The rebirth of Xavier Montsalvatge

Posted by Soledad Sánchez on February 2, 2012  |  Leave a comment

This year marks the centenary of the birth of one of the most esteemed composers of our editorial house, the prolific Xavier Montsalvatge.

Numerous events will be performed during 2012 to honor his career and work.

TRITÓ joins tribute with a double-disc reissue released by our label in 2002. It brings together the masterpieces of the composer’s catalog (not the most performed): Sortilegis, Sinfonietta-Concerto, Metamorfosi de concert, Impromptu en el Generalife, Hommage à Manolo Hugué and the Concierto del Albayzín.

At that time, the album had been conceived not only as a tribute to the composer in his ninetieth year, but above all as a gift from a group of friends to the Maestro. It brought together many of the ideas that had emerged in conversations we had with Xavier Montsalvatge during his life.  Llorenç Caballero

This project would have been unthinkable without the presence of some of the great musicians of our time as Alicia de Larrocha, James Martin, Josep Colom and the Cadaqués Orchestra with Gianandrea Noseda as conductor.

Today our purpose is more ambitious, we want to help the music to appreciate and claim Montsalvatge from other countries, especially across the Atlantic.

(Castellano) Albert Guinovart a los Oscar

Posted by Soledad Sánchez on January 25, 2012  |  1 Comment

“Apocalipsis” at the SMR in Cuenca

Posted by Leticia Martin on April 19, 2011  |  Leave a comment

The second day of the Cuenca Religious Music Week, 17 April, saw the premiere of the latest work by Jesús Torres. Apocalipsis, specially commissioned for the Festival, is an ambitious project that counted on the participation of the Ensemble Residencias, the French choir Accentus and the Gregorian choir Schola Antiqua, all of them conducted by Nacho de Paz.

The old church known as the Iglesia de la Merced, a beautiful religious space converted into a library, was the venue of the premiere. As its title indicates, Apocalipsis is based on bible texts from the Book of Revelation written by St John of Patmos. The composer has divided the work into seven parts, each seven minutes long, combining Latin and Spanish in the choral lyrics. And two mixed choirs, a Gregorian choir and the ensemble – consisting of seven percussionists, two pianos, two trumpets, two horns, four trombones and an oboe – constitute a group of 49 musicians (7×7), distributed in seven spaces, thus giving special importance to both the numerical symbolism and the spatial organisation, specially thought out for the venue of the premiere.

The public, with the venue packed out, was situated at the centre of this whole spatial arrangement and experienced the “revelation” first hand. Several minutes of applause capped this unforgettable event during which Torres’ music carried us from the seven seals to New Jerusalem. The music evolves to express the text and also develops its own descriptive identity, making the most of the special characteristics of the instruments and the fabulous performers on hand for the occasion.

Following on from works like Evocación and Sinfonía, Jesus Torres has achieved the perfect fusion of music and lyrics in this piece, without detriment to the particular qualities of these two components. With each new project it becomes clearer and clearer that he is one of the most important composers of contemporary music in Spain.

Contemporary music 2011

Posted by Cristina Martí on March 7, 2011  |  Leave a comment

On various Wednesdays in the months of March, April and May, the 2011 Seville Contemporary Music Cycle will be held at the Teatro Central in Seville. The programme consists of eight concerts, including works by David del Puerto, Hèctor Parra and Gabriel Erkoreka.

Specifically, on 27 April the ensemble Rejoice will perform the concert version of the work Carmen Replay by David del Puerto, and on 30 March the Ensemble Recherche will present works by Hèctor Parra and by students of the Manuel de Falla Chair of Composition at the University of Granada. In addition, on the 25 May you will be able to listen to works by another of the composers who works with Tritó, Gabriel Erkoreka, along with other contemporary composers such as Saariaho and Fineberg, at the hands of the Taller Sonoro under the joint title “Angelus Novus: el futuro presente”.

Upcoming concerts

Posted by Cristina Martí on February 21, 2011  |  1 Comment

Maybe you are still not aware that Tritó has a concert schedule, which provides details of all our composers’ musical activity, both around Spain and abroad.

To begin with, last week, on the 23 and 25 February, the Oviedo Filarmonía, under the baton of Lorenzo Ramos, performed the Tonadillas by Enric Granados with orchestration by Albert Guinovart, at the Auditorio Príncipe Felipe in Oviedo and the Madrid auditorium.

And on 26 February in Biscaya, the Orquestra Simfònica de Bilbao and the Orfeón Donostiarra continued the commemoration of the 50^th anniversary of the death Jesús Guridi, performing his “Cuadros Vascos” at the Teatro Social Antzokia in Basauri

We can recommend seven concerts in March: if you were at the Centre Pompidou in Paris on the 2^nd of the month you may have listened to the Ensemble Intercontemporain playing “Stress Tensor” by Hèctor Parra. On the 11^th, Sortilegis, by Xavier Montsalvatge, will be performed at the Teatro Monumental in Madrid by the Orquestra de RTVE, and on the following day, at the same venue and with soloists from the same orchestra, you can listen to the Quartet with oboe by Jesús Torres

Continuing in the month of March, other concerts are La rosa del azafrán, by Jacinto Guerrero in Albacete on the 18^th, Orchestral highlights from the opera Pepita Jiménez by Isaac Albéniz (edited by José de Eusebio) in Reutlingen (Germany), and the Obertura del ballet Alphonse et Léonore ou L’amant peintre by Ferran Sor in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, both on the 24^th. And lastly, on 29 March the students from the Salamanca Music Conservatory will play the Concert for bassoon and chamber ensemble by Agustí Charles

There’s sure to be something that interests you among all these works. As you know, if you want to go to a concert, consult the schedule for the next few months. Enjoy yourselves!

