Music as a big embrace. The world premiere will be Muscat’s “Summer Dreams” / Article / LSM.lv

Inta Zēgnere: First of all, about your impressions – both about the new composition and Latvia …

Hugo Tick: In fact, both the composition and the feeling of Latvia have one thing in common – it is warmth and sincerity that radiates from people. And that’s what I feel in Arthur’s music – so much love, generosity and a desire to share it all! These are my feelings, which I get here in Latvia, working with Arthur and the chamber orchestra “Kremerata Baltica”.

Lusiana Mancini: It seems to me that this new work is characterized by an inner smile. Although some episodes are dark and dramatic, in the end we come to a hopeful, reassuring mood.

And that is exactly what I experienced in Latvia as well – this openness and security. I hope that the listeners will feel it in the music as well – it’s like a big hug.

I visited Latvia several years ago with the ensemble “L’Arpeggiata”, but it was a very short arrival, and at that time it was winter and snow – although it was very cozy, I did not get to know your kitchen or people. Now, staying here for several days, I can really enjoy it all.

Emilja Dikinson is a very important person for Arthur, but what does her personality and poetry mean to you in relation to Arthur’s music?

Lusiana Mancini: I really like its connection with nature – and I also like to sing about it … Arthur ‘s music is like the weather – I can feel the sun, the rain, the wind and the storm. I can experience the mysterious feeling of morning and evening. The language of the orchestra is so natural that it feels as if I am a poet myself and walking in nature, because Emilija’s poetry is written in a personal person – as if I were walking, speaking, thinking text while walking in nature. In this case, nature is created by an orchestra.

Hugo Tick: I am fascinated by several elements – there is a mystical side and at the same time – naturalness, simplicity. Emilija Dikinson’s poetry is so simple and at the same time so deep! It has come from this earth at the same time, but at the same time transcendental, all-encompassing. Everything seems to be happening here and now – the sun, the earth, but there is also timeliness and the feeling that we are all as one – united.

In Arthur’s music, we experience this feeling – it is the pursuit of timeliness and at the same time – the revelation that it is already present here. And we belong to this infinity that we see in nature. It is very touching.

My colleague once asked you, if you met Baha, what would you ask him? You answered back then – if you met him, you didn’t ask him anything – you just wanted to play with him. I would like to ask a similar question: if you met Emily Dickinson, what would you ask her?

Lusiana Mancini: I read that she lived very lonely and secluded, but she has also been able to grasp the string of humanity: what it really means to be human. And she also talks about it in her poetry – for long.

What I would like to know is, how has she been able to come to the same conclusions as a person living in society, living a completely lonely life?

I am very interested in her journey into her inner world. I would ask her that too.

Hugo TickA: I would like to ask her what the process of creating poems means to her. How she feels when writing poems, because it is the process that leads to catharsis. She expresses herself through poems, but in the process she also transforms herself. Similarly, it happens to us musicians during the game – it is a process that leads to catharsis, to an inner transformation both in us and in those we work with. It happens on a spiritual level.

So I would ask how he enters this spiritual world in the process of writing – whether it is like relief or hard work.

Doesn’t this process apply equally to musicians when you create a work together that has been recorded for a long time, but in fact is reborn every time, and you have to let go every time you are in it?

Hugo Tick: Yes, I think the words written by Emilija are very true, authentic, and every artist, in the face of it in the creative process, strives for the truth. We are all so different, but in the face of art, and now, working with Kremerata and Lucian, we share and express what is in us. We enrich each other, and in this common flight we also change, transform. And what is even more unique and special – that there is a composer in the hall to whom you can ask everything! It’s not like Beethoven, which you can’t know about – exactly how he would have wanted his work to be played. And yet – although the composers are so different, I think that everyone has the curiosity and desire for an experiment, so the work is never finished. I am convinced that if, for example, Chopin or Schuman were here, they would have the same openness to new experiences. This is what I always learn – also in collaboration with Arthur.

Lusiana Mancini: I think that as performers, this is a bit of a journey into the past, because in fact it is already Arthur ‘s interpretation of Emilia’ s poetry.

I have received the language created by Arthur and through his music I am connected with this poetry, and thus I seem to “marry” them both – Emilia and Arthur.

Arthur has taken Emilija’s poetry, created music, but I return to Dickinson through this music.

