José Navarro Silberstein – Vibrant Rhythms – GENUIN

by | Feb 23, 2024 | Classical CD Reviews | 0 comments

VIBRANT RHYTHMS = GINASTERA: Suite de Danzas Criollas; VILLA-LOBOS: Ciclo brasiliero; SANDI: Ritmos panteisticas; SCHUMANN: Davidsbündlertänze – José Navarro Silberstein, piano – GENUIN GEN 23865 (7/24/23) (69:16) [Distr. by Naxos] ****

Bolivian pianist José Navarro Silberstein, a pupil of Paul Badura-Skoda, organized this program of folk and artistic dances on July 21, 2022 for recording at the Festburgkirche in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. In this recital of richly alternating pulses, rhythms, and polyrhythms, the music of Schumann confronts 20th century compositions from South America. Silberstein feels that although his selections may not elicit dancing, per se, the hybrid blending of styles produces “something very new and exciting.”

Silberstein opens with the Argentinian Alberto Ginastera’s 1946 Creole Dance Suite, composed in New York City, where he found support from a Guggenheim Fellowship. Ginastera revised the score in 1956. The five dances, set in Italian tempo indications, suggest the composer’s seeking a more global style by the 1940s, less blatantly nationalistic in the application of thematic materials. Even so, several South American dance styles emerge: zamba, chacarera, and malambo. In a gentle 6/8, the Adagietto pianissimo remains true to its sempre pp designation, a tender invocation to romance.  Allegro rustico, extremely brief, unleashes a more savage energy, close in spirit to Bartok and Villa-Lobos. Allegretto cantabile may owe sonorous debts to Debussy, cross-fertilized by Schumann. The harmonies of the fourth piece, Calmo e poetico, resonate with hues from Stravinsky, though the effects of a strummed guitar suggest Falla. The last of the set, Scherzando – Coda. Presto ed energico explodes in gaudy colors and jagged metrics, insistent and dissonantly propulsive. Perhaps an unruly impulse from the Prokofiev Seventh Sonata finale is not so distant.

Heitor Villa-Lobos had returned to his native Brazil in the early 1930s after a prolonged sojourn in Paris, where his meeting with guitar virtuoso Andres Segovia and composer Darius Milhaud proved consequential to his own style. The four pieces of the 1937 Ciclo brasiliero depict various regions of Brazil, using sonorous elements from Debussy, Stravinsky, and Prokofiev, all fellow denizens of Paris before and after WW I. Villa-Lobos restricts his canto to the singing tenor part, against a polyrhythmic accompaniment, beginning with his florid “Plantio do caboclo,” in G♭, quite luxurious by way of Silberstein’s legato. The No. 2 in C# minor, “Impressões seresteiras,” becomes an extended hybrid, nocturne and étude, all the while in waltz tempo. Pianist Silberstein suggests the bass harmonies evoke a forro trio, consisting of a large bass drum (zabumba), a triangle, and an accordion or harmonica, in their respective, percussive or lyrical capacity. From small, metric units, the No. 3 in C Major, “Festa no sertão,” reverberates with vibrant, rhythmically percussive energies, especially in quick, repeated notes and double notes, a Brazilian toccata. The last of set, “Dança do índio branco,” has a dark A minor color, its northeastern Brazil roots pulsating in fiendish, polyrhythmic motives blended at lightning speed, a virtuoso tour de force.

The music of Bolivian composer Marvin Sandi (1938–1968) sought to incorporate indigenous, often ancient, dance impulses of his homeland, using the meeting place of El Pompón in the town of Potosi as his prime source to notate rhythms.  Given Sandi’s interest in polytonality and serial technique, he fashioned a kaleidoscopic, variegated style he termed “pantheistic,” in order to invoke a sense of natural, primal energy. His Pantheistic Rhythms dates from 1958 and proceeds in four, short movements. The first of the set, “de la roca,” proceeds in appropriately sturdy, percussive chords. The second, “de la luz,” contrasts immediately with salon-style, gently dissonant progressions that suggest a reflective moment. Even more askew harmonically, “de la luna” at first plays as a march, but its character becomes dizzily scherzando in the manner of Prokofiev. Just as suddenly, the gloomy march returns to end the piece. The most overtly virtuosic of the four miniatures, the manic “del sexo,” would suggest the libidinous impulse cannot be controlled, so the briefer the encounter, the better.

Robert Schumann conceived his 1837 suite of 18 pieces, his Davidsbündlertänze, as homage to his future wife, Clara Wieck, whose own Mazurka, op. 6 provides the impetus for a cycle devoted to members of the “Davids-League,” spiritual companions in the battle against cultural philistinism and the celebration of mediocrity. The series may then be perceived as “tempi of initiation” into the mysteries of Schumann’s idiosyncratic Romanticism and as a series of dialogues between Schumann’s impulsive, passionate character, “Florestan,” and his dreamy, reflective counterpart, “Eusebius.”  For this performance, pianist Silberstein combines aspects of the Schumann original edition and the slightly later edition, thus freeing his own sense of spontaneity, given the composer’s assertion that the suite embodies a Polterabend, a pre-wedding evening’s gathering.

After the initial. G major entry, Lebhaft, a crucial moment comes early, marked Innig, in B Minor, a mood that will return in No. 17 “As if from afar,” in its lyrical melancholy. In the course of his survey of these crucial elements of the Schumann sensibility, pianist Silberstein reveals his unbridled affection for the suite, as in his brisk rendition of the No. 4 Ungeduldig, a vision of impatience. He transforms the metrics of No. 5, the D major Einfach, into a charming gavotte. The No. 6 proceeds according to the second edition, Molto vivo. That in G minor, No. 7, reverts to the demands of the first edition, “Not fast, with very great feeling,” thus achieving the effect of a sectionalized nocturne. My personal favorite, Frisch in C Minor, enjoys a marvelous, thrusting energy. Its parallel major opposite, No. 8, Lebhaft, becomes thick with resonant stretti. Florestan’s passionate outburst at half-way point, No. 9, Balladenmäßig sehr rasch, asserts itself in “literary” terms, especially poignant here in D minor.

The second half proceeds with the same enthusiasm in contrasting impulses, with an epic delivery for Wild und lustig, itself a confrontation between the modes of B, as the two alter-egos converge. Silberstein’s playing reminds us of Schumann’s reliance of fairy-tale marches, märchen, that convey a visual or moral narrative in the figurations. Dragonfly transparency marks No. 14, Zart und singend in E♭ major. Silberstein plays No. 15, Frisch, in virtually Lisztian terms, a deep, romantic aura cast over the moment. The somewhat schizoid Mit guten humor segues seamlessly into the aforementioned Wie aus der Ferne, with its inward reminiscence, now more poignant. Finally, we conclude in the safe confines of C major for an epilogue, Nicht schnell, that smiles benevolently in the form of a delicate waltz.

—Gary Lemco

Vibrant Rhythms

GINASTERA: Suite de Danzas Criollas, Op. 15.
VILLA-LOBOS: Ciclo brasiliero, W 374;
SANDI: Ritmos panteisticas, Op. 1a;
SCHUMANN: Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6

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Album Cover for Navarro-Silberstein, Vibrant Rhythms




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