sábado, 28 de marzo de 2015

JORDI SAVALL’S NEVER-ENDING REPERTORY



By ZACHARY WOOLFE


Jordi Savall focuses on projects that celebrate diversity. Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times

For the Catalan early-music master Jordi Savall, who has spent decades rediscovering works that had vanished for centuries, the most difficult aspect of the 2011 death of his wife and performing partner, the singer Montserrat Figueras, may have been the music that’s once again disappeared.
“It’s an important part of my repertory I had with my wife that we’ll never play anymore,” Mr. Savall, 73, said gently, in accented English, in an interview after a rehearsal at the Juilliard School in January. “Because I don’t think I will find another person who can do this music in a way that will support it. I don’t know any. I have nice singers, but I don’t have any singer that sings with the same spirit as Montserrat.”
Even with some of his music now closed off to him, Mr. Savall, professorial with a bushy beard and rimless eyeglasses, has remained prolific, focusing on projects that celebrate the great diversity — social, racial, ethnic — of world culture. A characteristic recent album, “Bal-Kan: Honey and Blood,” teased out the multiplicity of traditions in the Balkan region.


Mr. Savall with his wife, Montserrat Figueras, center, and Begoña Olavide in 2006. Credit Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times

He is spending an unusual amount of time in New York in the first few months of this year, starting with his annual residency with Juilliard’s early-music ensemble, Juilliard415, which culminated in a concert of nature-inspired Baroque works on Jan. 31. A stirring player of the viola da gamba, a cello-like relative of the lute popular in the 17th and 18th centuries, Mr. Savall appears in solo recital at Carnegie Hall’s intimate Weill Recital Hall on April 13. On April 16, he leads his ensemble Le Concert des Nations in a program of 17th-century French music at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. (Conspicuously missing are the plangent vocal works, like Monteverdi’s “Lamento della Ninfa,” that Ms. Figueras sang with peerless fervor.)
These Carnegie appearances are among the highlights of the hall’s sterling Before Bach festival, which begins April 7 and explores the period before the 1685 birth of that seminal composer. The series includes programs from groups like L’Arpeggiata, Pomerium and Les Violons du Roy before culminating with performances of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 (April 31) and “L’Orfeo” (May 1) by the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner.
During the decades of ascendance for the movement that aimed to present music of this period in a historically informed way, advocates became known, perhaps unfairly, as a tad prissy. Instruments and bows had to be of a certain provenance or made a certain way, these revolutionaries declared.
Choirs had to be a certain size, tempos a certain speed. Original scores needed to be stringently observed. Intentions were good — many years of ill-informed decisions and neglect had to be reversed, after all — but a reputation for rigidity nevertheless developed: the rigidity of the convert.
“My generation was mostly made up of piano players who learned the harpsichord, or cellists who learned the gamba,” Mr. Savall said. “And we started most of the time at a certain part of life. But in the last 20 or 30 years, many young people start from 6 or 7 to play Baroque instruments.”
It was these kinds of musicians — the ones who grew up with a robust Baroque music scene as a fact of life rather than an aspiration — that Mr. Savall worked with during his residency at Juilliard. For evidence that times had changed since the strictness of the 1960s or ’70s, one could witness him telling two student flute players in the ensemble for Telemann’s “Water Music” that they should join in the “tutti” sections, even though the original score had given the part solely to two oboists.


Mr. Savall at the Morgan Library & Museum in 2011. Credit Jennifer Taylor for The New York Times

“In the historical context, there were just two players,” he said from the podium in his soft — really barely audible — voice. “But it’s illogical to have you here and not playing.”
Bending the intentions of the composer to meet the resources in front of you: This may have been mildly blasphemous when the early-music movement was beginning. But flexibility is now the norm, and Mr. Savall’s ethos has always been uniquely wide-ranging and open-minded, with a repertory that stretches through centuries and across much of the known world.
With five decades as an instrumentalist, conductor and impresario under his belt, Mr. Savall has long been an eminence, but he has lately become a true elder statesman. He caused a stir in October when he refused Spain’s prestigious National Music Award, quoting Dostoyevsky in a long open letter that faulted the government’s austerity policies and its “dramatic disinterest and grave incompetence in the defense and promotion of art and its creators.”
In the interview in January, he added: “It’s very hard now in Spain, and in Europe in general. Because it’s hard, we need to do not so much, but do it very well. In difficult times, what you cannot do is waste. The problem is there’s little communication between the political and cultural world, and the situation in Spain is so disastrous. I think Spain is a country that turns its back on its musical heritage.”
His rejection of the award comes as Mr. Savall is increasingly considering his legacy and beginning to prepare his disparate but interrelated ensembles — including Le Concert des Nations, Hespèrion XXI and La Capella Reial de Catalunya — and the record label he founded, Alia Vox, to continue without him. It is a similar weaning strategy to that being pursued by William Christie, 70, the founder and director of the early-music ensemble Les Arts Florissants.
“It’s very easy to sell concerts when I’m conducting, but what happens when I’m not?” Mr. Savall asked. “We have a foundation, and what I will do in the next years is sometimes do concerts with other young musicians who will conduct instead of me. And this year, for the first time, Alia Vox will do a recording of a young group, without me.”



