The Reading Tasso Project

March 2, 2015 / 9,579 comments

Marco Beasley, voice

Cecilia Radic, cello

‘An apparent distance’ is perhaps what best describes our new project which combines poetry, music and singing. The human voice and the instrument with a human voice together in an unconventional performance.

We have associated very different historical times to keep alive the connection that makes every form of art the highest expression of human passions and sufferings.

In Recitare Tasso, music underpins the spoken word, but traces an oblique path towards the verses not only from a timing perspective but, inevitably, at an interpretational level. Although the two means of expression appear distant from one another, they have a common denominator – the quest for re-creating the feelings and turmoils within each of us.

Reger, Britten, Gubaidulina, Weinberg and Morini are composers who use a modern language but convey eternal emotions. In our programme, the poet’s verses create an emotional tapestry for the cello’s voice, with surprising results. Centuries that are far apart blend into a contemporary dialogue.

Recitare Tasso combines twentieth century and contemporary cello solo repertoire, a relatively unfrequent choice in concert halls, with the poetry and prose of Torquato Tasso, a literary achievement that is too often relegated to schools and universities. A story of rediscovery whose aim is to draw the listener away from the noise of modernity, and closer to forgotten authors who cry out to the depths of who we are.

 

The JustCello Project

March 2, 2015 / no comments

One instrument. Solo. Over two centuries of music and a tribute to the string instrument with the gift of the human voice.

A journey from Bach’s polyphony to Max Reger’s late romantic reinvention of the suite, all the way to the lesser known Weinberg, whose music brings to us today the turmoil of the twentieth century.   

Three distinct styles through which the cello touches the most profound human emotions.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)     Suite in D minor BWV 1008

Max Reger (1873-1916)     Suite in D minor op. 131 no.2

Miecyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996)     Sonata for cello solo no.1

The Estrio2017 Project

March 2, 2015 / no comments

“..technically excellent musicians and artists capable of both unsettling and relaxing, playing under the name of Estrio: solidity and imagination, culture and instinct in the beauty of sound…” (Lorenzo Arruga)

 

 

 

F.Mendelssohn

Trio in re min op.49

Trio in do min. op 66

 

 

 

Women in music

 

Clara Wieck Schumann     Trio

Germaine Tailleferre         Trio

Fanny Mendelssohn           Trio op. 11

 

 

 

The Cello & Piano Project

March 2, 2015 / no comments

A program which highlights the red thread running through three musical cultures as diverse as the German, the Polish and the Italian one. Three human paths paved with fascinating and tragic experiences.

 

Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968)            Sonata for cello and piano op. 50

Miecyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996)             Sonata n. 2 for cello and piano

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)                Sonata n.2 in re maggiore

 

With Gloria D’Atri, piano

 

‘Sonatas’

Two very different composers reimagining the same stirring musical form – the cello and piano sonata. Two languages which are far more different than the 18 years between them would lead us to imagine.

 

Richard Strauss (1864-1946)                     Sonata for cello and piano in f major op. 6 

Sergej Rachmaninov (1873-1943)             Sonata for cello and piano op. 19