, a true proud nationalist, suffered from “flawed originality”. But his music, like an uncovered, uncut piece of porphyry or malachite is perfect in its natural, unpolished state. Rimsky-Korsakov, on the other hand, is merely decorative and graceful, but also vapid, whilst Rachmaninoff offered product that was “too smooth and soft and elegantly elegiac, simply too dull”. It was the music of the pseudo-French culture of the Saint Petersburg upper crust.

Scriabine, however, “awakened in the piano all of its latent animality”. He wrote music that “hovered on the borderland between ecstasy and suffering”, probably bitter-sweet to the layman. But Strawinsky was the ultimate realist. A product of industrialization, he produced “great weighty metallic masses, molten piles and sheets of steel and iron, shining adamantine bulks”. So real were the impressions in his music that one might even smell the sausages grilling at Petrushka’s fair.

Four contemporary “German” composers are thoroughly dismissed, Strauss being bankrupt, Reger grotesquely pedantic, Schoenberg intellectually tainted and Mahler banal, despite the fact that only two of the four were actually German. Specifically, Mahler’s scores were “lamentably weak, often arid and banal”. It seems that much of Rosenfeld’s criticism arises out of an inquisitorial distrust of Mahler’s sincerity in converting from Judaism. The music of Reger, the author judges, is unlikely to suffer a revival and the composer himself is described as being like a “swollen, myopic beetle, with thick lips and sullen expression, crouching on an organ bench”. Let us say no more. Schoenberg is a troubling presence, formalistic and intellectual. He smells of the laboratory and exists in an obedience to some abstract scholastic demand. We are still discussing music, by the way.

Sibelius personifies nationalism, Finnish nationalism, of course. As it emerges from its domination under the Russian yoke, Finnish identity suddenly realizes it has a beautiful landscapes, meadows and forests.

Loeffler, surprisingly, gets a full entry. Perhaps it has something to do with his opting to live in the United States. Ornstein will be a name that is perhaps unfamiliar to 21st-century music lovers. At the time he was a brilliant 25-year-old pianist who was embarking on the composition of tough, rugged scores. And finally Bloch is praised for introducing non-European and oriental influences into western music. He is praised for retaining his Jewish identity and culture, which suggests that Mahler might have got off with lighter criticism had he not rejected the faith and thus have allowed they author to note the similarity of that composer’s clarinet writing to klezmer.

Opinion in the words of Paul Rosenfeld often presents a florid display, mixing prejudice and observation, and pre-judgment with insight. He describes his appreciation of these twenty composers through the distorting lens of his own aesthetic, derived from the assumptions of his age. Reading this short, concentrated work, we soon appreciate that we are doing the same. Only the language and the presumptions are changed.

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Alfaz del Pi February concerts - Pilar and Pedro Valero, Duo Evocacion and Maria Kosenkova

Music can take an audience to many different places. It all depends on where they want to go. But during a period of coronavirus restrictions, merely out of the house might just be enough. The Comunidad Valenciana rules for public gatherings are clear, and it is within these rules that Alfaz del Pi Classical Music Society operates, complete with socially spaced seating, temperature checks and contact lists. But once out of the house and in that space, music can still transport us and there was no better example of how this happens than during the Society’s two February concerts.

On Saturday 20 February in Casa Cultura, we heard the piano playing of Pilar and Pedro Valero in a program that featured composers from no less than eight countries, probably mirroring the cosmopolitan nature of the small but highly appreciative audience. What the pianists presented was effectively two solo programs with a little four hands at the end.

Pilar Valero first performed Ravel, a Prelude followed by Ondine and then she played the Rachmaninoff Prelude Opus32 no12 and Study Op39 no5 before finishing with Rondeña by Albeniz. Pilar Valero’s playing really did illustrate the stylistic differences between these composers, whose active life spanned shared decades. In many ways, the music of Albeniz is the most unconventional of the three and marries the post-impressionism of Ravel with the nationalism and sentimentality of Rachmaninoff.

