Author: Gordana

Michael Letchford @ Recorded Vocal Art Society

Michael Letchford @ Recorded Vocal Art Society

Posted on by Gordana

Music For A While by Michael Letchford at Recorded Vocal Art Society, Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8EP, UK on Wednesday 4th October 2017 at 7.30pm

MUSIC FOR A WHILE

It had seemed like quite a while since Michael Letchford gave his last talk to the RVAS. We recalled his relaxed and amiable presentation style. Hence, we were looking forward to hearing him talk to us again.

With his previous occupations in senior positions in the classical recording industry we knew that Michael would have something special to say, and to play!

Michael’s talk “Music for a While” consisted mainly of songs which had a special impact on him. Beginning with Purcell we moved on to a group of Rachmaninov songs represented by, among others, Chaliapin, Koshetz, Lisitsian and Christoff and Smetana was sung by the great Sena Jurinac.

He ended a fine evening with a group he called “Three Northern Lassies”, represented by songs and arias from Louise Kirkby-Lunn (the subject of his latest published book), Kathleen Ferrier and Dame Janet Baker.

What better fare could one ask for? The evening was greatly enjoyed by a large audience. Bravo, Michael, we will look forward to your next talk!

(Reproduced by kind permission of the Recorded Vocal Art Society)

To purchase Michael Letchford’s books, please click here

Player 1

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Alberto Giordano was born in Genova in the 1960s and was raised in the era when rock and roll ruled the air-waves and wild colors and long hair ruled the fashion scene. In spite of this, Alberto chose to embark on his journey to learn violin making. He studied at Cremona Violin School with Vincenzo Bissolotti, Wanna Zambelli and Stefano Conia Sr., trained further in Sesto Rocchi’s laboratory and continued his apprenticeship in the workshop of Joseph Curtin and Gregg Alf. He returned to Genova to establish his own workshop in 1987, partly because of the Paganini legacy, but partly because of a most beautiful Genovese girl, Patrizia, who he married, and they now live and work together happily in vibrant and fascinating old part of the city. Genova hasn’t changed much over the centuries thanks to its geographical location, wedged into the foothills of the mountains that frame the Gulf of Genova where river Bisagno meets the Ligurian Sea. You still walk through narrow alleyways and cobbled streets, surrounded by tall buildings that have stood on this spot for centuries.

You can forget about wearing high heels or using Google Maps on the smartphone when you wander this district, but ask any shop owner around the via Garibaldi where is the ‘Maestro Liutaio’s’ workshop and you can rest assured that they will point you to Alberto’s shop. In this setting Alberto creates his own instruments, but also continues to provide the upkeep and ongoing preservation of the famous ‘Il Cannone’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’.

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This violin, once owned and played by the great Niccolò Paganini and now the property of the City of Genova, has since 1851 been housed nearby in the beautiful Palazzo Doria Tursi. Alberto also continues his own personal development and education, not only within the world of violin making but also in the fields of art and philosophy. In March 2015, he was awarded a Master’s Degree with Honours in the History of Art at the University of Genova, Faculty of Letters and Philosophy. He also continues the never-ending researches in documenting the rich history of Genovese violin making, in such works as his book on the life and work of Cesare Candi as well as the book on the nineteenth century violin makers of Liguria that he published with Eric Blot.

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You would probably not be surprised to know that Alberto has collaborated with many players over the years, including the late great Ruggiero Ricci in his 2001 ‘The Legacy of Cremona’ project, in which maestro Ricci included one of the Alberto’s ‘Cannone’ copy in a recording featuring fine contemporary violins. However, it might come as a surprise to know that Alberto also collaborated with the Czech choreographer Jiri Kylan for the opening of the Norwegian Opera and Ballet Theatre in Oslo in 2008, creating a series of musical instruments for the opening ballet “World Beyond”. You will be pleasantly surprised on playing Alberto’s own instruments at their rich sound which surrounds your whole being with the warm depth and powerful voice in the upper register, not unlike that of ‘Il Cannone’ itself! But, when you consider Alberto’s warm character and kind and generous nature, it is no surprise that his personality is reflected in their sound.

