Reinis Zariņš (Photograph: Andris Sprogis) |
Latvian pianist Reinis Zariņš will probably be performing Olivier Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus, a piece for which he’s turning into identified, on the London Piano Competition, co-Inventive Administrators Charles Owen and Katya Apekisheva, at Kings Place on Sunday 6 October 2024.
Written in 1944 and accomplished shortly after the liberation of Paris, the work premiered in 1945. A two-hour lengthy, 20-movement meditation on the infancy of Jesus, Messiaen’s work has a definite wow issue and it has performed a big position in Reinis’ performing life. Katya Apekisheva heard him taking part in it and was decided to seek out methods to get him to carry out it once more. He’s delighted to be performing it on the London Piano Competition and considerably amazed that the competition has discovered a technique to embrace a recital that consists solely of 1 religiously flavoured piece. He understands how tough programming is these days, so this result’s a landmark achievement!
He first studied the work at Yale, through the Messiaen centenary when the members of his class every realized a few actions. He was given actions 5 and 6, two of the harder ones and these set him on his journey, studying the opposite actions and listening to different pianists performing the work, taking a number of years. He describes it as a completely genius live performance piece, with its two-hour size there’s nothing fairly prefer it. Reinis feels that the thematic association of the work with Messiaen’s use of leitmotifs makes it reasonably like an instrumental opera, which is how he thinks of it, and it’s this hidden narrative which contributes to the work’s impression.
Like Olivier Messiaen, Reinis has synesthesia. Reinis loves the colors in Messiaen’s writing, making it a sensual expertise for him. Messiaen’s later music typically makes use of such complicated chords that the colors he perceives typically combine thickly collectively, diminishing the emotional impression explicit colors have. One other function of the work is Messiaen’s love of nature and birdsong (Messiaen would say that birdsong is the best music of all). Reinis’ lockdown challenge was to study Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux although he has not had an opportunity to carry out it but.
Pianistically, Messiaen writes a number of the most complicated piano writing however Reinis likes a problem, and he additionally likes long-form items. With these longer items, he feels {that a} efficiency turns into a communal expertise as each the viewers and participant go on a journey collectively. Then when a piece like Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus ends might be an affirmation that we’ve got skilled one thing vital. A efficiency could be a catharsis too, if listeners do take part. And Reinis feels that within the work, Messiaen comes near a way of heaven in music, so who wouldn’t need to hear it?
All through the years with this work, Reinis has learn a fantastic deal about it, nevertheless, he by no means got here throughout something investigating the importance that Messiaen wrote the work throughout World Warfare Two.
Nevertheless, the final time Reinis performed it, it was the evening earlier than Russia invaded Ukraine, and within the run as much as that efficiency Reinis, for the primary time, got here throughout an article in regards to the battle context within the genesis of Vingt regards.
It was written through the Paris occupation, however Messiaen doesn’t appear to be reflecting on this. As a substitute, the composer is meditating on wider occasions. Reinis sees Messiaen as being extra brave than in his earlier works, as he has the braveness to analyze the Incarnation in unprecedented depth. Messiaen’s Quartet for the Finish of Time (written 1941) just isn’t, Reinis feels, as multi-faceted work as Vingt Regards. Warfare can convey out the perfect or the worst in individuals; Messiaen, seeing tanks on the streets of Paris, selected to meditate on the occasion that, at the very least in his eyes, has left essentially the most lasting optimistic impact on humankind in historical past, versus the battle that was occurring domestically on the time. And, by doing so, Reinis thinks, Messiaen cared for the survival of our humanness, reasonably than for a slender private acquire.
We are able to all divorce music from its extra-musical context, it would not collapse if we have no idea its title and content material, and certainly Vingt Regards can work like that. Nevertheless, Messiaen was specific that lots of the music was meant to share vital theological truths. It wasn’t written for a mystical or a sensual expertise however to convey rational theological ideas. For Messiaen, considering these might change your life. And once more we come again to the thought of the work being like an instrumental opera. And like an opera, if we take away the plot, what’s left? Good tunes and excessive notes, Reinis feedback. So with out Messiaen’s construction of rational theological thought, the work doesn’t have that means. The theological content material is central, and the work makes a grand arc from first to final, all immediately associated. I used to be to know whether or not Reinis thought we must always sympathise with Messiaen’s tackle Christianity. He feedback that folks take heed to Bach’s Passions and Handel’s Messiah, and these works have a extra specific Christian message than Vingt regards; most individuals in all probability don’t sympathise with the message, however they permit the music to talk to them.
