Symphony
Varsóvia, a passionate tour
The first concert of Sinfonia Varsóvia orchestra's Brazilian tour, on September 23, 1997, at the Municipal Theater, was one of the best symphonic venues of concert season in São Paulo. Under the direction of polish composer Krystof Penderecki, the 47 musicians group interpreted works by Franz Schubert (1797-1831), whose bicentennial this year is commemorated, and the Viennese post-classicism. The concert revealed an orchestra able to play with fire and accuracy sacred works of the repertoire.
The bad side was due to the public, who more and more seemed unwonted with the basic etiquete in concerts. The first was to observe the silence. During the concert people entered and left the theater, occupying vague seats and provoking enormous noise. In the intermission, the festival of coughs sounded mahlerian. The Municipal Theater should control more the seats and to penalize the noisy ones.
The much ado about nothing harmed not so much the Sinfonia Varsóvia. The orchestra reached the excellence point after a 13 years trajectory. When it was in Brazil four years ago, also under Penderecki, at Theater Cultura Artística (São Paulo), showed a cold concert. At that time, the strings are impish, the woods perfect and Penderecki, conducting as never doesh, swinging furiously the baton in the left hand.
The spetacle started with the opening "Egmont " (Op. 84), by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). It was a warming up. The orchestra plays according to the classic precepts of orchestration. The work which public got used to hear in monumental scale sounded discreet, lightly restrained. The classicism got the velvet texture. Penderecki knew how to explore it with perfection. Therefore, the " Concert for violin and orchestra, Op. 61 ", also by Beethoven, gave moments of virtosity, especcially because the italian musician Uto Ughi. This concert was warped as an integration piece among soloist and orchestra, was executed with fidelity to the composer's original ideas. It prevailed the instrumental swinging and the timbristic clarity. It was as if the socre elapsed point to point before the public's eyes. The musicians were applauded and Ughi encored with a Paganini´s capriccio for violin. Again he paid attention on virtuosity, although the rhythm has escaped during the preformance of such a complex piece technically as banal in expression terms.
In t he second part were performed the ' Sinfonieta no. 2 for strings and clarinet ", of Penderecki, and the " Symphony no. 5 [D. 485]", by Shubert. The first work was composed originally for quintet of strings in 1993, as a homage to the schubertian lyricism. The transcription for soloist and orchestra, recently-accomplished, expands the expressive possibilities. It is a neoclassical, tonal work, with disturbing dynamic components. Its five movements uncoil compacted, an originating the other, in an undiscernible thematic trance. The clarinetist Aleksander Románski maintained with high zeal the discussion with the strings, because the piece resembles to move in the thematic conflict and the dialogue between tutti and solos. Penderecki demonstrated the possibility to be subjective and accessible without renouncing to the contemporanity. He proceeded to e a turn to the figurative painting in the composition, recuperating expressive procedures condemned by the contemporary music rigid laws.
Schubert´s "Fifith" was also a homage. Composer remade Mozart´s themes under a more advanced methodological point of view. He used his own modulatory language to construct the progression of themes and metalanguage for Mozart's score. In a certain way, Schubert was already neoclassical during Classicism. While the composers common went to the epigonal language, he already come back to hermeneutic solutions, as if hee translated immediately the pas to the present tense. Once again, the orchestra exhibited passion and concentration. It made the work sound as in a premiére.
The evaluation approach of an orchestra should give attention on the capacity of transforming the dead letter in first audition. The Sinfonia Varsóvia reached that developed apprenticeship in musical execution. Schubert, Beethoven and Penderecki cam up as if they had never appeared before.
Luís Antônio Giron