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Ahmet Ediz

Ahmet Ediz

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If you have ever wondered around the trade shows such as Musikmesse Frankfurt or Mondomusica Cremona, you could not have missed Ahmet! You are simply drawn by this most sincere beaming smile and welcoming greeting every single time without fail! Then you ask him to tell you more about the humidifiers, and you can easily stay there for hours! Did I initially know the importance of humidifiers for my own instrument?! The answer is no! As a violin student, it was important to pay some attention to looking after your instrument, which basically boiled down to adding another soft cloth into your case in the winter time and keeping it from direct sunlight in the summer months. Nobody was thinking about the impact that the weather conditions actually have on the wood itself; rather just getting annoyed with constantly having to re-tune your instrument until it somehow became more stable and responsive, often simply by being left at room temperature. And did anyone really think after a three-hour performance, ‘yes, I now need to clean my instrument?!’ Again, the answer is almost never a ‘yes’!

All Stretto® products are available for purchase. Please visit our online shop.

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And how did Ahmet come up with the Stretto® products? By his own invaluable experience as a professional musician whose career spans over 35 years! Even though most of his career was spent as an orchestral viola player in the Zurich Symphony Orchestra (and Ahmet would be first to tell you all the viola jokes!), his music career started back in Turkey, his country of origin, as a jazz musician. Ahmet grew up with a classical music all around him thanks to his father who was a famous violinist at the time. Still, he found himself drawn towards composition and piano studies winning the Berkley Scholarship for Jazz, which sadly, he wasn’t able to follow up. Instead, his music career took a turn in the direction of warm sound and deeper undertones of viola, which then led him to a chamber music summer course with conductor George Hurst in England, follow by two years of study with Walter Gerhardt at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.It is just wonderful to listen to Ahmet telling you about his amazing experience of playing in the orchestra at the William Walton Anniversary concert under the baton of Sir Adrian Boult back in the 1970s! Imagine the sheer exuberance of that long-gone era and what it would have been like as a musician in such an orchestra! Although, it is interesting to note that Ahmet considers that the job of a musician hasn’t changed that much over the past few decades, and that the same problems that he and his colleagues faced then are still pretty much shared and endured by orchestral musicians nowadays. The long hours of practicing, rehearsing, travelling across the globe and giving back-to-back concerts month after month are still with us. This fully packed and very busy performing diary started to have an effect on their instruments, especially when the tours crossed many time zones and performances occurred in many different climates.

 

It would be no exaggeration to say that it started wreaking havoc with their instruments. It was not unusual to see instruments coming unglued on these tours to the point of desperation for both the musicians and the orchestra as a whole. All these unfortunate incidents started Ahmet thinking about what could be done to prevent these happenings. After many conversations consulting with a good friend of his (who also happened to be the chemist), he came up with the simplest, yet the most effective solution on how to maintain the perfect level of humidity in the instrument cases, be it violin, viola, cello or double bass. Even now, when you look at the compact nature of his humidifiers and think of them as such a small accessory, which fits so perfectly well in any case, of the compact size of a hydrometer that will constantly measure how wet or dry the air is inside of your case, you know this could have been only achieved by someone who passionately cares about the instruments, as well as the musicians.

All Stretto® products are available for purchase. Please visit our online shop.
 
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Alberto Giordano

Alberto Giordano

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Alberto Giordano was born in Genova in the 1960s and was raised in the era when rock and roll ruled the air-waves and wild colors and long hair ruled the fashion scene. In spite of this, Alberto chose to embark on his journey to learn violin making. He studied at Cremona Violin School with Vincenzo Bissolotti, Wanna Zambelli and Stefano Conia Sr., trained further in Sesto Rocchi’s laboratory and continued his apprenticeship in the workshop of Joseph Curtin and Gregg Alf. He returned to Genova to establish his own workshop in 1987, partly because of the Paganini legacy, but partly because of a most beautiful Genovese girl, Patrizia, who he married, and they now live and work together happily in vibrant and fascinating old part of the city. Genova hasn’t changed much over the centuries thanks to its geographical location, wedged into the foothills of the mountains that frame the Gulf of Genova where river Bisagno meets the Ligurian Sea. You still walk through narrow alleyways and cobbled streets, surrounded by tall buildings that have stood on this spot for centuries.

