The piano presentation without defined pieces and the concert highlighting the viola da gamba are unconventional examples that challenge the usual life of concert music in the city; Encounter
Two different international concerts take place St. Paul in september, coincidentally both in the season of Society of Artistic Culture TO Hall of St. Paul: a piano recital and a performance by an early music ensemble, with period instruments.
They would be conventional concerts. Just not. The pianist has not announced any of the pieces he intends to perform on the 13th and 14th. A week later, in the same Sala São Paulo, the early music concert had previously announced, as usual, the repertoire featuring French Baroque music . court motto of Versailles in the 17th and 18th centuries at the court of Louis XIII, compositions by the first court masters of Louis XIV, the “Sun King”, and concert music during the reign of Louis XV.
Both challenge the rigid and routine life of concert music, full of rules and rituals that frighten the uninitiated audience. They take music lovers (captive audience) out of their comfort zone. They force you into active listening (in the case of the piano recital) and expose you to little-known old Baroque repertoires that are bound to mesmerize you with their scent of improvised music and the sway – yes, sway – that inhabits them.
A normal thing, given that the sumptuous music of the Versailles court mixes with the extremely delicate one produced by the viola da gamba, an instrument similar to the cello, but from a different family, with much sweeter sounds. That’s why they have the potential to reach a wider audience.
They are musicians of absolute excellence, who are among the greatest today, in the fullest sense. the Hungarian pianist Andras Schiff, 69, is tired of having to play repertoires that he is forced to announce two or even three years in advance. He lamented this harshly in a post-pandemic interview: “I don’t know why concert organizers insist so much on this. and spontaneity, breaking down the barriers that constitute the preconceived idea of what a piano recital is”.
In São Paulo he will play works by bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn AND Brahms, all composers who recorded extensively. Which? It will only be known at the time of the performance. It is improvisation reintroduced into the romantic piano recital. In the 19th century improvisation reigned: great pianists like it list they chose the repertoire in the so-called heat of the moment.
Hungarian like Schiff, Liszt calibrated his recitals according to the audience’s reaction to the first piece. In the second part he ordered that an urn be placed on the stage in which the audience would place the melodies that he would like to see the pianist improvise. And he raffled them off like an auditorium entertainer.
This spirit of improvisation was essential in the Baroque. Until the beginning of the 19th century, musicians lived in heaven. They made music their daily food, they had complete freedom to mix their creations and relocate them to other contexts without any sense of guilt. Bach got tired of taking excerpts from his sacred cantatas, for example, and inserting them into profane instrumental works. And vice versa, because he also used profane instrumental themes with religious texts.
The 19th century experienced a schizophrenic situation. He destroyed this nirvana where improvisation took pride of place. The foundation of the Paris Conservatoire in 1797 ushered in an era in which music schools – conservatoires as the name Conservatoire indicates – dictated the rules for training legions of musicians put on a leash to perform the canon of works with the utmost perfection. cousins, from Bach to Mahler, passing through Beethoven and the romantics. But he maintained a niche where improvisation was the master, that of pianists. With the provocation of him, Andras Schiff returns some blood to the veins of musical practice.
music in the veins
A week later, on the 19th and 20th, the Catalan gambista Jordan Savall, 82, one of the greatest musicians of the 21st century, leads the orchestra of period instruments Le Concert des Nations playing the French Baroque repertoire. He will surely remember a key moment in his life, in the 80s, when he took care of the soundtrack of the film Every morning in the worldbased on the book by Pascal Quignard and directed by Alain Corneau, Savall plays the viola da gamba in this wonderful film, in which Gérard Dépardieu embodies Monsieur de Sainte Colombe, the teacher of the young apprentice musician Marin Marais, both real musicians who lived in the 17th century French.
The repertoire of the concert at Sala São Paulo is practically the same as that of the film soundtrack. More than three decades later, Savall revisits the project that transformed him overnight into a world-famous musician. In addition, it provided him with such generous income that he was able to found in his native Barcelona his own record label, Alia Vox, and several historically informed musical groups: Hesperides XX, now XXI, Le Concert des Nations and the Royal Chapel of Catalonia.
Another fact that makes this concert even more memorable is the launch of a new translation of Every morning in the world, from a new publisher, Zain, conceived and directed by Brazilian composer Leonardo Silva, based in Berlin. In less than 100 pages, in pocket format but with a refined graphic production, Pascal Quignard, now 75, takes us on a dive into the French Baroque musical life. To the artificiality and immobilization of music in the glitz of the Versailles court, he contrasts the flame of genuine creativity. Sainte Colombe was the introducer of the seventh string on the viol.
Marin Marais, son of a shoemaker, born in 1656 in Paris, had only six weeks of lessons with Sainte Colombe. Quignard writes that “the father and daughters were particularly given to very sophisticated improvisations on three violas on any theme proposed by one of the concert listeners”. Savall will play his viola da gamba held between his legs – it is called a gamba precisely because it needs to be held by the player between his legs (“between his legs”).
From the master, play the Concerto for two violas da gamba No. 44, “Tombeau les Regrets”quoted in the first paragraph of Quignard’s fascinating book: “In the spring of 1650, Madame de Sainte Colombe died. She was survived by two daughters, aged two and six. Monsieur de Sainte Colombe was inconsolable at the death of his wife. At He was in that occasion which composed the tomb of lamentations“.
Pieces that Andras Schiff can perform in recital
- Bach: Italian concert BWV 971
- Beethoven: Sonata No. 15, work 28, Pastoral
- Mendelssohn: Spinning song work 67, no. 4
- Brahms: Interlude work 117, no. 1
Listen to the works of Jordí Savall
- All matins in the world (every morning in the world) – album by Jordí Savall with the soundtrack
Every morning in the world
- Publisher: Zaini
- Author: Pascal Quignard
- Translated by Yolanda Vilela
- 95 pages; BRL 54.90
Andras Schiff, piano
- Paul’s Hall. Praça Júlio Prestes, 16, Campos Elíseos
- 8.30pm; 9/13 (white series) and 9/14 (blue series)
- Starting at BRL 50 on website or (11) 3256-0223
Le Concert des Nations and Jordi Savall
- Hall of St. Paul. Praça Júlio Prestes, 16, Campos Elíseos
- 8.30pm; 9/19 (white series) and 9/20 (blue series)
- Starting at BRL 50 on website or (11) 3256-0223
Source: Terra
Earl Johnson is a music writer at Gossipify, known for his in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the industry. A graduate of USC with a degree in Music, he brings years of experience and passion to his writing. He covers the latest releases and trends, always on the lookout for the next big thing in music.
