CHANNEL CLASSICS CCS SA 33813 Olthuis Members of the Lamarque Pons Gustavo Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Villa-Lobos Conductors Gubaidulina Núñez Ed Spanjaard, Kees Olthuis CaprıchoBASSOON 1 Gustavo Núñez, principal bassoon with the Ed Spanjaard (Haarlem 1948) studied piano Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, is considered and conducting in Amsterdam and London. one of the best bassoonists of his generation. He commenced his career as répétiteur at He was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1965. Covent Garden, and he assisted Bernard Haitink After playing the violin for several years, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and he switched to the bassoon at the age of eleven Herbert von Karajan and Sir Georg Solti in and was first taught by his father. Salzburg and Bayreuth respectively. From the age of sixteen he studied with Since 1982 Ed Spanjaard has been chief Kerry Camden at the Royal College of Music. conductor of the Nieuw Ensemble, specialised From 1984-1988 he pursued his studies with in contemporary music, and he held the same Klaus Thunemann in his prestigious class in post with the Limburg Symphony Orchestra from Hannover, Germany. Still a student, Gustavo 2001-2012. He is a regular guest conductor with Núñez was awarded the Prix Suisse at the the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the International Competition in Geneva, and the radio orchestras of the Netherlands. Carl Maria von Weber Prize in Munich, both He has also conducted the Ensemble Inter- in 1987. contemporain, the Munich Philharmonic Or ches- In 1988 he played with the Darmstadt opera tra, the Danish National Symphony Orches tra, and from 1989 he was principal bassoon with the Opéra of Lyon (Debussy’s Pelléas et the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, where he Mélisande), Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt), remained until his Concertgebouw appointment KlangForum Wien and the Dallas Symphony in 1995. Orchestra. In addition to his work with the Royal On 12 October 2012 Ed Spanjaard conducted Concertgebouw Orchestra, Gustavo Núñez Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, the final production teaches at the Robert Schumann Academy of the Dutch National Reisopera, thus com ple- of Music in Düsseldorf, Germany. ting its successful Ring cycle. His numerous recordings cover a repertoire ranging from Mozart’s concert arias to a DVD of Boulez’s Éclat (in collaboration with the composer). In 2012 Ed Spanjaard was appointed to teach orchestral conducting at the Amsterdam Con- ser vatory. 2 3 bassoon and string quintet in 1997 for his South hearing his film music forLa Raya Amarilla. Not Olthuis Members of the American fellow-bassoonist Gustavo Núñez, in until some years later did Lamar que suddenly Lamarque Pons Gustavo Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra response to a commission by the Friends of the present him with a handsome manuscript copy of Villa-Lobos Conductors Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Olthuis writes: the Concertino. The work naturally includes a Gubaidulina Núñez Ed Spanjaard, Kees Olthuis “Núñez’s virtuosity was a very special challenge, Milonga, Tango and Can dombe (in movements 1, 2 BASSOON which I have fully exploited in this piece. The title and 3 respective ly) and is written in an idiom that Capricho is the Spanish variant of the capriccio, made Lamarque Pons one of the most popular an ancient form allowing the composer to be Uruguayan composers. Caprıcho whimsical and free”. On the request of the Despite tuition in guitar and cello, there composer, the present recording features a small was little to indicate that Heitor Villa-Lobos string orchestra instead of the string quintet of (1887-1959) would find the discipline to become he bassoon solo that opens Stravinsky’s Rite favourites for virtuosic, brilliant passages, the original version. a serious classical musician. However, his Tof Spring (1913) constitutes a confirmation gradually came to face serious competition. De Uruguayan Lamarque Pons (1917-1982) boundless interest in Brazilian street music of the instrument’s long process of emanci pation. The works featured on the present recording began to play the violin and piano from child- yielded rich rewards. He was able to share this It illustrates how the bassoon was trans formed underline the emancipated role of the bassoon in hood in his native town of Salto. At the age of fascination with Darius Milhaud (who lived in from a subservient bass function in the Baroque the twentieth century. The CD has a strikingly seventeen he travelled to Montevideo to further Rio de Janeiro as secretary to Paul Claudel from era to an instrument capable of fulfilling an en- South American flavour, which is by no means his musical knowledge, playing the piano in 1916 to 1918), while Milhaud could quench Villa- tire ly autonomous solo role. This was a process of coincidental. cabarets