Interview with the Pianist Anda Anastasescu
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
, ora 9.35
The
Romanian Cultural Institute in Prague
organises the concert entitled
"Constantin
Silvestri’s
Centenary" at the Music Academy in Prague on 5th
December; performers: Anda
Anastasescu, Cozmin Sime and Nicholas Carpenter. More on this event
in an interview with one of the protagonists:
Mrs.
Anda Anastasescu, these days you will be promoting Constantin
Silvestri's creation again, in two very interesting cultural spaces,
in Brussels
and Prague.
The
concerts are to take place in the main conservatoires in Brussels
and Prague and the slightly different programmes include the
following pieces: in Brussels,
there will be a soprano from the Republic of Moldova, Olga
Busuioc, whose performance of Silvestri’s lieds I will accompany on
the piano – in fact, Opus 1 by Silvestri, whose verses were written
by Heine at the age of 14 or 15.. In Prague, I will play alongside a
Romanian baritone hailing from Oradea, Cozmin Sime. There we will
play Silvestri's last opus, Op.
28,
which comprises three songs set to the verses of Maria Rilke. It is
very interesting to see the path Silvestri walked on and shaped
through his compositions, between Op.
1,
to the verses of Heine, and his last opus, which is another opus for
voice set to the verses of Rilke. Op. 28 is an entirely different
musical world, a different musical area, a much more abstract one. In
both concerts I will play Silvestri's Suite
no. 2 for piano solo,
Jocuri
de Copii
(Children's Games), which is always charming for both the public
and the performer, and in Prague we will play alongside Nick
Carpenter, one of the main clarinetists of the London Philharmonic
Orchestra. We will end our programme with Silvestri's Sonata
for Clarinet and
Piano, which is a kind of a musical bomb.
That's
it as far as Silvestri's pieces are concerned, but we also associate
him with Enescu in these concerts, because there is a great
connection between the two brilliant musicians, so that we will play
Seven
Songs Set to the Verses of Clément Marot
in Prague, and a
doina
and Languir
Me Fais,
which are also pieces included in the Seven
Songs Set to the Verses of Clément Marot,
in Brussels.
Besides, as I am performing with the London Schubert Players and of
course Schubert will be part of the programme. I will play
Forellenquintett
- The
Trout Quintet
– and
in Prague, Martinu's
Sonatina
for Clarinet and Piano.
As he is a Czech composer, we will open the programme with him. He
balances extremely well Silvestri's Sonata
pentru Clarinet and
Piano
in the end of the programme and I am very curious to investigate
Martinu's life and ancestors, as I have read somewhere that he might
have Romanian ancestors. I have no idea if this is common knowledge,
but I would like to find out more about it. Very interesting and
important, I think, for the musical archive, is the fact that two
composers wrote pieces especially for Silvestri's centenary, for
these two concerts. Adina Dumitrescu, who lives in Finland, has
written Etincelles (Sparks)
for quintet and piano,
in the exactly same instrumentation as Die
Forelle (The
Trout).
And in Prague, the English composer Drew Wilson, whom as a matter of
fact I have already brought to Romania on the occasion of the
'Invitation to composers' project, has written a piece for clarinet
and piano , in memory of Silvestri. There are very interesting and
different things in these two programmes.
We
have to tell our listeners that these events will take place in
Brussels
on
1st
December
and
in
Prague
on 5th
December.
Thank you very much and good luck!
Thank you!
Irina Hasnaº
Translated by Ana Cristina Dumitrache and Elena Daniela Radu
MTTLC, The University of Bucharest