Up-Close - for solo cello, string ensemble and film by Sol Gabetta

Sol Gabetta

Up-Close - for solo cello, string ensemble and film

Format: DVD movie
Label: Disquiet Media
UPC: 0608917400427
Catnr: DQM 04
Release date: 21 November 2011

1 DVD movie

Label
Disquiet Media

UPC
0608917400427

Catalogue number
DQM 04

Release date
21 November 2011

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

A solo cellist begins with a melancholy, yet insistent soliloquy. As the string orchestra behind her joins in, an image suddenly appears on screen. In the middle of a deserted concert stage, laid out exactly as for the concerto, we see an elderly woman, scribbling coded messages on sheets of paper.

Part cello concerto, part film opera, Michel van der Aa’s Up-close explores the human condition through reflected and overlapping sounds, images and plotlines. The actions of the woman and the cellist come closer and closer until at the end they mimic one another, without ever completely connecting. Images and music leak from screen to stage and back again in a poetic exploration of the rituals of communication.

Themes of virtual reality and plural identities have been present in Van der Aa’s music for ten years. In Up-close he goes even further, folding sound and screen over and over on themselves until certainty slips completely from our grasp.

Van der Aa uses reflection and duplication to play with intersecting planes of reality
Live musicians are important for Van der Aa; they perform a stabilising function
When talking about his electronic soundtrack technique, Van der Aa makes a comparison with traditional counterpoint, whose tension comes from an internal dialogue between two interdependent lines of melody
On the surface, Up-close is a cello concerto (a hall of mirrors in its own right) for Sol Gabetta and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta. But in effect it is more like a 30-minute film opera in which the cellist is co-protagonist with a solitary elderly woman, portrayed on film (played by Vakil Eelman).
Wherever the Argentine-French cellist of Russian origin Sol Gabetta plays, she impresses with her captivating interpretations, her passionate, full-bodied playing and her charismatic, conquering personality
Her great versatility regarding styles and repertoire distinguishes her artistic profile

Artist(s)

Joseph Haydn

(Franz) Joseph Haydn was a prolific Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the piano trio and his contributions to musical form have earned him the epithets 'Father of the Symphony' and 'Father of the String Quartet'. Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family at their remote estate. Until the later part of his life, this isolated him from other composers and trends in music so that he was, as he put it, 'forced to become original'. Yet his music circulated widely and for much of his career he was the most celebrated composer in Europe. He was a friend and mentor of Mozart,...

(Franz) Joseph Haydn was a prolific Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the piano trio and his contributions to musical form have earned him the epithets "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet".
Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family at their remote estate. Until the later part of his life, this isolated him from other composers and trends in music so that he was, as he put it, "forced to become original". Yet his music circulated widely and for much of his career he was the most celebrated composer in Europe.
He was a friend and mentor of Mozart, a teacher of Beethoven, with whom he formed the First Viennese School. He was also the older brother of composer Michael Haydn.

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Sol Gabetta

Candida Thompson

Candida Thompson has been concertmaster of Amsterdam Sinfonietta since 1995, as well as its artistic director since 2003. When leading an orchestral project she values the individual input of all the orchestra members. Her musical approach elicits maximum involvement and total dedication from the musicians. Candida Thompson studied with the renowned pedagogue David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where she obtained her soloist diploma with distinction. She continued her studies at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. Subsequently she won various prizes at competitions, including the Internationale Jeunesses Musicales in Belgrade. Candida has appeared as a soloist with various orchestras in Europe, the United States and East Asia, including the Moscow Chamber Orchestra,...

Candida Thompson studied with the renowned pedagogue David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where she obtained her soloist diploma with distinction. She continued her studies at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. Subsequently she won various prizes at competitions, including the Internationale Jeunesses Musicales in Belgrade. Candida has appeared as a soloist with various orchestras in Europe, the United States and East Asia, including the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Wiener Symphoniker, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, English String Orchestra, Amsterdam Sinfonietta and the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic.

Candida is a passionate chamber musician. She has performed with musicians including Isaac Stern, Janine Jansen, Julian Rachlin, Isabelle Faust and Bruno Giuranna. She founded the Hamlet Piano Trio together with the cellist Xenia Jancovic and pianist Paolo Giacometti. Candida has regularly been invited to perform at the Kuhmo Festival in Finland and La Musica in the United States and has been a guest at the Canossa Masterclasses in Reggio Emilia, the Gubbio Festival in Italy and the Ernen Chamber Music Festival in Switzerland.
From an early age Candida was already leading chamber orchestras in Scandinavia, Spain, the Netherlands and Great Britain. She has been concertmaster of Amsterdam Sinfonietta since 1995, as well as its artistic director since 2003. Under her leadership Amsterdam Sinfonietta has recorded nine CDs to date. The very first ‘Verdi Tchaikovsky’ recording was immediately voted ‘Editor’s Choice’ by the leading music magazine The Gramophone. The following ‘Beethoven Walton’ CD was proclaimed The Gramophone’s ‘Disc of the Month’. The Dutch newspaper NRC described ‘The Mahler Album’ (2011) as ‘hyper-Mahlerian and superbly performed.’ The ‘Britten’ CD (2012) was enthusiastically reviewed by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant: ‘In Britten’s Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge Amsterdam Sinfonietta emphatically demonstrated why a specialised string orchestra is indispensable to the music scene. The range of colours is truly astounding (…)’. Following the much lauded ‘Shostakovich Weinberg’ CD (2013) - with Candida as soloist in Weinberg’s rarely performed Concertino - ‘The Argentinian Album’ was released in October 2014 featuring her as soloist in Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons. Candida Thompson has been living in Amsterdam since 1992. She plays on a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume violin.

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