There is a great film directed by the Dane Lars von Trier called ‘Melancholy’ and whose protagonist is a planet that is going to collide with the earth, as it finally does. In it the last days of the characters who play it are lived out. It makes us reflect on what we would do or not do if we were in that situation. Currentzis he directs and his musicians The musicaetersmostly Russians, play as if the planet Melancholy were going to collide tomorrow and they were in front of their last concert. Without being at the level of the great European orchestras of the first row, what we do guess and love about Musicaeterna is the risk of going to the limit and on the brink of a catastrophe that never happens, a trademark of the Russian orchestras, like the Mariinsky, although the latter, more veteran, at another level.
The second visit of russian directorborn in Greece, Teodor Currentzis to our city, the first to the Palau de la Música, practically full the Iturbi room in a non-subscription concert. Twelve years ago he directed the opera Iolanta in a concert version at Les Arts to the hosts of the Teatro Real in Madrid. In 2024 the aura of Currentzis is even bigger and there are many young people from outside our country. Double joy. Such is the magnetism that surrounds this director that despite or perhaps because of his heterodoxy, because of his wandering around the edges, he is a breath of fresh air in the constricted world of classical music that, it must also be said, owes part of his success to a certain “indisputable” ceremonial that is accepted and is not questioned, nor should it be.
When at most the current directors give one tip, Currentzis gives us two. If the same thing happens with the soloists, the person appearing on this occasion, the Italian cellist Miriam Prandioffers two, obviously at the teacher’s direction. Cellist who then sat at the first stands to perform Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony with the orchestra. As if that were not enough, it was performed with the standing string, obviously except for the cellos, as if it were a baroque ensemble. The reason for this “occurrence” is unknown to me. Likewise, in the scherzo of the symphony the excellent flute of the ensemble rises from its seat to perform its standing solo, something that sometimes happens in works such as Gustav Mahler’s Titan symphony with the horns, but by indication of the score. With Currentzis everything is different.
The concert began without stopping applause who received the vampiric and kilometric figure of Currentzis, dressed in very tight pants and a shirt, both black. Outfit that I find myself unable to describe due to my manifest lack of knowledge in matters of cutting and sewing. The general proposal of the Russian maestro with his orchestra seems to me to be one of the great findings of the classical music of recent times and represents a heterodoxy that far from alienating the public, what it has achieved is attracting new music lovers even from other areas of music. In addition to an intelligent way of being present in such a competitive world of orchestras and conductors who base their careers on a repertoire that we cannot deny that, no matter how extraordinary and broad it may be, it is repeated over and over again in thousands of venues. Currentzis has to maintain a project very personalambitious, who has come to stay in a complicated world, searching and finding what is different not so much in the repertoire but in the way of approaching it. I don’t know what it must be like to manage the day-to-day life, for each of your musicians, with such an intense character in everything, but as a music lover I am clear that “more Currentzis” are necessary.
Musically, curiously, perhaps the reading that, due to its extreme nature, gave the most people to talk about was that of the opening of the Forza of the destinationscore of just over seven minutes. Tremendous intensity and violence, possibly unprecedented in the interpretive literature of this memorable verdian sheet music. We wanted to continue the rest of the opera just to see how events would unfold. There are things that you hear once and you know that you are not going to repeat them again, like that Cavallería Rusticana by Maazel in les Arts of extreme slowness. Almost impossible readings, and that’s how we are left: in one piece.
The most questionable part of the afternoon would come in some Rococo Variations in which the soloist, first cello of the orchestra, offered a correct reading without further ado, since in her task she was not always able to apply to the instrument the high technical abilities that this requires. exquisite and naked work. Flight was missing, and grace. Everything was too static and giving prominence to a soloist for whom perhaps this score was a little too big for her since there were problems even with the tuning. The applause was intense and many bravos were heard, which gave rise to a couple of interesting readings of works outside the Latvian program Peter Vasks and from the Sicilian Giovanni Solima.
There was a lot of expectation for what was to come, because if the Fifth Symphony of Dmitri Shostakóvich It represents an epitome in terms of intensity, in the hands of Currentzis and Musicaeterna anything could happen. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, but you could certainly hear a memorable reading and for moments of enormous emotional intensity. If with the overture of La Forza Currentzis wanted to leave his indelible mark, with Shostakovich he bowed more to what was masterfully written by the Russian composer since the score already contains a tension that does not need to be exaggerated.
As happens with great conductors and orchestras that they have owned for a long time, they become extensions of their minds and live parts of their hands. Currentzis, who is known for the endless sessions to which he subjects his “beloved” musicians to achieve a miraculous pianissimo, or whatever the moment demands in his personal universe, however, creates the magic of being “manufacturing” right there, in the concert, the music or rather the interpretation of the music, personally addressing each of the music stands with his endless arms as if he had “something personal to settle” with his musicians.
Much more could be written about what was experienced throughout this Quinta, but space does not allow it. extreme drama in the first movement and phantasmagoria in the march without falling into an imposed excess. The Allegretto was as macabre as expected, the Largo plunged us into a depressive state with the consequent anticlimax, and the final Allegro non troppo led us down a descent, without brakes, until the great coda that in this case Currentzis sought to recreate by slowing down. the tempo set by the timpani, although again without falling into decibel nonsense. Finally, it must be said that among the horns was the Valencian Jairo Gimeno.
The room literally fell when the last of the tremendousblows of lead of the coda. The two tips were two thrilling readings, with the winds standing on the rope, of Capulets and Montagues and the Death of Tybalt and both of suites 1 and 2 of Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet. After that, delirium, ecstasy, and until next time, hopefully not too late.
Artistic record
Thursday October 10
Palau de la Música de Valencia
Works by Verdi, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich
Miriam Prandi, cello
Musicaeterna Orchestra
Teodor Currentzis, musical director