Mr. Savall rehearsing with the Juilliard415 ensemble in January. Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times

Born in 1941 in Igualada, west of Barcelona, Mr. Savall began as a child singer. It wasn’t until he was 15 that he first picked up a cello, but when he did, it was a revelation. “For the first time,” he said, “I understand the phrase from Mark Twain: ‘There are two important moments, the day you are born and the day you discover why you were born.’ ”
He moved on, before too long, to the gamba, then an exotic instrument that happened to have important advocates in Catalonia. “The language for Baroque music was not my language,” he said. “So I did a very simple thing. I practiced every day many hours. Just reading. No ideas. When you go to a country and start to speak, slowly the language becomes familiar, and then at a certain point it’s part of you. It’s not something you learn intellectually — you learn making music.”
He joined Enric Gispert’s ensemble Ars Musicae Barcelona as a gambist, and through the group met Ms. Figueras. The two moved to Switzerland to continue their studies in Basel and married in 1968. In 1974, Ms. Figueras and Mr. Savall, along with the musicians Lorenzo Alpert and Hopkinson Smith, formed Hespèrion XX, which took the name Hespèrion XXI in 2000.
Emphasizing the music of 16th- and 17th-century Spain but often veering well beyond it, the group brought to its concerts a vibrant mood that seemed both carefree and carefully controlled. After returning to Spain from Switzerland in the late 1980s, Ms. Figueras and Mr. Savall founded La Capella Reial de Catalunya, a vocal ensemble, and Le Concert des Nations, an orchestra that uses instruments from the 17th century.
Mr. Savall’s schedule these days is filled not just with copious tours of pre-existing programs but also with the development of new projects. One, focused on Islam, will stretch musically from Afghanistan to India and China and back west again, via Morocco and Mali. Another travels the slave routes from Africa to the Americas, and yet another is designed to accompany the art of El Greco.
He has recently completed “War and Peace,” an album and accompanying book that relate the history of the 17th century and its brutal conflicts. (This was the time of the Thirty Years’ War and the Hundred Years’ War.) Music from Sephardic Jewish, Ottoman, German, Italian, French, Spanish and English traditions will come together in a seething mixture demonstrating how cultures intertwined long before contemporary globalization. “It’s a reflection on this crazy world,” Mr. Savall said.
He has also recently taken to concertizing with his children, Arianna and Ferran, who are both musicians. But until a few years ago, he appeared most often with Ms. Figueras, whose smoky voice had piercing emotional power.
“The first year or two years were very difficult, because when I was returning home I would see all my books and think, ‘What am I doing here?’ ” he said of the time after her death. “But then I understood really the impermanence. We will all die one day, and that is something we are not prepared for. And it’s important to realize life is not existing without the death. Montserrat, she lived 69 years in plenitude, singing until the last days, and I think this is already a fabulous thing, no?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/arts/music/jordi-savalls-never-ending-repertory.html?ref=music&_r=0

CARPACCIO E LA “SCOPERTA” DEL FIGLIO BENEDETTO.



 

La mostra

Dopo la grande mostra del 1963 a Palazzo Ducale a Venezia, Palazzo Sarcinelli propone un felice ritorno: l’ultimo sorprendente Carpaccio e la “scoperta” del figlio Benedetto.

Una profonda crisi culturale e politica si registra tra la fine del XV e il primo quarto del XVI secolo: guerre, cambi di alleanze internazionali, frenetica attività diplomatica, ricerche artistiche, eresie e inquisizioni. Carpaccio partecipa di un tale clima, anzi, possiamo dire che ne sia profondamente influenzato, come la sua pittura rivela a più riprese. Ma sta anche maturando una stagione nuova, un’epoca più drammatica e concitata, più laica e spregiudicata che vede giovani protagonisti della scena artistica quali Giorgione e Tiziano, Lotto, Pordenone e Sebastiano del Piombo. Carpaccio affronta il nuovo secolo sottoponendo anche il proprio linguaggio ad una nuova sperimentazione, un affinamento, una verifica.
La mostra insegue Vittore nei suoi spostamenti tra i confini settentrionali della Repubblica e il vivace territorio istriano, alla ricerca di un codice artistico sorprendente e ultimo.
E’ una stagione di produzioni originali e di eccellenza, che vede tra le altre la Pala di Pozzale di Cadore, l’Incontro di Anna e Gioacchino per il San Francesco di
Treviso, il trittico di Santa Fosca, la Pala francescana di Pirano, le portelle d’organo del Duomo di Capodistria e numerose opere ancora.