Pedro Valero offered three pieces, Schubert’s Sonata in A major D664, Fazil Say’s Variations on Summertime and then Resurrección del Angel by Astor Piazzolla. The amazing understatement of the Schubert was often contradicted by how darkly many of the phrases finished. The contrast with the jazz-inspired glitter of the Fazil Say variations was stunning and then Piazzolla’s slow, halting dance supplied a troubled tranquility.

And then to conclude we had four-hand versions of the Dance from La Vida Breve of Manuel de Falla and finally Brahms’s rousing Hungarian Dance no5.

And then on Sunday 21 February in Albir, we had Dúo Evocación with Maria Kosenkova in a program of songs and arias. Dúo Evocatión comprises soprano, Olha Viytiv and the piano of Hilario Segovia Badia. They opened with the Mozart concert aria, Io No Chiedo, before mezzo-soprano Maria Kosenkova took the stage to start with two of four Strauss songs. Like all such concerts, the list of pieces is long, so I will not list them all by title. After the Mozart, we heard four songs by Richard Strauss, two pieces each by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, and then Delibes, Massenet, and Thomas. We then heard an aria from Barbieri’s El Barbarillo, two of Manuel de Falla’s popular songs, Nana and Polo, and then Ma Llaman La Primarosa of Gimenez and Nieto. An encore of the Barcarole from the Tales of Hoffmann brought the concert to a rapturous close. The sheer volume created by the two sopranos was, at times, simply stunning, especially in the vocal acrobatics supplied by the aria from Delibes’s Lakme.

But what shone through both events was the musicians’ determination to interpret and communicate, an approach that reached out to the audience and was gratefully received and acknowledged. In these difficult times, these two concerts were bright examples of how performed music can uplift and regenerate.

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Mariozzi-Mariozzi-Rucli in Brahms, Beethoven and Rota and Palomares-Espi in Musica Iberoamericano

Live music in December 2020 is probably not the commonest of commodities wherever you live. In our corner of south-east Spain, we have some. In normal times, whatever that phrase might now mean, there would be at least the opportunity of attending two or three concerts a week in this area, but our new normal here has for several months changed the situation. Whether it is this new scarcity, this new normal, or indeed whether it is simply the quality of what we hear, I have no idea, but I can record without hesitation that everything now sounds more vivid, more committed and more beautiful. And so it was for the two chamber music events presented by Alfas del Pi’s Classical Music Society this weekend.

On Saturday 12 December in Casa Cultura, the society hosted a piano trio with what looked like at first glance a fairly standard program. The trio comprised the clarinet of Vicenzo Mariozzi, the cello of Francisco Mariozzi and the piano of Andrea Rucli. This was in fact the fourth concert of the trio’s mini tour with the same program and, if the other three venues had provided rehearsal time, then this fourth concert’s perfection might just have another explanation apart from the obvious and sustained virtuosity of the musicians.

We began with the Brahms trio opus114. Its gentle, almost flickering lines assemble to present a mind in turmoil. The phrases may be short, sometimes very short, but the statements are long and sometimes convoluted. But eventually this is direct music, despite its almost constant asides, whose surface a listener can enjoy at an aural glance. But there is much more here only just below the gloss. There is the aftermath of depression, an obvious, but, one feels, an unfulfilled desire to reflect on a past that has some powerful memories. There is nostalgia alongside fear of the future and the unknown. The music seems to reek of regret. Its style and hand are both utterly assured, but the composer is suffering new personal doubt, so we are presented with a contradictory and compelling mix of late Brahms, personal doubt expressed via assured technique, intangible feelings precisely described. It was a picture that Vicenzo Mariozzi, Francisco Mariozzi and Andrea Rucli conveyed via a remarkable skill of understatement.

In retrospect the next two works on the program formed a similar pair, an unexpectedly similar pair in that they seem to share an unusual conceptual framework. Beethoven was a young man when he wrote his opus 11 trio, the Gassenhauer. He wanted to show off. He wanted to make his mark on the city‘s life, future earnings being the goal. He thus wrote a serious trio that showed off his melodic, conceptual and compositional gift. But crucially he adopted a contemporary earworm for the main theme of the finale. It was a tune that everyone was whistling around the town. In Beethoven’s hands, it became a set of variations where the main variable is rhythm. This trivial little idea then becomes something grand, even grandiose at times, despite its humble origins. It was rather what Beethoven himself wanted to do in his own life.

