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Enmannuel Siffert por primera vez en Venezuela
La Sala José Félix Ribas del Teatro Teresa Carreño se engalana este jueves 6 de octubre a las 8 p.m. con el gran estreno de la obra Katana, del maestro caraqueño Alexandro Rodríguez a cargo de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Venezuela, Patrimonio Artístico y Cultural de la Nación, un concierto para guitarra y orquesta que mezcla técnicas contemporáneas con ritmos de estirpe nacionalista.
"La complejidad de la dirección es muy amplia"
“La complejidad de la dirección es muy amplia”
Emmanuel Siffert, director de orquesta y violinista suizo, se encuentra en Guayaquil en el marco del Curso Internacional de Dirección de Orquesta, Master Class de Violín y Música de Cámara.
Fue director de la Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional del Ecuador (OSNE) durante 3 años y desde su salida del ensamble el maestro suizo Emmanuel Siffert dedica su batuta a la conducción del Ballet Nacional Inglés, plaza de trabajo a la que pronto regresará. Además, se toma tiempo para viajar por el mundo y dar talleres, cursos, seminarios, master classes de dirección orquestal. Actualmente lo hace en Latinoamérica y desde el 19 de septiembre pasado en Guayaquil.
Hasta este sábado se espera que concluya la evaluación de los estudiantes que tomaron el Curso Internacional de Dirección de Orquesta, Master Class de Violín y Música de Cámara, en el Conservatorio Particular de Música Niccoló Paganini. Hoy, a las 19:30, los talleristas seleccionados por Siffert darán un recital de música de cámara y violín en el auditorio de la Universidad de Especialidades Espíritu Santo (UEES) y mañana el maestro suizo dirigirá al ensamble residente del taller, la Orquesta Filarmónica Juvenil de Guayaquil, desde las 19:30, en el auditorio de la Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil.
¿Por qué se dio esta visita a Guayaquil para dictar un taller?
Patricio Jaramillo -director de la Orquesta Filarmónica Juvenil de Guayaquil- asistió a mi curso de dirección orquestal en Quito y tuvimos la idea de hacer un curso de dirección en Guayaquil, en el conservatorio que él es el rector.
Tener a la orquesta completa residente es una ventaja porque da una dimensión un poco más amplia.
¿Cómo evalúa a los estudiantes que ha podido formar aquí?
Todo se puede aprender, pero tenemos gente que está más adaptada y gente que está más interesada en conocer qué es dirección orquestal.
¿Cómo define usted a ese arte?
La orquesta para mí es un gran instrumento, para mí no es solo una parte de espectáculo como una ópera o el acompañamiento de un solista. En la sinfonía puede estar sola, pero la orquesta al acompañar es parte de un equipo y su director es el capo de todo, debería manejar su acople y funcionamiento en cada una de esas tres situaciones.
En el curso han estado la reconocida soprano Yasmine Yaselga y el joven pianista Andrés Torres como residentes, ¿cómo ha sido el trabajo con ellos?
He preparado a los estudiantes de dirección para que tengan un “feeling” para dirigir a la cantante, que respiren con ella, lo que significa oír un texto y lo que representa oír el texto y vivir la emoción que produce, en la ópera no es solo la historia, que es lo que deberían poner en el brazo. Ese fue el objetivo de la clase -el pasado 22 de septiembre en la mañana-.
Con la filarmónica juvenil usted ofrecerá un concierto como director, ¿qué tal siente al grupo?
Es una orquesta muy bien preparada con la que iniciamos el trabajo, con Coriolan Obertura, anteayer -el 20 de septiembre- que mañana continuaremos -el 23 de septiembre por la tarde-. Para el director es muy importante el oído, cómo escucha a la orquesta aquí: qué instrumento es más fuerte, cuál es menos fuerte, qué instrumento es un poco desafinado y cómo corregir, tomar la buena medicina, para dirigir a la orquesta. Claro, todo es un proceso de años.
¿Ha encontrado mucho interés en el aprendizaje de la dirección de orquestas en Quito y Guayaquil?
Claro, es muy bueno dar la introducción a este arte porque no se sabe exactamente de qué cosa se trata. Solo se ve a una persona que se mueve frente a la orquesta, pero la complejidad del trabajo es muy amplia. Mis cursos son una introducción en las que hacemos un trabajo de base, un poco de teoría; pero la dirección de orquestas tiene muchos aspectos, como trabajar con una cantante, con orquesta sola, cada uno muy diferente al otro.
¿Por qué incluyó la enseñanza de violín y música de cámara?
Es algo completamente distinto, como mi primer instrumento es el violín, Patricio me preguntó si podía dar clases de ese instrumento a los estudiantes y entonces mi cabeza al dictarla, se pone en modalidad de violinista.
¿Facilita el ser violinista, el dedicarse a la conducción de una orquesta o un ensamble?
