The weekly format compels me to be very succinct in my reviews. Hence, panoramas. I will start selecting from a flood of concerts of contemporary music.
Martín Bauer has led for twenty years the San Martín cycle of contemporary music (from next season there will be another curatorial view, for Diego Fischerman replaces him) and since its inception a few years ago (during the García Caffi regime) also the smaller cycle Colón Contemporáneo, sometimes overlapping both. As this year Bauer couldn´t count with the Sala Casacuberta (ideal for the genre), due to the restoration works at the San Martín, he had recourse to different venues. However, I found this year´s programming quite weak, and am only sorry that I couldn´t hear the great German violinist Isabelle Faust (Usina).
Bauer has had a fixation with composer Morton Feldman and it´s no wonder that Colón Contemporáneo presented the première of "Coptic Light" as the main score of a concert that doubled as Nº 13 of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic´s thirteenth concert (tough material for its subscribers). The original announcement in March gave as conductor Emilio Pomarico and except for Feldman had a different programme: Busoni and Castiglioni. However, Wolfgang Wengenroth (debut) took over with an equally attractive proposal in the First Part: Ligeti´s well-known "Lontano" and the rarely played though fundamental scores by Anton Webern: Five Pieces Op.10 for chamber orchestra (extremely short) and Six Pieces Op.6, more expansive. Plus Webern´s fascinating orchestral arrangement of Bach´s Fuga (Ricercata) from "The Musical Offering" as "Klangfarbenmelodie" (Melody of colored sounds).
Feldman´s "Coptic Light" has one saving grace: it lasts 25 minutes instead of more than four hours like other pieces played here; but it is just as boring: the material is exposed in seemingly endless repetition and minimal variation. The whole programme had some accidents: this is hard music for the Phil, accustomed to other musical styles.
Much better was a finely programmed concert of the National Symphony at the Blue Whale conducted with accuracy by Fabián Panisello and featuring a virtuoso pianist, Dimitri Vassilakis, in Panisello´s "Movements", an interesting piece in four moods written with full comprehension of current trends. Preceded by Luciano Berio´s "Requies" (première, as Panisello) and followed by Lutoslawski´s great Third Symphony, we heard first-rate music created by two masters who are no longer with us but are still very relevant.
Ginastera and Stravinsky are no longer contemporary but in some of their scores are still amazingly modern. They were combined in a percussion-based evening at the Colón: the former´s "Cantata para América mágica" (1960) and Stravinsky´s "Les Noces" ("The Wedding", 1923). The Cantata is made up of six pieces with texts from the Aztecs, Mayas and Incas of strong dramatic power, and the dramatic soprano is accompanied by two pianos and ample percussion ensemble including autochthonous instruments. This is Ginastera at his best, expressionist, telluric and with advanced techniques (serialism, complex rhythms). Instrumentally this was a splendid performance, coordinated by Annunziata Tomaro and Ángel Frette, but mezzo Virginia Correa Dupuy isn´t the right voice: she is refined and intimate; you need here a big soprano voice of intense projection.
"Les Noces" is very important but rarely done; born as a choreographic cantata, it has been seen here both as ballet and in concert. Based on Russian folk poems dealing with the wedding ritual, it applies the rhythmic liberation of "The Rite of Spring" to singing of enormous complexity; relentless in its demands and rarely expansive, it was a demonstration of the great professionalism of Tomaro, the Coro Orfeón de Buenos Aires (Néstor Andrenacci, Pablo Piccinni), the four pianists, the percussionists; the soloists were uneven, only María Dolores Ibarra (soprano) quite satisfactory. It was sung in the Russian translation, and that is good.
I was glad that Patricia Pouchulu, after the unexpected interruption of a concert season at the Brick Hotel organised by her, could find the support of the Austrian and German Embassies to present a valuable Mozart concert at the Avenida. As leader of the Association La Bella Música, since 1999 she has offered with a galaxy of artists eight hundred concerts; in recent years after strict training she has started a conducting career. Funding isn´t easy nowadays and has limited some symphonic projects that require big orchestras, but a night of Mozart remains a treat when you have a solid hand-picked orchestra of 32 players and two outstanding soloists (first desks of the Colón Orchestra).
The loveliness of the Clarinet Concerto (K 622) and of the Oboe Concerto (alternative to flute) K.314 was in the very good hands and artistry of Carlos Céspedes and Rubén Albornoz; apart from minor accidents, the playing was beautiful and musical, abetted by the clean and stylish conducting of Pouchulu. She then tackled the crown of Mozart´s symphonies: Nº 41, "Jupiter". With scrupulous articulation and an attentive orchestra, the music flowed naturally, only lacking some intensity and rhythmic profile in the final movement, a masterpiece of counterpoint; but the battle was certainly won.
The marvelous Mahler Second Symphony ("Resurrection") was the major challenge taken up by Mario Benzecry and his Sinfónica Juvenil Nacional José de San Martín, plus the Asociación Coral Lagun Onak and the Coro de la Facultad de Derecho-UBA, both prepared by Miguel Ángel Pesce, plus soprano Jaquelina Livieri and mezzo Alejandra Malvino. Not helped by the resonant acoustics of the Facultad de Derecho, nevertheless Benzecry showed his deep knowledge and command and built the enormous structure with unerring hand. Both the choirs and soloists were first-rate, but the Orchestra had some problems: mistakes by the brass and rather mushy violin intonation; however, most of the playing was good and the climaxes were tremendous.
For Buenos Aires Herald
