Cappella Andrea Barca and Sir András Schiff play Bach and Mozart in Alicante

 

CAPPELLA ANDREA BARCA

SIR ANDRÁS SCHIFF, DIRECTOR Y PIANO

Johann Sebastian Bach, Concierto de Brandemburgo nº5 en Re Mayor (BWV 1050)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Concierto para piano núm. 25 en Do mayor, K.503

Johann Sebastian Bach, Triple concierto para flauta, violín, clave y cuerda en La menor (BWV 1044)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Concierto para piano núm. 24 en Do menor, K.491

Sir András Schiff is renowned worldwide for his interpretation of the music of Mozart and Bach. I admit at the start that I respect the music of both composers and even recognize the gargantuan achievements of both. But rarely do I feel anything other than respect when I hear performances of their work. Sometimes, performances rise above my prejudice, and I am always delighted by these insights into the musical personalities of Bach and Mozart that a musician can reveal. It’s not that I actively dislike this music, it’s just that it rarely surprises me. So it was with preconceived expectations that I approached last night’s ADDA Alicante concert.

The program presented by András Schiff and Cappella Andrea Barca, the orchestra the soloist himself constructed to play alongside him, included two works from each composer. All four works were called concertos, but the Bach versions each featured three soloists. The works in question were the Brandenburg Concerto No5 and the Triple Concerto, BWV1044.

Besides having a significant part for a keyboard soloist, these two works also feature solo violin and solo flute. Indeed, the central slow movement of each work features only the three soloists, so here both works become chamber music.  Cappella Andrea Barca’s leader Erich Höbarth was the violin soloist in both works. The orchestra’s two flautists Wolfgang Breinschmid and Wally Hase took turns to solo in the Brandenburg and the Triple respectively.

It is rare for me to criticize anything, but this will be one occasion when I do so. The flautists were both wonderful. Their playing was faultless and was delivered with obvious enthusiasm and commitment. Erich Höbarth, I am sure, is an accomplished violinist, but in the ADDA Hall last night, it was difficult to hear his part. This may be quite harsh, since the violin soloist is often playing along with the first violin part, but even on those occasions when he was playing alongside only the other two soloists, such as in the two slow movements of both concertos, his contribution remained barely audible. Now a flute can be an assertive voice, but neither flautist was playing in such a way as to deliberately drown out a colleague, let alone the leader of their own orchestra!

The two Mozart works were piano Concerto No24 and No25. The first one is a rather gentle affair to my ear, presenting a simple, perhaps over-simplified theme in a very simple way. Number 25 has more substance and is longer than its predecessor. András Schiff both directed and played the solo part with great ease. A grand piano is a perfect way of communicating a Mozart concerto, but many keyboard players would choose a smaller voice for the Bach works. In the hands of András Schiff, however, a lightness of touch and an obvious sympathy with the performers meant that the keyboard never dominated. One really felt that this orchestra loves playing with András Schiff and that everyone loves this music. But there again, there were times when there was more than a hint of “we have been here before”.

The audience demanded an encore and András Schiff delivered a Bach fugue. Everyone went home happy.

 

 

Josep Vicent directs ADDA Simfonica in Rimsky-Korsakov and Bizet, Scheherazade meets Carmen

 

When you go to concerts regularly, there are works that tend to appear frequently. After the first few times in the concert hall, there is always a temptation to say “not again” and avoid the evening. On the other hand, the irregular concertgoer is often attracted by these familiar works, and without fail including them in a programme will put bums on seats. Both opinions are wrong. Not only is the unfamiliar more likely to provide memorable experience, but the familiar is also experienced anew every time it is performed. If the work is played well and generously interpreted, there is always something original to be found.

This preamble thus introduces a review of ADDA Simfonica’s concert of last Saturday which featured Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade and Bizet’s Carmen Suites.