No. Cuando uno proviene de la sección de cuerdas tiene mayor sensibilidad para los instrumentos de ese tipo; es completamente normal. Cuando uno proviene del corno tiene más sensibilidad para los metales.
El sábado los estudiantes de dirección guiarán a la orquesta en un concierto en la Espol Campus Las Peñas y usted lo hará mañana en la Universidad Católica, ¿qué repertorios manejará?
El mismo. Lo hemos trabajado en el taller e incluye óperas de Puccini, Tosca aria Vissi d’arte y La Boheme, la Aída de Verdi, además de una sinfonía clásica, la cuarta de Beethoven y del mismo compositor Coriolan Obertura. Para acompañar tenemos Chopin, un concierto para piano -Concierto para Piano y Orquesta Nº 2 en Fa menor, Op 21, con Torres como solista-.
¿Alguna razón especial para haber hecho esa selección?
Sí. Beethoven es un compositor de base para un director. Chopin es para acompañar y la ópera se escogió pensando en arias que se consideran clásicas del género.
Llegó a Ecuador el 18 de septiembre, ¿cómo preparó los cursos que dicta?
Estuve dando un curso en Inglaterra, pero preparar los contenidos es parte de la experiencia.
¿Qué proyectos tiene en Europa?
Estoy por dictar talleres en Venezuela y México para luego trabajar con el ballet en Londres. Esporádicamente trabajo como jefe artístico y director del proyecto Swiss Symphonic and Opera Composers que representa la posibilidad de descubrir obras escondidas y continuará el próximo año. Recientemente trabajamos con una pieza de un compositor suizo francés. Siempre estamos trabajando en descubrir las partituras.
¿Qué busca sembrar con sus cursos?
Es bueno ver el progreso de los estudiantes. Llevo 2 años dictando estos cursos y es bueno ver que hay directores que procesan muy bien lo que puedo enseñarles.
Redacción Cultura
American Record Guide September/October 2011
GOMPPER: Violin Concerto; Ikon; Flip,Spirals
Wolfgang David, Peter Zazofsky,v; Royal Philharmonic/
Emmanuel Siffert
Naxos 559637—71 minutes
David Gompper is an Academy Award-winning
American composer. He has worked
internationally as a pianist, conductor, and
composer. This is the first time I have heard
his music, and I am very impressed. I feel
refreshed that such exceptional music is still
composed in these times of artistic apathy.
The incredible Wolfgang David takes the
stage with the Violin Concerto. This Austrian
violinist is extraordinary. His playing is exceptionally
rich and opulent and can also be
frighteningly delicate and distant when necessary.
The concerto begins with a violent solo
violin gesture that explodes into a dense texture,
Stravinskian in quality. The violin dances
around to a very American tune, yet reflects a
staple 20th Century violin concerto. Shostakovich
seems to be of influence in passages of
very involved counterpoint in the winds,
which serve as support for the cadenza-like
passages in the violin—as in the Op. 99 scherzo.
The frantic exchange is interrupted by a
beautifully meditative section. As the agitation
begins to brew once more, the desperate counterpoint
between the strings and winds comes
to a drastic halt with a booming brass call that
melts back into a meditative vision. The ending
seems to be in the style of Shostakovich—
this time, the end of the Fourth Symphony.
The second movement is an agonizing
moment, with a never-ending violin line that
reaches a transformative climax. III is certainly
the high point of this piece. I cannot get
enough! I am listening obsessively to the riveting
ending. Again, it seems to redefine, yet celebrate
the great violin concertos with sounds
of Bartok and Shostakovich. David Gompper
also does something rather rare these days:
compose a good tune; it’s glorious.
The other pieces are also very satisfying—
especially the emotionally charmed Ikon and
Spirals, inspired by the Fibonacci sequence.
What an absolute delight!
JACOBSEN
David Jacobson
downloadable documentsNAXOS CD
A welcome newcomer to these pages, American composer David Gompper (b. 1954) is represented on this recent release from Naxos by four works which are significant additions to contemporary symphonic repertoire. Three of them highlight the violin, one being a full-fledged concerto for that instrument. All reveal a composer who writes music with considerable intellectual as well as emotional appeal (see his album notes).
Back in 2005 Gompper began a piece for violin and piano entitled Echoes, which became the foundation for the concerto included here. Finally completed in 2009, he spent a great deal of time and effort orchestrating it, which seems reflected in the intricate attention to detail so evident in this three-movement work.
The opening free-form vivace begins with a three-note motif for solo violin followed by a momentary percussive cannonade from the orchestra. The movement is in constant flux with soloist and tutti echoing one another in an extended developmental dialogue. Captivating passagework for the violin, lean but brilliant instrumentation, and a mystical ending make it mesmerizing.
