Stylized and Abstract in Music and Vision 5 aprile

Stylized and Abstract Bartók and Cambodian music in Monte Carlo, experienced by GIUSEPPE PENNISI In Europe, the music festival season starts in the Spring with the Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo (the Monte Carlo Spring of Arts), now at its twenty ninth edition (15 March until 14 April 2013). Due to the location, it attracts audience not only from nearby France, Italy and Switzerland but also from the United Kingdom and the United States. It is not a 'theme festival', strictly speaking, but performances are scheduled only during the week-ends (from Friday -- occasionally Thursday -- to Sunday) and each 'cluster' has a focus. This year the Festival opens and closes with Le Portrait Beethoven, an homage to one of the greatest composers of all times, and alternates well known pieces (eg the Kreutzer Sonata) with rarities such as the cello variations and the piano trios. The rest of the festival is largely devoted to Bartók and Stravinsky, juxtaposed with ethnic music from Indochina and Central Africa. There is a rationale: Bartók was one of the first European composers interested in ethnic music and with Sacre du Printemps (premiered one hundred years ago) Stravinsky brought Russian music to the West. I was at the Festival for the Easter weekend (29 March to 1 April) devoted to Bartók and Khmer music. The Bartók concert [Saturday 30 March 2013] was held in the very modern and acoustically perfect Ranier III Auditorium, built just under the Garnier Casino and Opera House. Karl-Heinz Steffens conducted the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra. The first part was the Piano Concerto No 3, one of the composer's last works; it was premiered, after his death in 1946, by the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy. The second part was the ballet music for The Wooden Prince. The orchestra is a very professional concern with a rich symphonic program, and each year some five fully staged operas. Karl-Heinz Steffens delved into the score and pianist Elena Bashkirova held an excellent dialogue with the orchestra, especially in the C major second movement. The audience was clearly pleased. Elena Bashkirova plays Bartók's Piano Concerto No 3 at the Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo with Karl-Heinz Steffens and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo. Photo © 2013 Alain Hanel. Click on the image for higher resolution The key to the weekend, though, was the Cambodian music. We attended a concert in the extremely rich Salle Empire and a fully-fledged two-act ballet in the Salle des Étoiles. (Monte Carlo does not lack performing arts spaces.) This is the first European tour since 1906 of the Cambodian Royal Orchestra and Ballet in full formation, although within the last ten years there have been performances by the étoiles. Until thirty years ago, royal Cambodian music was only transmitted by oral tradition; also, as the music was 'sacred', the Khmer Rouge killed most of the musicians and dancers during the period of terror when they were in charge of the country. Under the guidance of a Royal Princess, a patient work of reconstruction has since been carried out. The concert was an anthology of Cambodian music spanning a thousand years. Cambodian musicans at the Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo. Photo © 2013 Alain Hanel. Click on the image for higher resolution The ballet dealt with the birth of the nation, after fierce fights between giants and gods, the supremacy of monotheism and the marriage between a handsome prince and a beautiful semi-goddess. In a way, musically, this was a very modern approach to minimalism with a myriad of micro-variations around a few tonalities -- for example the nearly two hour ballet is a set of micro-variations around F, interwoven with nearly two hundred melodic themes. The instruments are mostly percussive and made from wood. The singers -- a woman and two men -- have very high textures and are kept on acute lines, like countertenors in European seventeenth century court music and more recently in Eotvos and Ligeti operas. The ballet is very stylized and abstract with an important role given to the movements of hands and fingers. The magnificent costumes are embroidered by hand and sewn onto the dancers -- there are neither buttons nor zips -- to make the dancing more elegant. The Royal Ballet of Cambodia. Click on the image for higher resolution The two performances were sold out. The company will also travel to other European towns. Copyright © 5 April 2013 Giuseppe Pennisi, Rome, Italy BELA BARTOK HUNGARY PIANO MUSIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC  << M&V home       Concert reviews        Ensemble 111 >>