and cafés to pay for his study. He thus Lobos’s thirst for the new music of Europe. three centuries and numerous alterations to its Kees Olthuis (1940) was bassoonist with the became acquainted with tango, jazz and variété, During Villa-Lobos’s Parisian years (1923-1930) construction. Nonetheless, as far back as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from 1970-2005. an aspect that was to play a decisive role in his his music was warmly received in avant-garde seventeenth century composers such as Selma y He is also a composer of works ranging from compositional style, with its characteristic mix circles. Spontaneity and originality remained Salaverde and Böddecker had already attempted chamber music, such as the piano trio Voyage à of light and classical music. The ballet suite the key to his compositions, in all of which his to demonstrate the bassoon’s virtuosic potential. l’horizon ...Seul..., to theatrical works including Según Figari (1952) is considered to be the first affinity with Brazilian folk music is so evident. In the eighteenth and nine teenth centuries, com- the operas Francois Guyon, De Gans and De work in which these two genres are happily The Ciranda das sete notas for bassoon and posers including Vivaldi, J.S. Bach, Telemann, Naam van de Maan (to a libretto by Annie M.G. married. The successful premiere resulted in strings (1933) is dedicated to Villa-Lobos’s Haydn, Mozart, Weber and Saint-Saëns contri- Schmidt). numerous commissions for film and theatre companion Mindinha. The ciranda, sung and buted important solos, con certos and sonatas On the request of Bernard Haitink, Olthuis music, as well as works for orchestra and danced in a circle, was highly popular on the to the instrument’s reper toire. A key figure in com posed the symphonic poem Theseusfantasie, chamber ensembles. beaches of Pernambuco, in bars and in the the further development of the bassoon was Carl which was performed on various occasions by Lamarque Pons’s most inspired compo si tional streets. It originated in the Itamaracá region, Almenräder (1786-1846), who a.o. explored the the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, as were his period was the 1970s. The Concertino de Verano where fishermen’s wives sung and joined in a high register and thus in creased its expressive Jour de fête and Scherzo. He also wrote for the (1975) for bassoon, recorded here for the first time dance with repeated rhythms to express their power, while other success ful improvements were Residentie Orchestra, the Orkest van het Oosten on CD, was dedicated to Filiberto Núñez, the hope that their husbands would return from the made by Johann Adam Heckel (1812-1877). The and the Gelders Orkest. father of Gustavo Núñez. Núñez asked Lamarque sea. The dance apparently had a particular flute and clarinet, traditionally composers’ Olthuis (1940) composed the Capricho for Pons to compose a work for the bassoon after attraction for Villa-Lobos, who also employed it 4 5 in a sixteen-movement work for the piano dating she was banned from travelling. Shostakovich, from 1926. with whom she remained befriended until his The premiere of Ciranda das sete notas took death, continued nonetheless to encourage her. place in 1933 in Rio de Janeiro, with the Or- The perestroika of the 1980s brought Gubaidulina questra do Teatro Municipal under Villa-Lobos international recognition, and in 1992 she moved himself and bassoon soloist E. Dutro. The to Hamburg. On her music she wrote: “Dmitri composer conducted it again in Vienna in 1955, Shostakovich and Anton Webern have had the with the soloist Leo Cermak. The sete notas, the greatest influence on my work. Although there seven notes of the diatonic scale – heard in a appear to be no clear traces of this in my music, Brazilian rhythm at the opening – form the basis these composers taught me the most important of the work, in which Villa-Lobos clearly enjoyed lesson of all: be yourself”. displaying the virtuosity of the solo instrument in On the Concerto for bassoon and low strings scale passages and darting arpeggios. The large (1975), premiered in 1976 by Valery Popov, and virtuosic intervals of the instrument are Gubaidulina wrote: “I very gradually fathomed heard again in Bachianas Brasileiras no. 6 for the essence of the instrument and began to see flute and bassoon (1936). Ciranda das sete notas it as a character in a drama”. When Gustavo features a number of cirandas as they are sung Núñez studied the work with the composer she by children standing in a circle – hence the was more explicit: “The piece is about a clown simple manner of Gustavo Núñez's execution. and his relation with the audience. He desires to Naturally, Villa-Lobos makes a show of the be taken seriously, but the audience continues to bassoon’s highest note, as used by Stravinsky laugh. He becomes furious, but in the end, in the in the Rite. fifth movement which begins with the cadenza, Sofia Gubaidulina (1931) was born in the he starts to dance”.