The Experimental Center of the Teatro Colón, directed by Diana Theocharidis, started its 2023 season with a tribute concert to Gerardo Gandiniten years after his death.

Under the musical direction of Haydée Schvartz, the concert opened Gandini pointa proposal from the Theater to keep remembering the legacy of the composer throughout the year, whose centrality in Argentine music is essential.

A particular emotional charge has gone through the homage. The ceremony began with Gandini’s daughters Alejandra and Alina unveiling the plaque in their father’s honor.invited by the general and artistic director of the theater Jorge Telerman, together with the Minister of Culture of the city, Enrique Avogadro.

The room of the Centro di Sperimentazione, where the composer founded in the 90s, a space for experimental creation when the floors were still a mixture of earth and sand, it now bears his name.

The program

The first of the two programs that punctuate the homage (repeat tomorrow; the second program, Saturday and Sunday), opens with Rsch: Scene-Eusebio for piano and ensemble, and closes with Eusebius II (2006) for piano. eusebiusas Pablo Gianera wrote in the program notes, it can be understood as a manifesto of the composer’s method.

A method with which Gandini rediscovers an expressive dimension in the aesthetics of the past, in particular the music of Robert Schumann, and applies completely original procedures, such as filtering and patchwork techniques.

With an absolutely personal voice, Gandini has created a musical poetry as unique as its links with the intertextuality and uses of music of the past, rejected by the avant-garde to which he once adhered.

Pablo Ortiz and Marcelo Delgado, with different poetics but rooted in dialogue with other music, paid homage to their master with two previews, both commissioned by the CETC. The pieces were written for the ensemble of the Tropi Ensemble, composed by Florencia Ciaffone on violin, Sebastián Tellado on flute, Constancia Moroni on clarinet, Juan Zubiaurre on cello, Malena Levin on piano, Manuel Moreno on guitar, Juan Denari on percussion and Haydée Schvartz. , piano.

Inside Requiem for GerryOrtiz has made free versions of various issues of a Requiem from 1605, by Tomás Luis de la Victoria. The friction between past and present felt like a beautiful estrangement. A rough texture, with a soft sound, started the evolution of the piece, interrupted by short cadenzas for each instrument of the ensemble. A strongly lyrical piano cadenza closed the work, with the quotation from the waltz The Cherry Garden.

Delgado speaks formally in his own nocturnal zenith with the Sonata Vby Gandini. They share the same symmetrical structure, but instead of 23 parts there are 11 short segments. In the central section, the one that gives the work its name, the musicians whisper some lines of the poem Zenithby Juan Ramon Jimenez. A progressive intensification of the instrumental gestures moves the poetic impulse, and the transition from one section to another takes place masterfully.

The piece closes with a nice coda, taken from the beginning of Song of dawnby Mario Lavista.

Gandini could not have had a better exegete than Federico Monjeau, an exceptional interlocutor for the music of his time, to whom the composer dedicated his second Sonata. It is equally difficult to imagine a better interpreter for the work of Haydée Schvartz, who with her formal clarity and her prodigious sonority has offered an exceptional version.

Something similar happened with Eusebius II, piece dedicated to the pianist.

In the weight and volume of the melodies with which the brass quintet loaded itself in the arrangements of the Subtangos –I…Mareadísimos II…remembering AP–, Gandini’s humor showed. The version sounded terrific with the quintet consisting of Pablo Fenoglio (trombone and conductor), Valentín Garvié (trumpet 1), María Florencia Díaz (trumpet 2), Fernando Chiappero, (horn), Pedro Pulzován (tuba), and Schvartz on piano.

Outside the program it was heard Tristán’s Lament: funeral ceremony for Erik Satie (Although appearing as an Argentine premiere, the opera has been reproduced at least 10 times). In the remote dialogue between two pianos, the stupendous duo between Schvartz and Malena Levin -later added by clarinet, violin and guitar behind the scenes- Gandini’s voice was incorporated (it is not in the original work), his enumeration of the white Satie’s favorite foods playing over the speakers elicited a few smiles.

Gonzalo Córdova’s excellent setting provided the right climate for a celebration that was due to the awardee.

File

Gandini on stage, opening of the 2023 concert season, CETC

Qualification: Very good

Performers: Too many complex

Musical direction: Haydee Schvartz

Staging, space and lighting: Gonzalo Córdoba

Program I: RSCH: Scene-Eusebio (Gandini); Requiem for Gerry (Pablo Ortiz); nocturnal zenith (Marcello Delgado); Sonata no. 2 (Gandini); subtango (Gandini), Tristán’s Lament: funeral ceremony for Erik Satie (Gandini).

Room: Gerardo Gandini, March 22, CECT

Functions: 23 and 25 March, at 8.00 pm Sunday 26, at 5.00 pm