The final piece in this program was the trio by Nino Rota. The work’s first two movements are both highly melodic and very rhythmic, but the musical language is couched in a style that can only be described as astringent neoclassicism. This may not be Hindemith, nor Stravinsky, but it is music with a hard, sometimes spiky surface. The finale, however, is like a scoop of ice cream on a crumbly biscuit, an almost hackneyed ditty that sits somewhere between Charlie Chaplin and the Keystone Cops. It’s a moment that reminds us not to take anything too seriously, except, perhaps, a sideways surreal and thus revealing view of life. Beethoven chose a silly ditty to self-aggrandise, whereas Rota seems to make fun of the whole process until, however, one realizes how beautifully written and constructed is the entire work. And the fact that this commentary deals almost exclusively with the impressions delivered by the pieces is testimony to the perfection that Vicenzo Mariozzi, Francisco Mariozzi and Andrea Rucli brought to the playing.

And then, on Sunday lunchtime Alfas del Pi Music Society presented a violin and guitar duo in Albir. It’s a combination and a concert we have heard before and hopefully we will hear again. The society’s vice-president, virtuoso violinist Joaquín Palomares renewed his performing partnership with guitarist Fernando Espí in a program they titled Música Iboamericana. In theory, these might be viewed as lighter pieces, an assemblage to pass a pleasant hour on a clear and sunny December day by the sea.

But the understanding between these two virtuoso musicians renders everything they play not only elegant but also exciting and ultimately moving. The program was the Serenata by Malats, the Brazilian Dances of Machado, a Milonga by Tavolaro, Amasia by Boutros, three of Manuel de Falla’s Popular Songs and two movements from The Story of the Tango by Piazzolla. The music went from bossa nova to tango, from Europe to South America, from folk music to dancehall, a journey which, when contrasted with the trio of the previous evening, really did illustrate how far music can transport an audience and the different places it can take us.

Costa Blanca Arts Update - ADDA Simfonica in Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and Mozart

The symphony orchestra may rank among the most important of all human inventions. The fact that the very idea is absurd makes it a gem of human achievement. Around a hundred human beings, who have devoted their lives to mastering techniques in the use a technology invented specially for this product-less purpose. They join together in the presence of an audience, who is only in attendance to share the both intangible and abstract experience of hearing sounds, sounds that have been concatenated by the imagination of others who generally are not even present. The absurdity of the exercise can only be imagined. The permanence of its effect cannot be overstated.

The fact that we have concerts at all in these virus-dictated times is, in itself, a miracle. Duly temperature-checked at the door, socially-distanced and only in attendance by virtue of the musicians’ willingness to perform the same program twice each time, at six o’clock and then again at nine, we are privileged to assemble in Alicante’s ADDA concert hall. And this has happened three times in the last two weeks for this particular participant.

And, after some months away from real live orchestral sound, the opening phrases of Edward Tubin’s Estonian Dance Suite provided an immediate and major thrill. Tubin’s reputation for musical conservatism does not prepare the listener for the harmonic and rhythmic surprises in his work. We followed that with the performance by Adolfo Guitiérrez of Shostakovich’s second cello concerto, whose almost neurotic, obsessive concentration seemed to tap the general anxiety we are all feeling these days. Adolfo Guitiérrez had the time and energy to play and a little encore by Benjamin Britten, despite having to do the whole thing again just two hours later. We then heard the Symphony No. 1 of the fourteen-year-old Felix Mendelsohn. The music seems to fit the mental image of the early teenager in a frock coat and a cravat parading as a precocious adult. In some ways, the almost deliberate recourse to complexity, the calculated varied modulations of key speak of this lad frantically staking his claim to adulthood. The fact that the work convinces and generates communicative experience is testimony to the young man’s invention and genius, indeed success in his personal project. Anu Tali’s conducting debut in Alicante was thus a brilliant success.