Messiaen wrote Vingt Regards for everybody, not only for Christians, however he assumes his audiences have primary information of the Christian story about Christ’s delivery and demise, and to this important story he provides some easy theological concepts to assist us suppose deeper in regards to the story, and through the interview Reinis demonstrates how Messiaen makes use of musical instruments to create an image of the doctrine of the Trinity. There are lots of different such parts within the work, and a few of them communicate on to everybody, whereas others might be identified solely by the performer.
Messiaen shares these truths with such absolute ardour that it’s onerous to be detached. For Reinis essentially the most memorable actions are the terrifying ones, which make us actually hear, reasonably than the light ones, and he cites the creation of the cosmos which has nothing good about it, placing concern in him as a participant. There isn’t a sentimentality within the work, it’s full-blooded in pleasure and in fearsomeness, at instances wild and excessive.
Messiaen’s Ving Regards is now 80 years previous and must be a traditional, however it isn’t that simple to programme, with Creation and Christmas reflecting the work greatest. It has develop into considered one of his trademark items, generally Reinis performs the entire work, however he additionally programmes separate actions, although some appear extra self-contained than others and he feels that the extra terrifying ones want some kind of context.
One other space of music that Reinis is understood for is espousing works by Latvian composers, each forgotten items and music written for him. Numerous his power is dedicated to Latvian music, with most of his albums together with music by Latvian composers. He tries to incorporate Latvian works in programmes when he’s travelling, however frankly it’s simpler to programme these when he’s in Latvia or one of many Baltic states, as this space appears extra open to contemporary programming. Normally, he feels that the everyday live performance system of giving a up to date or unknown work simply 10% airtime in an in any other case classical programme inevitably makes that work look suspicious, dangerous. Reinis wish to encourage these liable for programming selections to take the danger of trusting their audiences extra and thus enable extra freshness into the live performance corridor, if potential, avoiding political colouring altogether. London Piano Competition appears to be one instance to comply with.
He will get response to Pēteris Vasks‘ music; the composer has a powerful popularity within the West but his music may be very Latvian, not a lot from his use of folklore however as a result of he can translate the Latvian DNA into music [see Reinis disc of Vasks’ music on Ondine]. For Reinis, Vasks has discovered a technique to present the world, by means of his music, the actual great thing about Latvian nature, the actual darkness of Latvian historical past, and even the Latvian archetypes and spirituality.
One other composer that Reinis mentions is Lūcija Garūta (1902-1977), the primary main feminine Latvian composer. She was well-known through the Soviet period, nevertheless her music was censored. Her Piano Concerto from 1952 is an excellent work, Reinis feels, but it was censored by the Soviet authorities just because it was too tragic. Reinis’ 2017 disc on Skani contains Garūta’s Piano Concerto together with solo piano works. He feels that there’s something in her late romantic music that makes her stand aside, and he had numerous enquiries about her music after the recording. One downside was the dearth of availability of her music in fashionable editions, there have been solely both Soviet printed editions or manuscript. However now her music goes out into the world extra.
Reinis Zariņš (Photograph: Aivars Kesteris) |
September sees Reinis performing with violinist Gidon Kremer and the musicians from Kremerata Baltica, and in November he’s in China with violinist Viktoria Mullova, then in December he returns to Trio Palladio (with two different Latvian artists, violinist Eva Bindere and cellist Kristine Blaumane). See Reinis’ web site for full particulars.
The London Piano Competition is at Kings Place from 4 to six October 2024, see web site for particulars.
Reinis Zariņš performs Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus at 12pm on 6 October [further details], and Stephen Johnson give a pre-concert discuss at 11am [further details].
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