The haunting andante is a chromatic fantasia that occasionally flirts with atonality. It includes a cadenza of considerable difficulty magnificently executed by violinist Wolfgang David, who originally encouraged the composer to write the concerto.
Brevity and bravura characterize the concluding hyperactive presto, in which soloist and orchestra banter about old as well as new motifs. An upward glissando on the violin followed by laughing brass and percussion end the concerto impishly.
Ikon (2008) for violin and orchestra is a musical representation of a nineteenth-century Russian one belonging to the composer. Having made a study of methods used by iconographers to proportion and place objects in these sacred works of art, Gompper attempted to apply similar principles to his twenty-minute, single movement picture-concerto (see the album notes for more details).
Generally speaking the piece is cabalistically impressionistic, and may bring the more sublime moments in Szymanowski’s (1882–1937) two violin concertos (1916 and 1933) to mind. Exquisitely scored, there are insistent pronouncements from the violin answered by a variety of other colorful instruments, including vibraphone, piano and woodblock.
In three contiguous spans separated by brief pauses, the outer parts [track-4, beginning at 00:00 and 15:59] are for the most part stream-of-consciousness reveries. The middle one [track-4, beginning at 12:10] is the most acive, building to a shimmering halo-like crescendo for strings, tam-tam and piano that gently fades away. The overall effect is quite hypnotic, particularly with repeated hearing.
The idea behind the next selection, Flip (1993), is best explained by the composer in his album notes. Suffice it to say, it’s a set of orchestral acrobatics where three basic thematic ideas “flip” over and under one another in a variety of musical ways. Except for a lithe central episode, it’s highly energetic music with never a lax moment.
The CD closes with another conceptual piece, Spirals for two violins and string orchestra written in 2007. In one movement with three distinct sections, it’s based on the Fibonacci sequence of numbers (see the album notes) from which spirals can be derived (see how), and thus the title. For most listeners the work’s appeal will not be because of its mathematical associations, which are explained in the album notes, but rather through its emotional makeup.
The rhapsodic opening finds the soloists gracefully spiraling around one another over an engaging pizzicato-riddled accompaniment. An introspective section followings [track-6, beginning at 08:55], where one can imagine them tracing out separate thematic spirals, which join and collapse into a single point. The finale [track-6, beginning at 11:23] begins in animated spiky fashion, but the melodic line slowly smoothes out. In the process, the orchestra gradually evaporates, leaving the two violins floating heavenwards. The piece ends as they disappear from view.
Austrian violinist Wolfgang David is exceptional in the three concertante works, to the point where we can only hope to hear more from him again soon. And Peter Zazofsky plays a mean second fiddle in the last selection, giving Wolfgang an equally commendable assist. Swiss conductor Emmanuel Siffert and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra provide them with ideal support, and deliver a luminous performance of Ikon. Gompper couldn’t have better advocates!
Done in Henry Wood Hall, London, the recordings are very good. They present these delicately scored works in crystalline detail across a convincing soundstage in an ideally reverberant space. Herr David’s ravishing violin tone is accurately captured and balanced against the orchestra. The instrumental timbre is for the most part musical with only an occasional hot spot. Audiophiles who are contemporary music enthusiasts will definitely want this disc.
Bob McQuiston
Review CD Swiss Chamber Orchestra - Gallo : 1319.
Cet enregistrement des éditions Gallo permet d’apprécier à sa juste valeur l’Orchestre de chambre Suisse (Schweizer Kammerorchester) qui, dès les premières mesures, propose une version entraînante et irrésistible du Divertimento pour cordes de Béla Bartók (1881-1945), en 3 mouvements (avec un Adagio très expressif entouré de deux Allegro bien enlevés). L’excellent altiste Hugo Bollschweiler s’impose par son extrême justesse et sa musicalité dans Love is in the air du compositeur suisse, Rolf Urs Ringger (°1935), créé en 2007, page haute en couleurs, avec des tessitures très élevées pour l’instrument soliste. Cette œuvre est suivie d’un Adagio Celeste pour cordes du musicien finlandais Einojuhani Rautavaara (°1928), créé à Helsinki en 2002, page lourde de mysticisme, spéculant sur les oppositions de couleurs et le contraste en hésitation et accélération. Œuvre à retenir. Enfin, cette gravure se termine sur la Symphonie n°5 en sib majeur, D 485, de Franz Schubert. Excellent programme proposé par Emmanuel Siffert, remarquable chef de réputation internationale.
