Romanian musicians in the Church of Križevnica impressed
The meeting with Romanian musicians is rarer at the Ljubljana Summer Festival than with some others, which depends on the possibilities and opportunities, and the person about the excellence of the musicians themselves. This time it’s 73. Ljubljana Festival came members of the chamber ensemble Traffic Strings, founded by violist and composer Lucian Moraru. In the twenty years of its operation, the ensembles have led to unimaginable results and concerts around the world. The concert was also attended by the Romanian Ambassador to Slovenia, his Excellency Alexander Grădinar.
At the concert in the full Križevniška church, they presented a very diverse program, mostly the arrangements of the founder of the ensemble and the violist himself, a soloist, composer Lucian Moraru, as well as some of his own compositions. His artistic direction is not authoritarian, but at the concert he acts equally or equally with other musicians, as they have enough opportunities to establish themselves.
Moraru’s musical philosophy is the connection of musical traditions, with an emphasis on Romania, its folk songs and music, but with a highlight at the world-famous George Enescu. He takes from a foreign musical treasury what suits him as an arranger, from Antonio Vivaldi to Erik Satie, or even more surprising Geronimo Gimenez, Baden Powell, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard… to Chick Corea. Its goal is to create a rich concert program full of content and contrasts, variability and attractiveness, implementation complexity and many virtuosity. A special feature is the combination of strings with discreet accompaniment of the piano and percussionist, and as a highlight the independent solo role of the performer of many solos on reeds, as we translate a pan’s flute or flute. Soloist Vasile Răducu had two on stage: smaller or higher intoned black and lower yellow. The current performer replaced the previous legendary Gheorghe Zamfir.
The Baroque solo violin concerts in the Four Seasons of the Year series by Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) are one of the first examples of so-called programme music – a musical work based on extra-musical content. Each concert is accompanied by a sonnet and music clearly reflects the content of the song and soundly illustrates certain phenomena and scenes in nature throughout the year, while evoking different emotional moods. Thus, Presto, the third sentence of the Concert in g minor, called Summer, is a picturesque display of a violent summer storm. The solo phrases of the violin, alternating with ensemble rythornells, were replaced by a special sound of the pan’s flute or reed in the adaptation of Lucian Moraru, the author of all adaptations at the Ljubljana programme.” (From Helena Filipčič Gardina program).
Listening only to the sentence Presto showed Moraru’s arrangement principle, which denied the violin an equal meaning or the ability to play the reeds with the same virtuosity, so it was a combination of the salt of the first violin of Mircea Grigore Lazăr in dialogue with a more complementary role of reeds. If we expected the replacement of violin salt with the solo pan flute, this was not the case in the literal transfer or arrangement, so the introductory Vivaldi was more illustration of the possible, rather than achieved. A musical experiment.
In the 19 th century, zarzuela flourished in Spain, a type of Spanish music-theatre genre that began in the 17 th century. Luis Alonso’s wedding was married to Gerónim Giménez (1854–1923) about the events of the wedding day of the dancer Luis Alonso, who was first staged in 1897. Her most famous point is probably the lively Intermezzo,, which brings the intertwining of several typical Spanish dances and has a brilliant effect with an attractive melody, full-blooded rhythm in a fast pace and a colorful atmosphere of the Spanish seal. (From the program).
Traffic Strings immediately continued with the melos of one of the most attractive music cultures in the world – Spanish. Here, the leader of the ensemble, violist and arranger Lucian Moraru showed himself in all his skill, which is based on the great for them, a sense of the right choice, style, for his diversity and the engagement of all his musicians. The emphasis was on Spanish rhythm, melos, dance, with solo reeds in giving the leading and most famous melody. Immediately, after Vivaldi, it turned out that the whole evening will be attractive to the power and unusual for the audience.
The program continued with rugged South American music. We heard the Afro-Brazilian rhythmic song Consolação, which brings evocative melodics during a variety of rhythms. The work is known in a wide variety of ensembles, originally written by the virtuoso Brazilian guitarist and creator Baden Powell (de Aquino) (1937–2000), who impressed the audience around the world with his recognizable style. From Uruguay comes one of the most famous tangos of La cumparsita, which exists in many arrangements. He is one of the first compositions of Gerard Matos Rodríguez (1897–1948); he wrote it for the piano even in his student years (he soon abandoned his studies of architecture) and presented it to Robert Firp, the head of the orchestra at his father’s cabaret in Montevideo. He added a few of his own taps to the work and baptized him and recorded it first. (From the program).
Moving from Spain to Brazil and a completely different Uruguay immediately showed a rich expression of both compositions. Consolação could be translated as Consolation. There are many different sols, the most weeping reeds, the discreet piano and the pounding, the solo of the first violin, the solo viola, the rather felt pizzicates, the whole rich expressiveness, the jazz… In a few strokes you hear maybe even Gershwin and his Summertime? We admired the ability of a stylish musical adaptation of the performers.
La cumparsita showed tango as a basic melody and dance rhythm, which immediately means all the essential energy of the performance, with solo reeds, the passage of salt from the violin to the viola, then the cello on the double bass, again the reeds and the viola in the jazz style. In the entire sound ambience, you can not avoid the impression that it is even some kind of cafe, of course noble music.
The concert programme also presents some of the original works of the initiator of the Traffic Strings by Lucian Moraru (1963), who is also her violist. He was educated in his home country of Romania and studied chamber music in the Netherlands and England, and later studied law. He was a member of the Philharmonic Orchestra of George Enescu in Bucharest and appeared in solo and chamber ensembles. In addition to concerts, he is involved in composing and arranging, studio music production and producing various music events and television shows.