The second trip was for a concert devoted to the memory of José Enrique Garrigós, who was a significant figure in the business and cultural life of the province. He died last year and was clearly an acquaintance of Joesp Vicent, ADDA Simfonica principal conductor and artistic director. Josep Vicent also clearly has special regard for the major work on the program, Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, the Pathetique.

But the concert began with a finale, the final jota from the Three Cornered Hat of Manuel de Falla. The piece was perhaps a long-term favorite of José Enrique Garrigós and perhaps gave an insight as to how he himself wanted to be remembered. There followed a performance of Raise The Roof, a timpani concerto by American composer Michael Daugherty. To describe Javier Eguillor’s performance as soloist as virtuosic would almost belittle the achievement. Rarely silent throughout the work, the work began with an aurally blinding flash of a cymbal roll. The timpani then offered their notes to the orchestra, which then proceeded to play with and amongst them throughout a first movement that was almost entirely pentatonic. Overall, the piece layered gloss on gloss, sparkle on glitter to provide almost an evaporation of emotion and brilliance.

And then we had Tchaikovsky six. Certain pieces of music, quite rarely, it has to be said, only grow by greater exposure. Each time such pieces say something bigger, reveal layers of nuanced meaning previously missed or merely impact on the listener in a more vivid, immediate way. This Tchaikovsky symphony is one such piece. This particular performance I would place a few centimeters short of life-changing. A closer brush with raw experience might even have been dangerous. After the turbulence, the paroxysms and the joy, we were left with the pianissimo of two notes on the basses, sawn rather than bowed, the cuts of the last ties with hope. Strangely enough, such overt despair makes everyone, eventually, feel better, because the only remaining way is up. I am reminded that in the same hall in less than two months I expect to hear a performance of Shostakovich Symphony No. 4, which finishes with precisely the same two note fate in the basses, but repeated like a torture.

And so to the third of the recent orchestral events. Programmatically this one was unusual in that it presented a Saint-Saens-Mozart sandwich. Three shorter pieces by Saint-Saens, the Andromache overture, Spartacus and the Dance Macabre, surrounded the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 20. The Saint-Saens showed off the orchestra to great effect, the brilliant orchestration producing color and effect in an almost Proust-like stream of consciousness, albeit considerably shorter. The brilliance of the composer’s orchestration contrasts with his musical conservatism, but the whole assembles like an Impressionist painting, albeit of a generation earlier than the composer’s own life.

Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 is a different experience from those previously described. This is a quiet, understated, deeply personal work the bursts with emotional states that are not advertised like self-promotion or worn like jewelry. The writing is subtle, reticent, suggestive of some deeper emotional experience than that being related to the listeners. It is a piece that needs a pianist with perfect touch married to an ability to communicate, a transparent virtuosity that allows the music to quietly come before technique, but a technique perfect enough to admit moments of sympathetic variations of emotion. The soloist achieving this perfection with apparent ease was none less than Maria João Pires.

Twelve years of Alfas del Pi Classical Music Society - alfasmusica.com

 

«Nuestro público es el fiel reflejo de lo que es la sociedad alfasina»

Tras doce años de existencia la asociación ha organizado ya más de 250 recitales

por Nicolás Van Looy

 martes, 3-noviembre-2020

Entrevista > Philip Spires / Sociedad de Conciertos de Música Clásica de l’Alfàs del Pi (Wakefield -Reino Unido-, 1952)

Philip Spires representa, en cierta medida, el tópico del gentleman inglés. Su tono de voz suave, su verbo educado al extremo y, sobre todo, una cultura general que emana de cada una de sus palabras convierte una conversación con él en todo un desafío intelectual.

Spires preside la Sociedad de Conciertos de Música Clásica de l’Alfàs del Pi. Con todos estos datos, el lector seguramente se haya hecho una imagen muy definida en la mente sobre nuestro entrevistado y no diferirá mucho de un hombre estirado, pedante y, casi, con levita y monóculo.

