Creations 2012
Back from Abyssinia
Melothesia Æthiopica
Might one imagine that an organ, after leaving Lisbon c.1600 was transported by boat and on camelback to deepest Abyssinia?! That violas da gamba resonated in the Kingdom of Prester John?! That one still finds the church built by the Jesuit fathers near the sources of the Blue Nile, during the period when Emperor Susenyos of Ethiopia secretly converted to Catholicism? That the greatest 17th-century treatise on composition, published in Rome, contains music in Amharic, the language of the high plateaus of Ethiopia? When the voice of Cyrille Gerstenhaber intertwines Salamnesh‘s voice, we dream about all the melodies that crossed Abyssinia in the 17th century, about the mix of the red ground of high plateau with Murano glass. And when the ebony bodies of dancers Melaku Belay and Zenash Tsegaye, who are becoming the most world-renown Ethiopian artists, free on the Follia of Spain played on viola da gamba, the trance is not far...
10 artists : sopran, 1 Ethiopian singler, 2 Ethiopian dancers, flute, theorbo, viola da gamba, cembalo, massinko, kebero
Schubert Klezmer
Un Viennese café in the 19th century
A Viennese café c.1820: in a corner, musicians are playing. Franz Schubert is conversing with his friend Solomon Sulzer, cantor of a nearby synagogue, and other, less well-known musicians, Jewish or otherwise. Solomon has just been appointed professor at the Imperial Academy. Another friend of Schubert’s, the Czech Václav Matiegka, has brought his latest score. With the musicians of the day, the ‘hits’ of the moment are played and sung, in German or in Yiddish, and adapted when necessary... Der Hirt auf dem Felsen—The Shepherd on the Rock—or a Yiddish Lied... Without being aware of it, they go from one type of music to another. Schubert sits down at the piano and, inspired by the Jewish tunes, improvises... Vienna is the musical capital of a vast, Romantic empire extending far beyond Austria-Hungary... and this empire likes to have fun!
5 musicians : sopran, flute, pianoforte, cello, clarinet
Venice, mirror of the World
Portraits of Mediterranean women
Venice, 17th century. Merchant ships ply the Mediterranean. The old Silk Route is still bringing the riches of the Orient. The Armenians are printing their first books, poetry and music. The Jews, driven out of Spain and Portugal, have arrived with their strange monotonous chants. German composers, the Gypsies of Transylvania, come to study the new music that is being invented every day. Yet from Constantinople, the Ottoman capital conquered by the Venetians, come curious travellers, and Turkish or Persian tunes are published here. The echoes of violas da gamba and lutes answer the far-off voices of mysterious Asia. Portraits of women from the borders of the Mediterranean, who sing the experiences they have been through. They sometimes recall exile, but also celebrations and happiness. The zarb accompany the viola da gamba, the flute goes from major to hijjaz. The stupefying ductility of Cyrille Gerstenhaber‘s voice let her slide from one affect to the other, and from one style to its opposite, from the recitative to the Tarantella. Between two musical moments, Jean-Christophe Frisch puts his flute down, and, thanks to his storyteller talent, pays tribute to the Mediterranean women.
The World is reflected in the canals of La Serenissima.
5 musicians : sopran, flute, theorbo, viola da gamba, drums
The Praise of Folly
A drop falls from the vault into a fountain, at regular intervals. The stone walls resound with the echo. It‘s degree zero of music. A simple pulse, almost mineral. We‘re in Alepo, in Syria. Here, the ones the society consider as mad, are taken care of. They‘re cured with music, which they learn to listen to before playing it themselves. The Bimaristan was built in 1354.
On the other side of the Mediterranean Sea, baroque music stages Madness. The airs are countless, which depict the most extravagant passions, heroines falling into hysteria, nymphs torn between despair, rage and exaltation. Those are the Follia, some call « from Spain », but also the Tarantella or the Saint Vitus' Dance.
These two points of view on Folly set one against the other, jostle together. May the Bimaristan manage to calm down Armide and Didon‘s delirium ? Unless Vivaldi‘s Follia carries the Oriental musicians-therapists into a pulsating dance, more helpful to excite the listeners than to send them to sleep.
5 musiciens : sopran, 2 violins, cello, flutes, santur, qanûn, drums, oud, harpsichord or theorbo
Daphne
on the Wings of the Wind
A world tour in the 17th century that retake the biggests successes of Le Baroque Nomade since its creation : from the Appalachian mountains to the Philippines, from China to India, from Persia to Ethiopia. Le Baroque Nomade‘s best-of.
2 singers and 15 musicians (violas, santur, pipa, harps, flutes from the whole world, oriental and chinese drums, harpsichord, kamancha, etc)
|
|
cyrille gerstenhaber
|
Koto et Vihuela, sushi-tequila
1620, Mexico. Chimalpahin Cuauhtlehuanitzin, noble Aztec, writes his diary in his native language, the nahuatl. He relates the arrival of a Japanese Embassy, which costumes, faces, music, are as stupefying for the Spanish than for the Indians. That Embassy went via Manilla, in the Philippines, goes to Europe. The Emperor of Japan wishes to have a talk with the King of Spain, and he sends a samourai, Tsukenaga Hasekura, over the seas. He‘ll reach Sevilla, France and Roma, before joining the Land of the Rising Sun. He‘ll bring back there a viola da gamba, the most precious of his treasures. During another travel, Jesuits, coming back from Japan, present in Spain young Japanese boys who admirably sing the catholic polyphonies. The purity of their voices delights the cathedrals in Granada or Toledo.
It‘s difficult nowadays to imagine how much the "globalization", cultural and commercial, was running in the 17th century. Mexico was a culturel and economic centre exerting its influence unto Asia and Western Africa, which was a misfortune for African people. Chinese and Javanese, Peruvian and Dutch merchants, Italian adventurer and Portuguese missionaries were to be met there. In Japan, the face to face between viola da gamba and the koto, emblematic instrument of the culture in the archipelago, didn‘t last long, but it left lots of traces in the travellers‘ narrations. We‘ll also dream about music from the spices islands, the Philippines, obligatory step for Spanish people going to Asia, and about the stay in Mexico of Chinese and Japanese musicians.
That story was too astonished for not becoming a tale, in words and in music, but nevertheless everything is true !
7 musicians : sopran, koto, shamisen and lyrics, pipa, viola da gamba, flutes, theorbo, harpsichord |
 |
|