Lusian, is Arturs Maskats the first Latvian composer you collaborate with?

Lusiana Mancini: Yes though! I don’t focus on contemporary music so often, and it’s very exciting for me – especially because in ancient music I can’t meet its author to ask him anything, so I’m used to understanding the composer and feeling his intentions without asking questions. I don’t ask Arturs any questions either – we just look at each other and smile.

You, Hugo, are in a completely different situation, because your connection with the Baltics is special. You were also in the center of Arvo Pert not long ago.

Hugo TickA: Yes, it was a very special experience, because for the first time in the center of Arvo Perth I played his opus “Tabula rasa” conducted by Ten Kaljust, with whom I love to work – he is a wonderful person. And, of course, meeting Arvo Pert himself and being with him in rehearsals is something very special. I really feel at home in the Baltics – I don’t know why, but that’s the way it is. It is also wonderful to work with Pēteris Vasks, it is a great pleasure to work with these people.

What kind of portrait of Arthur Muscat would you paint in your gallery of Baltic composers?

Hugo Tick: What Luciana has already said – they are amazing, wide landscapes, but with very specific contours, with many contrasts, a lot of tension, but there is never any violence or aggression. As if the eternal engine were moving, and then suddenly stopped. I feel the nuances of this movement – for example, Arthur’s “Concerto grosso”, which we have played a lot, is this dual experience – the contrast between motor movement and inner peace. Also in the new work “Summer Dreams” there is such an empty space, emptiness, vulnerability between the harmonies that you experience as unattainable longings. And then you feel that a solution is coming – the harmonies change, and these seemingly unconnected islands get connected. It’s like walking through the woods – you feel like you’re lost, but then something changes and you start to see connections – see the solution and realize that we have to lose ourselves first to find it. That is my feeling.

Luciana Mancini: I totally agree with that!

Already with the first notes in this work, we come to the mystery. Then follows the dance, there is something magical in it all, delightful. But in the end we come to simplicity and clarity, which is very humble.

It is a humble view in which we are aware of our human limitations. We have gone through chaos, complexity and clarity – although it is not easy at all: complexity remains in the score, but the listeners will not feel it, because they will only perceive this humble simplicity. It’s like Dickinson’s own journey through forests, winds and storms, but in the end we see only her footsteps leading out of the woods.

Hugo Tick: In my opinion, the element of humility is very characteristic and unifying for Arthur, Peter Vasks and Arvo Pert. In their works, every note is true and appealing, there is never a show, never a search or show of self-interest – there is always a true and unadulterated revelation.

There are so many works dedicated to the summer in the works of various composers, but a very strong element in Arthur’s “Summer Dreams” is the melancholy that is accepted and accepted.

Lusiana Mancini: And there is hope in this reception.

There is a feeling that everything will be fine. This is by no means a depressing message – neither in text nor in music. In conclusion, I find comfort.

Hugo Tick: It’s like a soothing summer balm …

Artur, and what are your feelings the moment before the premiere?

Arturs Maskats: I am inexpressibly moved and very happy to work with these wonderful artists – every day in the rehearsal process brings a surprise, because they are absolutely dedicated and brilliant, both in their field and as agreed in the ensemble with “Kremerata”.

For me, this work means a lot internally – many experiences and feelings that have been both this summer and thinking about Dickinson’s poetry, which I did not approach for the first time.

Here are four of Dickinson’s poems that seemed very important to me – they are about the mystique of nature and its projection on the human soul, his experience in unity with nature, in unity with summer, which is a special image for Dickinson. I don’t know how it all came together – in the concert we will be able to hear and feel how we managed it together. I am also very pleased that, in these special circumstances, both artists were able to come, although there were many different obstacles and the possibility that they would not come.

So I look up somewhere and say, “Thank you, Emily!” It seems to me that she is involved.

And what would you ask Emilia if she met her? Although you already have quite a well-developed relationship …

Arturs MaskatsA: I don’t know if they’re groomed, but in any case I wouldn’t be afraid of her at all and could ask for anything. I feel like I feel this man, her muse and feelings somehow very, very close. I have also been to her home. It’s about 150 kilometers from Boston, the legendary town where she spent her entire life without going much further. She also lived there in nature. About ten years ago I was taken there by Dace Aperāne, and apparently that impression was so huge …

What would I ask her? Something very, very personal and intimate.

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