Philip Spires es todo lo contrario. Es un tipo cercano con el que cualquier conversación, por larga que pueda ser, se hace corta. Su trabajo le llevó a vivir en distintos y exóticos lugares del mundo y ahora, ya jubilado, ha recalado en l’Alfàs del Pi donde puso en marcha la asociación que sigue presidiendo.

La Sociedad de Conciertos de Música Clásica nació hace doce años. ¿Cómo comenzó esta aventura?

Originalmente colaborábamos con Vicente Orts, en la Finca Senyoret, con unos conciertos de verano que reunían a una pequeña cantidad de personas y a unos pocos músicos. En aquellos días teníamos la ayuda de una entidad bancaria. No era mucho, pero organizábamos dos o tres conciertos en el mes de agosto.

Entonces, Joaquín Palorames, vicepresidente y director artístico de la asociación, también organizaba conciertos en colaboración con algunos ayuntamientos, especialmente en l’Alfàs del Pi. Fue él quien pensó en poner en marcha un programa de conciertos de pago a través de una membresía por parte de los asociados ya que pensaba que podía ser un modelo que funcionaría en un lugar como l’Alfàs.

«CELEBRAMOS NUESTRO PRIMER CONCIERTO EL DÍA DEL INCENDIO FORESTAL DE LA NUCÍA. ÍBAMOS A COMENZAR Y NO HABÍA SUMINISTRO ELÉCTRICO»

Sé que el día de su puesta de largo las cosas no salieron muy bien. ¿Qué sucedió?

(Ríe) Fue el día del incendio forestal de La Nucía. Íbamos a comenzar el concierto y no había suministro eléctrico, lo que nos obligó a arrancar tarde. Pero, desde entonces, hemos realizado unos 250 conciertos.

Ustedes han traído a l’Alfàs del Pi a artistas de todo el mundo sin olvidarse tampoco de los músicos de la zona. ¿Qué es lo más complicado a la hora de organizar un programa anual de conciertos?

¡Lo más complicado para mi es lidiar con Joaquín! Él es el director artístico y discutimos qué artistas queremos invitar. Lo bueno es que él tiene sus propios contactos y, a través de ellos, podemos llegar a la mayor parte de los músicos que queremos traer. Además, hay músicos que nos contactan directamente ofreciéndonos su repertorio y sus conciertos.

También contamos con distintos lugares para organizar los conciertos. Por ello, si contamos con un músico al que no conocemos muy bien, podemos, por ejemplo, probar su recital en el Forum Mare Nostrum antes de programarlo en la Casa de Cultura al año siguiente.

Su trabajo a la hora de contar con músicos de fama internacional es impresionante. ¿Desde dónde han sido capaces de traer concertistas?

Hemos tenido artistas que han venido, obviamente, de España; pero también de Italia, Alemania, Francia, Croacia, Serbia, Polonia, Rusia, Reino Unido, Irlanda, Bélgica, Estados Unidos, Albania, Bulgaria… ¡de muchísimos sitios!

Nuestros conciertos son, en cierta medida, fiel reflejo de la sociedad internacional y multicultural de l’Alfàs del Pi. Es una sensación que me encanta, porque yo me considero, por encima de todo, un ciudadano del mundo y, en segundo lugar, un habitante de un lugar concreto. Soy un absoluto convencido de que cuanta más interacción tengamos, mejor.

«TRAEMOS ARTISTAS CON LA CALIDAD SUFICIENTE COMO PARA HABER TOCADO EN ALGUNOS DE LOS ESCENARIOS MÁS IMPORTANTES DEL MUNDO»

L’Alfàs del Pi no deja de ser un pequeño municipio fuera del circuito de los grandes escenarios de la música clásica. ¿Es complicado convencer a los músicos para que vengan a tocar aquí?

