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eNsemble

Boris Filanovskii: «The eNsemble came into existence in order to cultivate in Russia a new understanding of the music of the 20th Century and new concert practices

Each program, whether musical or non-musical, will be united by this idea. Academism is a dead leaf of tradition. However we honour the tradition. We understand new music as being an integral part of the unceasing musical process, and for this reason we do not want to cut this latest music off from the music of past epochs. Thus the latter will feature in our concerts as an article to be played with, reworked, disputed. We will cultivate commentaries, remakes, recomposing, restructuring, feasting on the most varied types of music: from anonymous polyphony to classics of the 20th century. We also intend to develop extreme forms of concert performance, breaking the audiences' listening habits.»

Members of the eNsemble

Olesa Tertichnaya (flute)
Olga Ponomareva (flute)
Sergei Doroshev (clarinet)
Aleksei Oskolkov (clarinet, bass clarinet)
Igor Karzov (french horn)
Aleksei Pozin (french horn)
Irina Donskaya (harp)
Anna Kipriapova (violin)
Matvei Lapin (violin)
Rustik Pozyumskii (viola, electric guitar)
Kiril Timofeev (cello)
Aleksei Ivanov (double bass)
Fedor Lednyov (conductor)
Irina Leskovskaya (director)
Boris Filanovskii (Conception and artistic guidance)

Program January-May 2001

January

The Narrow Path (musical monasticism of the 20th Century)

Anton von Werbern Symphony 21
Boris Ioffe Fragments, The book of quartets
Galina Ustvolskaya Sonata No.4 for the piano (restructured by Roman Ruditsa for Werbern's Symphony)
Vladimir Martynov Well tempered beauty

The way of the monk equals withdrawal from the world. Each of the four authors composes music in the same way as spiritual disciplines or aesthetics are practiced.

«Withdrawal from the world» here entails the refusal of musical riches, in this case the refusal to use the more or less generally employed methods of composition.

Symphony by Anton von Webern: one of his key compositions, here the dodecaphony method achieves a preset purity and the resulting sound is strict and provides an otherworldly sensitivity.

The music of Galina Ustvolskaya is here witnessed in its first reworking. Through the very fact that we are presenting this restructured piece we are acknowledging the Fourth Sonata for pianos' greatness and the capability (and therefore necessity) of its adaptation into the current form. There are no taboos; neither in early or more contemporary music - «It is possible to prove or dispute everything», the artist herself stated. With his transcription Roman Ruditsa simultaneously proves and disputes the piano original.

Boris Ioffe has been writing his Book of Quartets for many years. It contains around one and a half thousand pages and each is similar to a poem. The pages correspond to one another like lyrical poems identical in size and content; they show variations of the same unknown and non-musical theme.

Vladimir Martynov understands beauty as that to which the world owes its existence. Beauty is a source of beauty and as a result, the refusal of beauty (In this case the refusal of personal musical riches) is the unchanging criteria for the achievement of beauty.

Well Tempered Beauty is an opus where demonstrations of personal style are taken as the results of beauty.

With the program The Narrow Way the eNsemble is announcing its birth and defining several important directions of its' activities:

  • Classics of the 20th Century and their latest reworkings:

  • The work of composers (including young composers) unknown to Russian audiences;

  • The best specimens of post avant-gardism.

February

Emptiness in a Cage

Pyotr Pospelov: Lectures about nothing
John Cage: Four; Quartet
Sergei Zagnii: Symphony; Magical Stars

In this concert we are introduced to composers for whom the composition of music is not a gift or a professional habit. They put in question the very understanding of "Production".

John Cage is a musical Buddha. He was the first among composers to put into doubt the very foundations of making music. Through destroying them with his works he has potentially set free the consciousness of all composers. For Cage there are no boundaries between production and non-production; between musical production and non-musical production. His Lectures about Nothing according to the author, are meant to accompany his other Opuses; in this case his traditionally notated Quartet (1950) and his aliatorical Four (1987/88).

Sergei Zagnii is a Muscovite conceptualist, equally distant from both fashionable minimalism and the academic avant-garde. Zagnii is an extreme radical: Symphony is intuitive music with a layered score and Magical Stars can be performed by a variety of monotimbre ensembles and has a variable structure based on geometric figures.

March

A tour around the Messe de Tournai

Anon. (XII Century) Messe de Tournai
Anon. Version I (Beginning of the XXI century) Une Messe de...
Anon. Messe de Tournai. Version II (beginning of the XXI century)
Magic Lantern Version Une Messe de...
In collaboration with the early music ensemble Lanterna Magica

This concert is made up entirely of anonymous pieces. Anon. I dispenses with the compositional specifics of the well known Messe de Tournai and its paraphrasing Une Messe de..., It is written for contemporary instruments which are far from middle age instruments in their sound quality. Anon. II belongs to a reworking of Messe de Tournai with the same ensemble for which the paraphrase was written. The early music ensemble Lanterna Magica performs both the XII century original and its own version Une Messe de... which markedly differs from the original of the XXI century. A reverse translation of the modern Opus into the language of early music takes place. The original and the translation (exchanging places) will be heard in two versions, whereas each of the four seem equally valid.

April

An Evening of Artistic Songs with Psoi Korolenko and the Classics. In collaboration with Psoi Korolenko and portraits of the Classics.

«Youth Poet and Arkin» sings his own philological songs as well as classic songs and romances all in versions written for the Sator Ensemble. The bard, storytellers' intonation removes the boundaries between the «Third direction» and tried and tested philharmonic repertoires; here both can be heard as more or less refined pop.

May

The reverse side of Easter

Carlo Jezualdo Sabbato Sancto a 6
Boris Filanovskii Sabbato Sancto per 6 strumenti (a commentary of Jezualdo)
In conjunction with the «Remake» vocal ensemble

One of the greatest creations of world music the Responsorial of the holy Sabbath by Carlo Jezualdo is written in six vocal pairs and has nine parts. Boris Filanovskii's opus is conceived as a set of instrumental commentaries on the Responsorial. Each of the commentaries is based on Jezualdo's harmonic and structural ideas and contains texts from the Sabbath mass of holy week. Parts of each composition alternate, following each other without a pause, the sum of both creating a new whole, where the original and the commentary correspond like a diamond and its setting.


The calendar of the forthcoming PRO ARTE events is under construction



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