Scheherazade is a symphony in all but title. Alternatively, it might even be heard as an approach to a violin concerto, a kind of Ein Heldenleben before its time. Its four movements roughly follow a symphonic mould, but there the analogy disappears. The music is in fact, much more like Wagner than Brahms, with not only a programme, but also musical germs which are heard like leitmotifs. Josep Vicent was clear in his notes that the composer himself did not consider these thematic motifs as anything other than ideas stemming from the natural development of the material. But in fat they are a tad too literal to be anything Wagner-style leitmotifs,

Josep Vicent’s interpretation with our beloved orchestra stressed both the realism and the dynamics of the piece. Though an expert orchestrator, Rimsky-Korsakov’s style does at times appear to be rather “on” or “off”, there being apparently very little between pianissimo and full tutti. And in those tutti, the orchestral sound is thick, deliberately so, and undeniably rich, with the tuba always filling out every possible space beneath.

And what a performance this was - captivating, exciting, certainly dynamic, but always subtle. Anna Nilsen’s violin playing from the leader’s chair was exquisite, as was every contribution from the harp. It was a program that certainly re-opened my ears anew to a work that I have heard many times.

And speaking of the familiar, Bizet’s Carmen Suites that followed were surprisingly subtle in terms of orchestration compared to the first half. When, I wonder, was the last time a concert review described Bizet’s orchestration as light? It is. After all, a relative judgment.

Music works in strange ways. As a child, Bizet’s music for Carmen became familiar via a television advertisement for a brand of petrol and to this day whenever I hear the massage I silently sing-along with these wrong words, thus preserving a brand name for gasoline that still exists. So for me, the familiarity got the better of the experience with this music. But the performance was nothing less than excellent. The tunes flowed, the drama was tense, and the music was always centre stage.

There was an encore. Josep Vicent and the ADDA orchestra had recently played Brahms. Ironically, given this evening’s programme, the conductor announced that no matter how many times his music is played, there is always some space for more Brahms. The audience was then treated to a passage from a symphonic slow movement. The experience was a theme for the evening.

Denia International Piano festival, Programme 17 December Prodigios

 

Prokofiev, Romeo y Julieta en ADDA Alicante

ADDA·SIMFÒNICA ALICANTE

JOSEP VICENT, director titular

ASUN NOALES, dirección escénica y coreografía

Rosanna Freda, asistente de coreografía

Joaquín Hernández, Diseño Iluminación

Luis Crespo, Diseño espacio escénico

Ana Estéban, Vestuario

Federica Fasano, Investigación

Germán Antón, Fotografía

Bailarines: Deivid Barrera, Rosanna Freda, Diana Grytsailo, Iván Merino, Alice Pieri,
Laura Martín, Joel Mesa Gutiérrez, Salvador Rocher, Theo Vanpop, Jennifer Wallen,
Samuel Olariaga, Araitz Lasa

What can surprise in a performance of music that is almost known by heart, providing a scenario for a ballet whose story one has heard and seen performed countless times? The answer is just about everything. A story is as old as its current telling, if the tellers have told it their way. This was very much the case last night in Alicante when the ADDA Orchestra under Josep Vicent played Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet to the choreography of Asun Noales.

One always needs to be reminded of the power of human imagination, and this performance will live log in the memory. Here there were no sumptuous costumes, no monumental sets. Staging was accomplished with a few cubes that could serve as seats, walls or plinths, and a pair of steel scaffolds that had vegetation on one side. These could be rotated to present a garden, a balcony or a tomb. Costumes were minimal, with the feuding Montagues and Capulets needing no obvious uniforms to identify their allegiance.

But what was on display was raw emotion, vividly portrayed by a quite excellent choreography. There was not a single gesture in the audience’s view merely for the sake of the gesture. Nothing was purely technical. Everything meant something.

The audience was left in no doubt about the sexual nature of Romeo and Juliet’s mutual attraction. And the fight scenes were utterly convincing, despite the fact that no weapons were ever visible.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the whole evening was the portrayal of Father Lawrence. Prokofiev’s sensuous music was the raw material, but the choreography depicted a character that was sinister, clearly devout and all too willing to help, but also someone who wished to envelop and control. It was a depiction close to witchcraft, but probably got closer to a medieval mind’s interpretation of religion, with its capacity to deliver eternal damnation and suffering than any other I have seen.