No, en absoluto. No estamos en las grandes ligas, es verdad. Debemos ser realistas y sabemos que no vamos a poder contar con Lang Lang, así que nos centramos en lo que nos podemos permitir y ahí sí que somos capaces de atraer a muy buenos músicos. Artistas con la calidad suficiente como para haber tocado en algunos de los escenarios más importantes de ciudades como Ginebra, París, Nueva York, Viena, etc.

En nuestro caso, muchos de los músicos con los que contamos vienen de Italia por una cuestión de relaciones históricas. Algunos son muy conocidos y otros menos, pero eso es la música. Debes estar abierto a escuchar lo que te ofrecen y lo que te llevas es esa experiencia.

«ALGUNAS VECES HEMOS PEDIDO A UN MÚSICO QUE CAMBIE ALGUNA PIEZA, PERO SOLO HA SERVIDO PARA QUE NO CAMBIARA ABSOLUTAMENTE NADA»

Una vez han cerrado el acuerdo con el músico, ¿quién propone o decide el repertorio que tocará en su visita a l’Alfàs?

Una vez me crucé con un pianista, cuando dirigía una asociación en otro lugar del mundo, al que le pregunté cuántas piezas podía tocar sin necesidad de ensayar demasiado y me dio que unas mil. Eso es algo extraordinario. Normalmente, los músicos llegan con un repertorio y lo que hacen es repetirlo en cada una de sus actuaciones.

Lo más habitual, por lo tanto, es que cuando hablamos con ellos nos digan “voy a ir con este programa”. Algunas veces les hemos pedido que cambien alguna pieza, pero sólo ha servido para que, llegado el momento del concierto, no cambiaran absolutamente nada.

«LA MÚSICA CLÁSICA ES PERCIBIDA COMO ALGO ELITISTA. RECHAZO ESAS ETIQUETAS DE FORMA ENÉRGICA Y CATEGÓRICA»

¿Cree que es acertado el término de música culta para referirse a la música clásica? ¿No supone etiquetarla de una forma elitista que podría espantar a buena parte del público?

Entiendo lo que dices. En inglés, por ejemplo, no tenemos ese sinónimo, pero la música clásica también es percibida como algo elitista dirigida a la clase media-alta en adelante. Rechazo esas etiquetas de forma enérgica y categórica. Pero voy más allá: odio el término ‘música clásica’. Sé lo suficiente de música como para saber que el periodo clásico comenzó alrededor de 1720 y acabó en 1800.

Supongo que su propia colección de música será enorme.

Arranca en el siglo X y termina en una grabación de una pieza que se compuso la pasada semana. Tengo 32.000 piezas musicales en mi colección en más de 2.000 discos. No quiero repetirme, pero muy pocas de todas esas grabaciones podrían ser consideradas música clásica. Son, principalmente, música moderna y es imposible de clasificar.

Pero esas etiquetas, de una u otra forma, se han impuesto en casi todas las expresiones artísticas.

Así es. Si lo comparamos, por ejemplo, con las artes visuales, tenemos el periodo clásico, pero también el romanticismo, el barroco, el rococó, el renacimiento o el gótico. Y luego, tienes la era moderna, que arrancó entre 1880 y 1900. Mi opinión sobre todos los movimientos en el mundo del arte se resume con un dicho muy conocido en inglés: “el que paga al gaitero compone la pieza”.

Es la gente que paga el arte la que decide su estilo. Desde 1880 o 1890 el arte ha sido más la expresión de un gusto individual, de algo que va a ser patrocinado por un benefactor. Ese es el motivo por el que tenemos esa explosión de diferentes estilos.

Entonces, ¿a qué nos referimos con el término música clásica?

Hoy en día, en pleno 2020, se puede referir a un cuarteto de cuerda, pero también a una grabación, como la que me llegó el otro día, de alguien creando un ritmo tirando granos de arena sobre una mesa para explorar sus efectos sonoros. La clave, para mi, es que el mercado no sea el principal objetivo que marque lo que el artista está intentando hacer. Eso es todo.

En cualquier caso, los artistas también deben de pagar sus facturas y eso lo consiguen siguiendo las demandas del mercado.

