Sheet music editing is far from an exact science. In fact, when the works are not interpreted much, the roles can accumulate small errors that are corrected over the decades and to the extent that successive conductors have enough time to review them thoroughly, with a view to their approval. interpretation and even recording.
This is the case, now that the Pedrell Year is practically over, of the symphonic poem for orchestra Excelsior. The iconic composer and musicologist from Tortosa, whose death will be one hundred years old in 2022, wrote it in 1880, inspired by the famous poetry that the American Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had published four decades earlier about the idea of reaching the highest level.
Now, the brand new chief conductor of the Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya (OBC), Ludovic Morlot, has been working on it in detail to be able to interpret it this weekend at L'Auditori Barcelona -Friday and Saturday, with a 2x1 and 20% discount for subscribers on the La Vanguardia ticket sales website-, with the intention of recording it next July. The French master has come to indicate more than a thousand corrections on Francesc Bonastre's 1992 edition. Teamwork has been necessary, he warns. And as he rehearses it with the OBC, he keeps finding more and more mistakes and details that don't match the parts or the score. A process that he assures requires time.
And this is the reason why, in the case of one of the relevant pieces of Pedrell's production, the indications of the original have not been investigated before. "When the material is not very good, it is very difficult to revive it," says Morlot. "There are many qualities in the idea, the craftsmanship is tremendous, but perhaps it has not been well edited. I have had to work hard and use imagination to get to the conclusion of how this work should be, since the score does not contain the answers".
"And I have to say that it was difficult for me to convince the story that it is a magnificent piece -continues the maestro-, because when the musicians see that the material is regular they become discouraged. It is not like playing Wagner where everything is written there; it requires a lot of attention. That's why I'm glad to be able to celebrate the concerts before recording it. The centenary of his death this 2022 has been important, but it is even more important to continue playing Pedrell for the next couple of years".
This work reminds Morlot a lot of Richard Strauss and his poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life), "in the sense that you live through reminiscences of moments in your life," he points out in conversation with the Barcelona media. "It starts with a great influence of Wagner in the language, but you also hear a lot of this Strauss and a little bit of César Frank, that is, French influence. The Catalan spirit is there in the luminosity and in the articulation. And despite the work What it's meant to review a work that isn't well edited and try as much refinement as possible, I've enjoyed it."
Logically the corrections will be shared and a new material will be created to be edited. Morlot notes that he is currently working on a new edition of Ravel. All composers go through these great revisions at some point. And when we do Daphnis et Chloé here it will be with a new edition, because even the material we are used to is full of errors. It's a job we do constantly, so interpreting that music becomes easier and easier."
L'Auditori has also recovered from Pedrell the score of I trionfi, a symphonic poem in three parts of which -with the Ficta publishing house and in collaboration with the Robert Gerhard Center- it will premiere a new edition. "I don't know if it should have been released at the time, but I don't think it was interpreted much more," says Robert Brufau, director of L'Auditori. "The idea is to recover the last movement, La Fama (or La Gloria, because depending on the score it mentions different names). We will also premiere the other two in spring under the baton of Jordi Francesc and we will record them together with Excelsior in summer", confirms Brufau.
Also from Pedrell, there is part of the material from I trionfi that is not available and an effort must be made to reconstruct it. "It represents a great challenge -adds Morlo-. Luckily, we had the Ros Marbá recording from a few years ago that is available online, although it is not very faithful to what Pedrell wanted. I try to be a little more so in a matter of tempos or structure".
The program that will be heard this weekend at L'Auditori, as a prelude to winter, also includes a piece by Henri Dutilleux: Métaboles (1964), which according to Morlot is perfect for his work with the OBC as it requires great clarity and precision. in the details but also imagination to create poetry. The head of the Barcelona group was fortunate to get to know him in depth during the last years of his life, as an assistant to the Boston Symphony. In fact, many of the works of the French composer who died in 2013 were commissioned by American orchestras.
This Metaboles was written for the one in Cleveland, on the occasion of its 80th anniversary. And it's like a great concerto for orchestra. Each of its five movements presents a different section of the orchestra. It's like a metamorphosis. And it picks up that Beethovenian idea about how a motif can evolve by adding or removing things. "What I appreciate most about Dutilleux is that he sounds like a painting," says Morlot. "When I went to see him in Paris, that was the only thing we talked about. We never talked about music but about painting, literature... many colors".
The main work on the program is the Piano Concerto no. 1 by Brahms, with the great Andreas Haefliger as soloist, which in this context works like a symphony with piano to close the evening. And it marks the beginning of the work of Morlot and the OBC with the German composer of late romanticism. Next year the training will address the no. 2... "I want to deal with the concertos first before beginning with the Brahms symphonies", says the baton. And he announces that at a certain moment they will present the cycle of the five symphonies together.
"It is a great program, with many emotions and very different voices. With the orchestra we are living a journey. Of course, things take time. I always remember that when I took the title in Seattle, Simon Rattle told me that it would take me five years to start to recognize your voice in the orchestra. But we go little by little, like a lego in which you add pieces. And I learn a lot on this podium".
