Your review : OPL – Repin
This is the second review written by someone of the audience. This time, Fulgencio shares his opinion on Saturdays concert with the OPL and Vadim Repin.
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Two Spanish-related works in the program, Alborada del gracioso from Maurice Ravel, Symphonie Spagnole from Édouard Lalo - would that mean that I should feel like at home? Difficult to say so, since at the useful backstage presentation I could not find any detail which reminded me where I come from. Yet it is true that both Lalo and Ravel hardly crossed the Pyrenees, and their ancestors were from the Basque Country or Catalonia, far from any Andalusian roots.
Anyway, it is well known that they were thinking of Spain, its music and even its musicians. Ricard Viñes, a catalan pianist, premiered several works from Ravel, Miroirs and Pavane pour une infante défunte between them. Lalo composed for Pablo de Sarasate, violinist from Pamplona. Another name is missing (so missing that one could not stop thinking about him): Bizet presented Carmen about the same time than the Symphonie. So there was a Spanish trend in France at the end of the 19th century, and Picasso and other artists living in Paris were part of it. The Spanish music, complex as many nationalities have lived during centuries under this name, is not the same concept than the music composed thinking about a certain Spanish knowledge, called the Hispanisme, famous in France as mentioned.
Call me skeptical, but I am afraid I had some concerns before listening the Symphonie. However, Vadim Repin and the OPL forced me to overcome them. Their warm, delightful music was not only on my ears, but far from my brain, deep on me. Of course, I was not aware of it; my mind was digressing, trying to find the memories somewhere else. And suddenly, it shown up on my mind, an old tape of Concha Piquer, played at home when I was a kid. Of course, ages do not match, but it was the same... feeling. The same music origin: la copla.
I had listened to many other orchestras, probably more famous, perhaps technically irreproachable, cold, and they were not even close to what OPL made me remember. Mr Repin was a plus, not every day we have the opportunity to enjoy one of the best musicians in the world. After his performance, applause made him return to play another piece. "Play" is twice accurate, he was able to transform the violin into an extension of his hands, and leave us with the mouth open. Amazing. (I saw some other violinists in the OPL who thought the same.)
Back on the program, Miroirs is my favorite work from Ravel, but I had never listen the concert form. In piano, it is a delightful piece, playful and with several stories in it, like an old toy. In concert, it took me some time to get used to. The pizzicato from violins was, in my opinion, the only part alike; after that, I mostly waited for differences of versions rather than enjoyed it. I must admit that, when I went back home, I had to listen to the piano version again. Ravel himself transposed the piano score to the orchestral one, fourteen years after the first. The result was different. Too different.
After a short break in which Mr Repin signed several CDs, it came the Concerto pour orchestre by Béla Bartók. This is the kind of music that it is very difficult to listen on a record. Actually, it starts with all double basses playing alone. And there were even darker fragments, along with cheery ones. Here there were no doubts: I felt like in a forest, with a river and the wind on the trees, birds and bears, ducks and cats, and a whole family of ants running around. You can think which instrument was each animal or forest sound. Was it a place in Central Europe? Well, that is the magic of music: everyone can invent and feel her own story.
-- Fulgencio Sanmartin