Il lavoro del grande maestro verrà continuato dalla bottega, con opere che si ispirano o costituiscono vere e proprie elaborazioni dei dipinti di Vittore, fino all'affermazione del figlio Benedetto, che diverrà artista a pieno titolo istriano.
Benedetto, pittore dalle evidenti cadenze naïf e dalle accese policromie, costituirà un’autentica sorpresa in questo percorso, divenendo l’interprete di una progressiva mutazione del verbo carpaccesco.
La mostra Carpaccio. Vittore e Benedetto da Venezia all’Istria segna la seconda tappa di un percorso iniziato con la mostra Un Cinquecento inquieto, da Cima da Conegliano e il rogo di Riccardo Perucolo, proseguendone le linee di metodo e continuando a tessere la sempre più fitta trama di rapporti tra le opere d’arte in mostra e lo straordinario repertorio di materiali e segni d’arte distribuiti sul territorio.

http://www.mostracarpaccio.it/it/palazzo-sarcinelli.html

SADE, UN ATHÉE EN AMOUR


du 6 décembre 2014 au 12 avril 2015
Longtemps le nom de Sade a été objet de scandale, d’exécration ou, au contraire, d’admiration lyrique. Pour le bicentenaire de sa mort, il est temps de le présenter comme un moment essentiel de notre histoire culturelle. Il est à replacer dans de longues traditions, celle de la littérature amoureuse depuis Pétrarque (la famille de Sade descend de Laure, chantée par le poète italien), celle d’une lignée aristocratique provençale éprise d’honneur. Comment comprendre les ruptures qu’il incarne, ses obsessions de violence et de sexe ?
Entre l’Italie où il connaît des cavales heureuses et la prison où il passe la moitié de sa vie, entre le passé féodal et la Révolution, Sade bascule dans l’imaginaire. Il nous laisse une œuvre inachevée, en partie détruite, qui est un défi. Illustrateurs et cinéastes ont voulu mettre des images sur ses mots. Les débats idéologiques et nationaux ont parasité sa lecture. Sade s’impose désormais, dans ses manuscrits et ses publications, comme un écrivain essentiel.
Commissaire de l’exposition : Prof. Michel Delon, Université Paris-Sorbonne
Sous la direction de : Prof. Jacques Berchtold  |  Scénographe : Stasa Bibic

http://fondationbodmer.ch/expositions-temporaires/sade-athee-en-amour/

viernes, 27 de marzo de 2015

MADRID - TEATRO DE LA ZARZUELA: PHILIPPE JAROUSSKY "GREEN"