Rosanna Freda and Salvador Rocher in the principal roles were hardly off stage, but other performances were also superb, not least the Mercutio, the Tibalt and the Nurse. And everything was delivered by a dozen dancers.

This was a minimalist production with wholly modern choreography, but the humanity that was depicted was direct, very moving, and communicated so vividly that it rendered considerations of “style” simply irrelevant.

Programa 7 diciembre 2024

 

Orfeón Donostiarra, ADDA, Josep Vicent serve two staples of twentieth century music in Alicante - Orff's Carmina Burana and Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe

 

How does one review a work in which one section is so well-known that it is perhaps better known as an aftershave advert on television than is a piece of music? How might one describe again an experience that has already been played through on multiple occasions? Here is the problem for this reviewer of last night’s concert in Aliante, in which the ADDA orchestra under Josep Vicent alongside Orfeón Donostiarra presented two utterly familiar masterpieces of twentieth century music. Let’s start with the aftershave

Given the opening paragraph, “old spice” is perhaps a good label from which to start. Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana is perhaps an example of old spice. Since it’s rapturous reception in Nazi Germany in 1937, it has continued to spice up concert programs in more ways than one. The composer chose to set these medieval poems, not only because they were interesting in themselves, but also because they were rather iconoclastic. Although written by clerics and monks several hundred years ago, they are at least tongue-in-cheek, anti-clerical, and anti-church. They are also bawdy and celebrate sex and drinking. Rabelaisian might be a relevant word.

But they do their iconoclastic work in the conventional format of a cantata with soloists, though only three of these, not four. One of them, usually sung by a tenor, has the utterly thankless task of playing a roasting swan with a skewer inserted in such a way that it changes the voice to falsetto. Though food seems to be the preoccupation, one is reminded of the medieval church’s propensity for making bonfires. The part was convincing sung by Rafael Quirant, who is a countertenor, who inspired genuine pathos amid the implied mirth.

Milan Perišić’s baritone was superb throughout. This is the meat of the soloists’ contribution, and his approach was genuinely and convincingly operatic. He generated superb dynamic contrasts at times and was thoroughly in control throughout. The soprano sung by Sabrina Gárdez, had two major contributions towards the end, and during the second, the voice has to live alone amongst those assembled vast forces. It has to modally meander its way through a solo without accompaniment, and then meander back again to finish in the right place. Many do not succeed, but Sabrina Gárdez did. During this sequence, one reflects how rarely in this work anyone sings anything without unison accompaniment.

And, speaking of singing, Orfeón Donostiarra visiting Aliante again did a wonderful job on the text. Their collective subtlety of expression brought out what was in the work to express. Much of this choral writing seems to have the character of plain chant with rhythm, so often there simply isn’t the opportunity to show off harmonic complexity. Rhythmically, it’s a very different story and our choir was perfect.

So what does one do musically with it? The quiet sections have to be quiet and lyrical, while the fireworks need to be loud, spectacular and perhaps augmented by both speed and volume. Josep Vicent chose to mix in both at the end of tutti phrases and everything worked beautifully.

The other part of the evening was devoted to another resident of the concert hall repertoire, the second suite of Daphne and Chloe by Ravel. There is nothing literal about this music. Everything is mere suggestion, an expression of whatever internal reality or myth Maurice Ravel was wont to experience. As ever with Ravel, it is hard to pin this music down. It has to be experienced live and its effect, though lasting, even permanent, does not prompt the retention of earworms. A wordless chorus does much more than add emphasis and volume to the beginning and end. In the dawn sequence, especially, they add harmonic texture and colour.

What is utterly fascinating to see how the composer’s mind worked. In the opening dawn sequence, the violins are playing a repeated, barely audible arpeggio, which suggests darting insects, barely visible through the mist. This is music of truly sophisticated complexity, containing sound that has to be experienced and cannot be hummed, unlike Carl Orff’s masterpiece, which in comparison, does to the audience what the skewer does to the swan.

 

Programa de Festival Internacional de Piano, Denia