Presentation of two monographic CDs by Charles and Casablancas

Posted by Marcel Soleda on November 29, 2010  |  Leave a comment

Next Friday 3 December, at 12:30, will see the presentation of two monographic CDs: Elapsed Memories, by Agustí Charles, and Complete String Quartets and Trio, by Benet Casablancas. The act will be held at the Club Social of the headquarters of the Sgae Group in Catalonia (Passeig Colom, 6).

Ramon Muntaner, Llorenç Caballero, director of Tritó Edicions, and the composers themselves, Benet Casablancas and Agustí Charles, will speak at the presentation.

The work of the composer and musicologist Casablancas was recorded in the chamber music hall of the Auditori de Girona on 27, 28 and 29 July 2009 with the collaboration of the SGAE and the Fundació Autor, and consists of five pieces of music: Five interludes -quasi variazioni- (1983), String quartet no. 2 (1991), String trio (1992), Encore for Arditti (2004) and String quartet no. 3 -Raging in the Dark- (2009).

On the other hand, in September 2009 at the Auditori de Barcelona, the OBC under the baton of Jaime Martín recorded three orchestral works by the composer Agustí Charles: Elapsed Memories (2006), Double Variations (1994) and Effigies II (1998).

For further information see: www.sgae.es.

Casablancas debuts “Dove of Peace”, homage to Picasso

Posted by Toni Cruanyes on May 19, 2010  |  Leave a comment

Dove of Peace. Homage to Picasso Hill will be premiered on 19 May at the Cornerstone, Hope Everton, Great Hall of Liverpool, by the clarinettist Nicholas Cox and the Ensemble 10/10 under the baton of Clark Rundell.

This work, which is his chamber concerto nº 1 for clarinet and chamber orchestra, is fruit of a commission from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. The fact that the date of the premiere coincided with the celebration of a major exhibition devoted to Picasso at the Tate Liverpool prompted the composer to envisage his work as a homage to the much-admired Spanish artist.

With this piece, the author once again explores one of his passions, which has become a constant in his oeuvre, and this is the dialogue with other artistic languages, poetry and literature, and especially painting, whose echo we can recognize in pieces like Alter Klang, Impromptu for orchestra after poems by Paul Klee (2006) or Four Darks in Red, based on the work of Rothko, and recently premiered in New York..

This work is Casablancas’ first incursion into the concertante genre.

Sincrotró-Alba: The premiere of the third symphony by Joan Guinjoan

Posted by Toni Cruanyes on May 5, 2010  |  1 Comment

On Friday 7 May, the expected premiere of Sincrotró-Alba, the third symphony by Joan Guinjoan, will take place. The work, organised into three movements, is fruit of a commission from the Synchrotron Consortium, whose particle accelerator in Cerdanyola del Vallès was inaugurated on 22 March, and who wish to celebrate its activation with an orchestral work inspired in the monumental scientific laboratory called Alba, which means ‘dawn’, a direct allusion to the first light of the morning, which dispels the darkness and unveils the landscape of a new day.

The programme, performed by the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya (OBC) under the baton of Ernest Martínez Izquierdo, will be opened by the work The Unanswered Question by Charles Ives, and will conclude with Rachmaninov’s popular second piano concerto.

Sincrotró-Alba is the most important piece composed by Joan Guinjoan in the last few years.

Hypermusic Prologue at the Gran Teatro del Liceu

Posted by Leticia Martin on November 23, 2009  |  Leave a comment

Hypermusic Prologue is, for the moment, Hèctor Parra’s most ambitious project, one of the great achievements of European contemporary music in this century. The opera libretto was written by the prestigious theoretical physicist Lisa Randall and has been published by Tritó in a clear show of support for this work by Parra and the new contemporary music.

It is new style of opera, a unique project for intercommunication between science, music and art. In this work the traditional form of opera is explored to generate a form of dramatic expression suited to the 21st century, its ideas and creative processes, including recent research into physics and its parallelisms with music and art.

Hypermusic Prologue, for soprano, baritone, ten instruments and electronics, was composed in 2008 and 2009. It was commissioned by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), the Centre Pompidou, and the Department of Culture of the Catalan Government (Generalitat). It was premiered in Paris on 14 June 2009 as part of the programming of the Festival Agora.

Further information and tickets.

Piano works by Jesús Rueda, a novelty from Naxos in September

Posted by Leticia Martin on September 13, 2009  |  1 Comment

With symphonies, string quartets, chamber concertos, operas and a great deal of piano music to his name, Jesús Rueda is one of the most representative composers of Spanish music alive today. His piano works, performed by Ananda Sukarlan on this recording, are on the virtuoso lines of composers such as Chopin, Liszt, Ravel and Prokofiev.

His piano compositions range from the dazzling firework display present in Mephisto, based on Liszt’s first waltz, to the two sonatas, the second of which is influenced by jazz and Bali Kecak dance rhythms from Indonesia, to the delightfully sensual tonal palette

of the 24 interludes, and Invenciones, a relatively simple piece with special appeal for children.

This is very personal music where classical languages and contemporary elements are brought together to create richly expressive and communicative music.

See the complete works by Jesús Rueda…