First, the Moraru suite of Borșa, inspired by the folk tradition of the land of Maramures in the far north of Romania, sounded. After the initial awakening with the melody, the musical fabric is transformed into various lively dance rhythms.
The composition of the Faculty of Law was written by Moraru on the occasion of the 160th anniversary of the Faculty of Law of the University of Bucharest. The composer wants to convey the atmosphere in the institution, his feelings and experience while walking through one of the oldest faculties in his home country (where he himself graduated). The sound of the song oscillates between the solemn, the mysterious, the restless and the citation of the song Gaudeamus with a triumphant mood. Moraru also created the Wreath, in which he combines various well-known works, such as the jazz standard of Paul Desmond Take Five, the Romanian acclaimed song Cine iubește și lasă, the titled composition of the movie Mission: Impossible.
The last original work of Lucian Moraru on tonight’s program is the jazz-colored Improvisation on the theme of Erik Satie, in which the composer borrowed Satie’s piano composition Gnossienne No. 1 as the basis, which is pervaded by the melancholic melos in experimenting with rhythm and harmony. (From the program).
In all these compositions, Lucian Moraru showed his original compositional temperament – in the announcement of the Faculty of Law we did not expect a jubilee composition – an insight into the recent and contemporary music world, from which he does not want to draw the most pleasing foreign melodies, because of course he would immediately encounter copyrights. He can only draw these motifs, which are attractive to the listeners, and put the performers themselves on the international music scene as cosmopolitans.
Originally rhythmically rich and harmoniously complex are jazz standards of improvisational nature, which Moraru transformed in the version for the Traffic Strings. The author of Footprints is an award-winning outstanding American jazz saxophonist, improviser and composer Wayne Shorter (1933–2023). From 1964 to 1970, he participated in the quintet of Miles Davies, then co-founded the Weather Report, and also created a solo career, as a leader of bands and in collaboration with many musicians such as Carlos Santana. The song Mala Sončnica was created by American jazz trumpet player Freddie Hubbard (1938–2008), who collaborated with Shorter for several years, as well as with many renowned musicians and bands, as well as in several of his jazz bands.
We were again witnessing an excellent readiness for the concert at 73. Ljubljana Festival, as we experienced, for example, with the Koreans, Munichers in a good week, less with the Italians. It’s amazing how the differences are when you follow the festival and experience the musical identity of all the performers. It should be said that these days – surprisingly – we have seen at least two exceptional Romanian musicians on stage – violinist Lorenzo Nasturico – Herschchowici and violist Luciano Moraru.
With the adaptation of Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, Op. 11, the performers paid tribute to their homeland and the most important Romanian musician George Enescu (1881–1955). At the age of seven, he became the youngest student of the Vienna Conservatory and was educated at the Paris Conservatory. He established himself as a virtuoso violinist, conductor (especially in the USA and repeatedly leading the New York Philharmonic), a respected violin professor (among his students are Yehudi Menuhin, Ivry Gitlis, Uto Ughi), he also worked as a pianist and composer. (From the program).
Romanian Rapsody No. 1 in A major was written by Enescu for the Symphony Orchestra of only nineteen years old and published in Opus No. 11 in 1901 together with Romanian Rhapsody No. 2 in D Major. The more famous First Rhapsody begins gently and melodiously by summarizing the motifs of the famous Romanian folk song; further in the composition, the composer quotes some melodies from the Romanian folk treasury. The composition, which bursts in a fiery dance charge, gradually virtuosically intensifies its pace and sound density all the way to the thunderous culmination, followed only by a brief calm before the forceful conclusion. (From the program).
You immediately recognize Enescu as a grandmaster. In the arrangement of the Romanian Rhapsody, Moraru gave the opportunity to all his strings, especially in the intertwining of all among themselves, his salt and duets, noble intertwining, which proved to be a real wave. Although the melodies are folk, without a great composer there is no real image. We feel excellence, gypsyism, ethno melodies, ever faster pace, but also the length of the song, which eventually calms down and ends soundly energetically.
The concert programme was rounded off by an adaptation of the jazz standard Spain by the famous jazz pianist and imaginative creator Chick Corea (1941–2021), real name Armando Anthony Corea. From a young age, he was surrounded by jazz, and he began his successful musical career in the 60s of the 20th century and received a total of 27 Grammy Awards and more than 70 nominations for this award. Spain was written by Corea in 1971 and recorded in several versions. The introductory theme is taken from the initial staks of the phrase Adagio of the famous concert for guitar and orchestra Aranjeesh concert by the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrig; in the continuation, the composition of the lush rhythms is vividly infused in the improvisational manner of playing with recognizable motifs. (From the program).
Here we experienced a real Spanish atmosphere, enriched with jazz, solo with reeds, an introductory solo of viola, a supplement to the famous melody with other strings, an increasingly luxurious and finally even more pronounced Spanish melody with a lot of syncoped and dance music.
They thanked the enthusiastic audience with an extremely attractive composition of the Romanian Caprice Romanian Lucian Moraru, in which everyone showed their virtuosity, especially the violist and composer Moraru, and on the reeds of Vasile Răducu, who crossed and complemented each other as soloists, with the reeds ringing as a cuckoo and a nightingale. We have seen a real explosion of a rich, we can say extraordinary Romanian musical identity.
Marijan Zlobec
