Carte Blanche for Natalia Salinas

After Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera experienced a financial fiasco with the premiere of his second opera, «Bomarzo», in Washington, D.C. in 1967 – the opera was censored in Argentina under the authoritarian regime of Juan Carlos Onganía because of its libretto about torture, abuse, obsession, homosexuality and impotence – he decided to leave his homeland. In 1971, he settled in Geneva, where he married his second wife, the Argentine concert cellist Aurora Nátola, and composed several important works for her, including «Serenata», Op. 42. For this work, Ginastera selected three poems from Pablo Neruda's «Love Poems», which he set to music for the Puerto Rican bass-baritone Justino Díaz. In his late work, Ginastera combines the dramatic tone of his three operas with a lyrical expression that is particularly evident in his two late cello concertos.

In 2002, the concert organiser «Ciclo de musica contemporánea del Teatro San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina» commissioned seven local composers to write a piece based on John Cage's composition «4'33''» (1952), which celebrated its 50th anniversary that year. Erik Oña's contribution was the 12-minute sextet «De la incomprención de un silencio» (A Misunderstanding of Silence). Erik Oña writes about its creation:
«The piece was to premiere in Buenos Aires. It was to have something to do with John Cage's «4'33''». At first, I was intrigued by the various ways of interpreting the silence in this piece. Soon I remembered another silent event that had haunted me in the past and that I had hardly been able to remember until then. In the 1980s, a seventeen-year-old girl was murdered in an Argentine province, apparently by the son of a government official. For a long time, it looked as if this man's lawyers, with the help of his father's powerful connections, would help him evade justice. [...] People were tired of the abuse and distrusted the authorities, so they took to the streets to denounce injustices. [...] Silence, which in Spanish is often associated with consent, became a sign of strong resistance, underscoring the presence of all these bodies that were resisting and making it impossible to ignore them. From Cage's piece, we can draw ideas or attitudes, not materials or musical quotations; with the exception of duration, which in this case would be the strictest quotation. Here, duration is not, as in traditional music, the point of arrival for the development of musical ideas, but the starting point. «4'33''» illustrates a general principle in Cage's music: the principle of duration. If there is to be a structure, Cage thought, then it should be a rhythmic structure. A rhythmic structure is hospitable by nature: it can be inhabited by sounds, noises and silence. Silence and sound have duration in common.» (Erik Oña – 2002)

The programme is complemented by the sextet «Vertiges suspendus by Chilean composer Matías Rosales, commissioned by the Ensemble Court-Circuit in 2023 and premiered in Boulogne-Billancourt in 2024.
Musicologist Michèle Tosi writes about this performance:
«The horizon darkens and instrumental virtuosity reaches a climax with Vertiges suspendus for flute, clarinet, string trio and piano, a work commissioned by Court-Circuit from the young Chilean composer Matías Fernández Rosales. The way in which he explores the spectral field of frequencies released by the resonant bass of the piano (Jean-Marie Cottet) with energetic intensity is impressive. This music of transitions is constantly set in motion anew, creating moments of fervour through the magnificent multiphonics of the bass clarinet (Pierre Dutrieu). The timbres merge into a powerful meta-instrument that carries the sound to saturation.» (Michèle Tosi – 2024)

With

Germán Enrique Alcántara (baritone solo); Martin Jaggi (violoncello solo); Ensemble Phoenix Basel; Natalia Salinas (Conductor)

Program

Matías Rosales (*1988): «Vertiges suspendus» (2023) for 6 instruments

Erik Oña (1961–2019): «De la incomprención de un silencio» (2002) for 6 instruments

Alberto Ginastera (1916–1983): «Serenata» op. 42 (based on poems by Pablo Neruda) (1973) for baritone, violoncello and ensemble

Info

7:00 pm Concert introduction with Natalia Salinas and Jürg Henneberger

Duration

60 minutes, no break

Links

→ ensemble-phoenix.ch