Ha vuelto Philippe Jaroussky a Madrid, con un repertorio al que no nos tiene acostumbrados. Atrás ha quedado por el momento toda su performance vocal dedicada al Barroco, cuando resplandecía bajo fantásticos trajes en los mejores teatros de Francia y otras capitales de Europa.
A pesar de que su recital colocó el cartel de “entradas agotadas”, había huecos en la sala y como siempre, una enorme expectación.
La velada comenzó con unos minutos de retraso pero todo parece perdonársele a un cantante prolífico, muchas veces sobreexpuesto en los escenarios, que nos obligó a trasladarnos de estética y de época.
Podríamos intuir en esta variación de repertorio una voluntad de proteger su voz y su tesitura, tan exigida habitualmente, amparándose bajo el lirismo de un poeta- Paul Verlaine- considerado un clásico irremediable en Francia, porque no solo se recita en funciones teatrales, sino también en los colegios, como su partenaire tan querido en una relación sentimental dramática y peculiar, Arthur Rimbaud.
Considerado el autor maldito por excelencia, junto a unos escritores tan féericos como inasibles, Baudelaire, o Edgard Poe, con Mallarmé es tratado como maestro y precursor por los artistas simbolistas y decadentistas.
Su constelación de influencia se amplía incluso a Hispanoamérica, donde influyó grandemente en autores como José Martí, Pablo Neruda o José Asunción Silva.
Hay profusión de imágenes y figuras literarias en su obra y una marcada sinestesia, impregnada de misticismo y misterio, colmada de una sensualidad lánguida y contenida, que aprovecharán como inspiración la pléyade de compositores que le han puesto música a sus poemas.
En este concierto, acompañado de una forma exquisita por el pianista Jérôme Ducros, que conoce su ritmo y respeta sus tiempos con delicadeza, Jaroussky considera que para él “este repertorio siempre ha sido su jardín secreto” y que, después de un primer álbum, Opium (grabado en 2009), decidió construir uno más ambicioso, Green, objeto de esta velada.
Aquí explora la filosofía de Verlaine de acuerdo con las primeras frases de su célebre Art Poétique, “De la musique avant toute chose”, destacando la preeminencia de la tonalidad y la riqueza de cada uno de sus versos, que invaden el escenario de una resonancia particular, evocadora de un universo crepuscular de emociones ambiguas, por momentos  indescifrables.
Es una evidente afinidad que impulsó a músicos como Fauré, Honegger, Massenet o Debussy y a cantautores legendarios y universales como Trénet, Brassens o Ferré a hacer suyos sus versos y ponerles música. Hay una comunión espiritual y creativa que recorre las décadas y nos transporta del siglo XIX al XX, pero la esencia permanece.
Como se indica en el completo programa de mano de la velada, “Con el heterogéneo repertorio de esta noche Philippe Jaroussky quiere ofrecernos, entre otras cosas, un amplio panorama de adaptaciones musicales de los mismos poemas, lo que nos permite comparar, por ejemplo, el melodismo melancólico y terso del Colloque sentimental de Léo Ferré con la incisiva visión de Debussy, que expresa en frases nítidamente contrastadas la distancia anímica entre las dos voces del texto; o escuchar dos muestras distintas (el sobrio intimismo de Chausson frente a la efusión lírica de Poldowski) de La lune blanche.
En el apartado pianístico de esta noche también se nos ofrece Idylle, una agradable pieza pianística de Chabrier, compositor que estuvo muy vinculado con Verlaine por amistad, aficiones noctámbulas y alguna colaboración artística.
A destacar entre las numerosas versiones y compositores que se despliegan esta noche en el teatro de La Zarzuela, difíciles de reseñar de manera exhaustiva, dada su número, riqueza y complejidad,la obra de una hija de un conocido compositor y violinista de origen polaco, Régine Wieniawski firmaba sus composiciones con el seudónimo de Poldowski. Es conocida sobre todo por sus canciones, entre las que destacan las dedicadas a la poesía de Verlaine”.
En su atribulada vida, el creador fue un homenaje a la poesía y a la vida, aunque paradójicamente murió joven, estuvo en la cárcel y su forma de producirse se encuadró en los límites de la autodestrucción y la carrera galopante hacia la soledad y la muerte.
Melancólico y cargado de una tristeza estuvo Philippe Jaroussky la noche de Green en La Zarzuela, en consonancia con las obras y los sentimientos que abanderó Verlaine en medio de la vorágine de su existencia.
Vestido de negro, muy francés, y camisa blanca, un estilo sobrio y poco llamativo para que tal vez el énfasis y la atención se centraran en los poemas y en la música. Lejos quedan ahora los antiguos oropeles que lució en otras ocasiones en veladas operísticas y grabaciones burbujeantes y de fuegos de artificio, que hubiera amado y vestido un Farinelli.

Su voz sigue teniendo la luz y la tersura habituales, pero sin gorjeos ni exhibiciones barrocas a la Bartoli, la mezzosoprano tan admirada y respetada por el joven contratenor francés.
Ha sido una noche oscurecida por la penumbra de la tristeza y el sufrimiento de las propuestas poéticas y musicales que me devuelven a mi infancia, cuando al intentar recitar en francés a Verlaine, el que fuera mi primer e irremplazable maestro me dijo, sin dramatismos, que se me daría mejor el latín que la impronunciable por entonces para mí lengua de Molière.
Hubo muchísimos aplausos del público, sus seguidores incondicionales y también propinas de uno de los cantantes más admirados de la actualidad operística internacional: un aria de la opereta Frisch-Ton-Kan de Chabrier, contando además con la voz del pianista, Jérôme Ducros y la versión de Colombine de Brassens, otro mito.
Como anécdota podríamos terminar diciendo que las dos primeras estrofas de la “Chanson d´automne”, fueron la contraseña elegida por las tropas aliadas en la II Guerra Mundial para anunciar a la Resistencia Francesa, que había comenzado el desembarco de Normandía: “Les sanglots longs des violons de l´automne blessent mon coeur d´un longueur monnotone”. Oh là là!
Alicia Perris