Anaïs Nin | De Staat by Cristina Zavalloni

Louis Andriessen

Cristina Zavalloni

Anaïs Nin | De Staat

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Signum Classics
UPC: 0635212027325
Catnr: SIGCD 273
Release date: 01 October 2011
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Label
Signum Classics

UPC
0635212027325

Catalogue number
SIGCD 273

Release date
01 October 2011

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

A new series with the London Sinfonietta – one of the world’s elite contemporary music ensembles with a reputation built on the virtuosity of its performances and ambitious programming. This live recording brings together the UK premiere of Anaïs Nin, a new work for soprano and small ensemble, alongside his famed work De Staat.

Anaïs Nin is a monodrama based on the diaries of the same famed author, as well as those of her lovers (Antonin Artaud, René Allendy, Henry Miller and her own Father). A sometimes disturbing tale of desire and passion, Andriessen felt that the music should “closely track the irony, despair and passion of this brilliant, many-sided woman”.

" ... [Anaïs Nin’s] resonance is profound and disturbing. By pairing it in concert with an invigorating performance of Andriessen's early masterpiece, De Staat, whose concern with the individual body and the body politic bears strong parallels, the Sinfonietta showed the Dutch composer at his searching best."
Guy Dammann, The Guardian (Review of the concert from which this recording was made)

Louis Andriessen op zijn best
Dit is een album uit een serie opnames van London Sinfonietta, een van de hedendaagse muziekensembles die tot de wereldelite behoren, met een reputatie die gebouwd is op de virtuositeit van de uitvoeringen en ambitieuze programmeringen. Deze live-opname bevat de première van Anaïs Nin van Louis Andriessen in het Verenigd Koninkrijk, naast zijn beroemde werk De Staat.

Anaïs Nin is een monodrama gebaseerd op de dagboeken van de gelijknamige beroemde auteur, naast die van haar geliefden (Antonin Artaud, René Allendy, Henry Miller en haar eigen Vader). Het is een verhaal van verlangen en passie, dat soms verontrustend is. Andriessen voelde dat de muziek “nauwkeurig het spoor zou moeten volgen van de ironie, wanhoop en passie van deze briljante vrouw met meerdere gezichten.”

Andriessen componeerde De Staat als een bijdrage tot het debat over de plaats van muziek binnen de politiek. Veel componisten denken dat hun werk boven de sociale invloeden staat. Andriessen is het daar niet mee eens. Het abstracte muzikale materiaal staat er volgens hem inderdaad boven, maar als dat materiaal gerangschikt wordt, wordt het onderdeel van de cultuur. In zijn werk worden passages uit De Staat van Plato gebruikt om zijn mening te illustreren.

The Guardian schreef over de live-uitvoering: “(Anaïs Nin’s) resonance is profound and disturbing. By pairing it in concert with an invigorating performance of Andriessen's early masterpiece, De Staat, whose concern with the individual body and the body politic bears strong parallels, the Sinfonietta showed the Dutch composer at his searching best.”

Artist(s)

Cristina Zavalloni (soprano)

Born in Bologna, Italy, Cristina Zavalloni’s musical background is steeped in jazz, bel canto, and composition. She attended the Conservatorio di Musica “Giovan Battista Martini” and also studied classical and modern dance for several years. Ms. Zavalloni has appeared at the Montreux Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, Free Music Jazz Festival (Antwerp), Umbria Jazz, and the London Jazz Festival. She has also performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Concertgebouw, the Teatro alla Scala, the Palau de la Música Catalana (Barcelona), the Barbican Centre, the Auditorium Parco della Musica (Rome), Walt Disney Concert Hall, and La Biennale di Venezia. She has sung under the batons of Martyn Brabbins, Stefan Asbury, Reinbert de Leeuw, Oliver Knussen, David Robertson and Georges-Elie Octors, and performed as a soloist with the London Sinfonietta, BBC Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI (Torino), Schoenberg Ensemble, and Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Her repertoire today ranges from Monteverdi to Mozart, and from 20th century music (Cage, Berio, Ravel, Poulenc, Stravinsky, Milhaud, Satie, De Falla, Montsalvatge) to contemporaries including James MacMillan, Michael Nyman, Cornelis De Bondt, Paolo Castaldi, Gavin Bryars, Carlo Boccadoro, Fabrizio Cassol, Luca Mosca, and Emmanuelle Casals. In 1993, Ms. Zavalloni began a collaboration with Louis Andriessen, who wrote several works for her: Passeggiata in tram in America e return; La Passione; Inanna; Letter from Cathy; and Racconto dall’ inferno, the recording of which resulted in her being awarded a Diapason d’Or in 2008. Andriessen also composed the role of Dante in La Commedia and the title role of Anaïs Nin for Cristina Zavalloni. As a composer and a jazz bandleader, Ms. Zavalloni has conceived several programs. She is currently signed with Italian label EGEA, for which she recorded IDEA (2006) and Solidago (2009), which includes her own compositions and a selection of Charles Aznavour covers. Her new jazz album is expected to be published at the beginning of 2012.

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London Sinfonietta

Synergy Vocals & Sound Intermedia

David Atherton (conductor)

Composer(s)

Louis Andriessen

Louis Andriessen undoubtedly belongs to the most influential Dutch composers of his generation. He studied under Kees van Baaren en Luciano Berio and formed together with Peter Schat and Reinbert de Leeuw a composers collective who together composed the famous operia Reconstruction. As a member of de Notenkrakers (a Dutch political movement) he was rebelling against the established musical order and he became an advocate for progressive music. Andriessen's true breakthrough came with his large-scaled work De Staat (The Republic) from 1976. Here you can influences of Stravinsky, jazz and American minimalism in favour of his earlier neoclassicism and serialism. De Staat was soon followed by monumental works such as Mausoleum (1979), De Tijd (1981) en De Snelheid (1983) which all culminated in his magnum opus De Materie (1989). In this work, all...

Louis Andriessen undoubtedly belongs to the most influential Dutch composers of his generation. He studied under Kees van Baaren en Luciano Berio and formed together with Peter Schat and Reinbert de Leeuw a composers collective who together composed the famous operia Reconstruction. As a member of de Notenkrakers (a Dutch political movement) he was rebelling against the established musical order and he became an advocate for progressive music. Andriessen's true breakthrough came with his large-scaled work De Staat (The Republic) from 1976. Here you can influences of Stravinsky, jazz and American minimalism in favour of his earlier neoclassicism and serialism. De Staat was soon followed by monumental works such as Mausoleum (1979), De Tijd (1981) en De Snelheid (1983) which all culminated in his magnum opus De Materie (1989). In this work, all of Andriessen's characteristic elements come together.

As a professor in composition at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, he is regarded as the founder of the so-called The Hague school, of which the musical elements can be described as loud, aggressive, and stripped of every neo-romantic sentiment, just like Andriessen's music.

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