Antes me has preguntado sobre el término música culta. Es algo que contrasta con la música que se crea para el mercado. Este te marca una serie de patrones a los que te tienes que amoldar y a la gente no le produce ningún tipo de sorpresa. Cualquier cosa que sorprenda a la gente, que no resulte familiar, crea automáticamente una reacción. A veces, al público no le gusta que se le presenten cosas que no le resultan familiares.

«PARA QUE PODAMOS APRECIAR ALGO EL PÚBLICO DEBE COOPERAR QUEDANDO LIBRE DE PREJUICIOS»

Si uno hace el experimento de escuchar cierto tipo de música, como por ejemplo el rock, y dar marcha atrás en el tiempo, verá que cada nuevo estilo de música entronca con un movimiento anterior y que no es difícil llegar a la llamada música clásica desde cualquier propuesta. ¿Por qué cree que eso no es algo mucho más evidente y que cuesta tanto que el público se acerque a ella?

De nuevo, falta de familiaridad. En esta sociedad es imposible, y eso es algo que en l’Alfàs del Pi sí que se ha conseguido en cierta medida, escapar de la música pop y su influencia. Oirás música pop en cualquier tienda, en cualquier calle, en los medios de comunicación… Te la están metiendo a todas horas. Es una fijación de consumo.

Si la gente se familiarizara de la misma manera, por ejemplo, con Chopin, también lo reconocerían. Hace poco escribí que para que podamos apreciar algo el público debe cooperar en el proceso y debe quedar libre de prejuicios. Eso es lo que mucha gente hace con la música clásica: prejuzgarla.

Disculpe la osadía, pero Puccini fue, seguramente, uno de los grandes artistas pop de su era. Al fin y al cabo escribía pensando en el mercado y en conseguir un nuevo ‘hit’. ¿No cree que es injusto prejuzgar la música pop de esa forma?

Eso que dices es muy interesante. Si repasas la biografía de Puccini descubrirás que fue prohibido…

Sólo por ciertos sectores, los más conservadores de su época. Sus obras llenaban los auditorios y él era inmensamente popular y rico.

Así es. Schubert apenas tuvo éxito durante mucho tiempo porque lo que proponía era nuevo y la gente no lo aceptó. Puccini era muy accesible, pero también hubo otros compositores de ópera como Leoš Janáček, conocido como el Puccini checo, que tuvieron un mayor legado sobre la ópera que vino después. Puccini, en ese sentido, fue una vía muerta.

Pero, volviendo a tu pregunta original, también rechazo, aunque lo he usado antes, el término de música pop. No es popular. Más del 90% de los discos pop que se publican no producen ningún beneficio porque no son populares. Lo correcto, por lo tanto, sería decir música populista.

Volvamos al ámbito local. ¿La mayoría del público de sus conciertos está formado por residentes extranjeros?

No. Nuestro público, te lo aseguro, refleja fielmente la sociedad alfasina, es decir, está formada al 50% por españoles y extranjeros. Y todo, con dos excepciones llamativas: no conseguimos que vengan muchos ingleses y tampoco, y esto me duele más, mucha gente joven.

«ES LÓGICO QUE LOS JÓVENES NO VENGAN A NUESTROS CONCIERTOS. ESTÁN EN UNA EDAD EN LA QUE LO QUE QUIEREN ES SOCIALIZAR»

¿A qué cree que se debe?

Mira, durante un tiempo viví en Brunéi. Allí todas las chicas jóvenes de origen chino tocaban el piano, pero nunca vimos a ninguna en nuestros conciertos. Creo que es algo lógico. Un concierto de música clásica implica estar dos horas en un sitio sentado y escuchando música y los jóvenes están en una edad en la que lo que quieren es socializar.

Pero sí van al cine.

Sí, pero eso lo haces con tus amigos e, incluso, puedes cuchichear con ellos sobre lo que estás viendo. Si eso lo haces en un concierto de música clásica la gente comenzará a quejarse y a decirte que te calles.

La música es una constante en la programación cultural alfasina

Entrevista por Nico van Looy