Edith Weber
NAXOS CD
For some reason, the violin continues to garner a growing repertoire of concerti. Many derive from the contact of their composers with fine soloists who provide the inspiration and immediate feedback that shapes the music. When these collaborations work well, the result is an often engaging piece, often highly expressive, regardless of the language of its composer. David Gompper’s new concerto may just find a way to enter the repertoire over time with its accessible language and dramatic writing reminiscent of Dutilleux and Rihm, and even a little Penderecki at times, though these are mere reference points to help encourage pursuit of this latest disc featuring four of his works, three of them featuring violin. Gompper’s music is featured on a number of recordings and continues to find performances internationally. This new Naxos disc will provide some wider exposure to his work opening with the strongest, and most accessible of the four pieces presented here. The Violin Concerto has had a long gestation period and grew out of the composer’s work with its dedicatee, Wolfgang David, who performs it here. Beginning as a piano and violin work, performed and adjusted over a few years, the piece was finally orchestrated. The musical ideas grew out of Gomper’s thinking about echoes heard in the mountains though that inspiration may be set aside to enter into the work in a more abstract way. The opening “Vivace, Fuoco” begins with a rather intense, and at times vicious sense that is met with interesting orchestral accents. The violin solo floats well over the orchestral textures. Gomper’s music floats well between more atonal and angular lines and music that flirts with romanticism. The latter comes into play in a brief quieter section, a possible hint at the second movement’s quieter reflection. Calls and answers of motives are tossed throughout the texture as well while the solo wanders about through the interesting colors. The central movement is cast in those long lyrical reflections that work to provide contrast. There are some quite colorful climaxes that are quite beautiful cast against the expressive solo line. A cadenza revisits some of the motivic development of the piece providing some solo displays before the brief final “Presto.” David’s performance is committed and this concerto displays his technique in faster passages but highlights his expressive playing quite well. There are some sections of angular passages that he manages with great ease, or at least makes it sound as such! The work Ikon (2008) takes its name, and inspiration from a 19th-century Russian house icon viewed by the composer while in Estonia. Gompper’s compositional challenge was to find a way to depict musically the concept of proportional placement of sound the way images are presented in iconographic art. Pitch areas and rhythmic patterns are what helps to create the aural sensation of shapes within the texture here and while the concept of the music may be a bit too cerebral to catch in a first hearing, the language is accessible enough to enjoy the different colors Gompper draws from the orchestra. The solo instrument tends to present the rhythmic motifs that are then commented on by the orchestra in unusual ways. Ikon might work better on its own, it pales a bit after the stronger concerto, but can be hard as an earlier approach to writing for violin and orchestra that would flower more extensively in the opening work on this disc. The concluding work on the disc, Spirals, applies the Fibonacci series to all parameters of the music, discussed briefly in the composer’s accompanying program note. This work has appeared on disc before, though no doubt is receiving a definitive recorded performance here. Cast for two violins and orchestra, Spirals tends to focus more on rhythmic presentation of its soloists maintaining what sounds like a far more active harmonic backdrop than actually is in existence. The music has the sort of longer lyric violin lines in conversation with a variety of pointillistic support from the orchestra. Of interest to film music fans, Flip (1993), is a string piece that plays with the ideas of “flipping” musical material throughout the orchestra. It also includes “borrowed” music quotations from the TV series Flipper and the samba from Brazil. The music plays with the interpretation of “flipping” from innocuous dance flips to the more slang finger-inducing production and its immediate, unknown response. The music moves then in fits and starts with a lot of denser textures. In lieu of the other works included on the disc, this one is a good reminder of other non-minimalist musical directions that were occurring in music some 20 years ago as composers explored ways to create dramatic works in more harsh, atonal, soundscapes paralleled in works by Ligeti. The shift between pizzicato and bowing in the strings is also a great dramatic tool that makes the music interesting. The music is engaging from this perspective and must be interesting to watch as the orchestra responds to the various ideas tossed about. The concerto is a great introduction to Gompper’s music with the rest of the pieces merely allowing more exposure to his atonal and lyrical writing. The focus on violin works alone may limit its appeal only slightly, but the pieces that accompany the concerto are all fascinating works taken on their own. It is perhaps preferable to have a disc devoted to a single composer’s works than what can happen if more than one “new” concerto appears as ones preferences may lead to appreciation of one over the other. Here, there is no competition in being able to access Gompper’s style and the more mathematically-inspired pieces still work well. The Royal Philharmonic is in top form for these pieces that feel as if they have been explored well in preparation for this recording. The sound of the recording is simply marvelous capturing the ambience of Henry Wood Hall quite well. | |
LE NOZZE DI FIGARO di Mozart al Teatro Superga di Nichelino
Una bellissima edizione, una delle migliori che io ricordi dal vivo (e ne ho viste davvero tante, Salisburgo incluso). Merito principale, secondo me, dell’eccellente direttore d’orchestra Emmanuel Siffert, svizzero, formatosi con Sandor Vegh a Salzburg e successivamente con Horst Stein, Ralf Weikart, Jorma Panula e Carlo Maria Giulini, ha Mozart nel DNA e lo ha dimostrato con una performance modello di eleganza, finezza, stile.
Wanderer's Blog
Roberto Mastrosimone
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