You can forget about wearing high heels or using Google Maps on the smartphone when you wander this district, but ask any shop owner around the via Garibaldi where is the ‘Maestro Liutaio’s’ workshop and you can rest assured that they will point you to Alberto’s shop. In this setting Alberto creates his own instruments, but also continues to provide the upkeep and ongoing preservation of the famous ‘Il Cannone’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’.

This violin, once owned and played by the great Niccolò Paganini and now the property of the City of Genova, has since 1851 been housed nearby in the beautiful Palazzo Doria Tursi. Alberto also continues his own personal development and education, not only within the world of violin making but also in the fields of art and philosophy. In March 2015, he was awarded a Master’s Degree with Honours in the History of Art at the University of Genova, Faculty of Letters and Philosophy. He also continues the never-ending researches in documenting the rich history of Genovese violin making, in such works as his book on the life and work of Cesare Candi as well as the book on the nineteenth century violin makers of Liguria that he published with Eric Blot.

You would probably not be surprised to know that Alberto has collaborated with many players over the years, including the late great Ruggiero Ricci in his 2001 ‘The Legacy of Cremona’ project, in which maestro Ricci included one of the Alberto’s ‘Cannone’ copy in a recording featuring fine contemporary violins. However, it might come as a surprise to know that Alberto also collaborated with the Czech choreographer Jiri Kylan for the opening of the Norwegian Opera and Ballet Theatre in Oslo in 2008, creating a series of musical instruments for the opening ballet “World Beyond”. You will be pleasantly surprised on playing Alberto’s own instruments at their rich sound which surrounds your whole being with the warm depth and powerful voice in the upper register, not unlike that of ‘Il Cannone’ itself! But, when you consider Alberto’s warm character and kind and generous nature, it is no surprise that his personality is reflected in their sound.

Felix Krafft

Felix Krafft

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Based on just his geographical location and his family heritage, Felix would be called a German instrument maker. Once you have the pleasure of knowing him, though, you begin to realise that he is an amalgamation of the many different cultures from which he has drawn upon from his knowledge, absorbing the experience of getting to know different people from many distant places, and learning from past and modern history, all of which have shaped his persona throughout his lifetime.

My first meeting with Felix was in Cologne, where he was giving the presentation called ‘Faszination Streichinstrumente’. Now, if you find yourself at an event where you do not fully understand the language, you might start looking for the nearest exit, thinking of how to politely sneak away. Luckily for me, the room was packed and Felix started his presentation before I could leave! I stayed glued to my seat right to the end of it. Even though I still don’t know the full English transcript, I vividly remember the images of the old masters’ paintings portraying musical instruments from the XV-XVII century, through which Felix illustrated so beautifully the evolution from medieval instruments to the now classic and pivotal Amati violin shape. You did not need to speak the language – the images spoke for themselves.

I would like to think that Felix’s ‘faszination’ with stringed instruments started in a childhood in which he studied the cello in Germany, in the day when the Berlin Wall still stood and Checkpoint Charlie was a real place and not just a Museum and tourist attraction. His path of becoming a violin maker started in 1989 in Gubbio, in the province of Umbria, Italy. During the three years that he studied to obtain the diploma “Maestro Liutaio”, Felix also conducted his own researches into the history of violin making throughout Italy. This was also a very important time in his personal life, as it was while in Italy that he met his soulmate (and now his wife of many years), the lovely Maria, who is originally from South America.

The story continues in Berlin, where Felix worked in a master’s shop for the next six years and obtained the official German instrument making status of ‘Geigenbaumeister’ in 1998.  The following year, Felix opened his own shop in Berlin, where he can now be found along the lushly green and leafy Beerenstrasse, in the beautiful south-western district of Zehlendorf. He continues his never-ending journey of discovery, both acoustically and aesthetically, in his making of new instruments, following the schools of old Italian masters, but continuing to expand his knowledge of today, drawing on his wide network of contemporary violin makers who gather every year at the Oberlin College Workshop in the USA.

However, once you have the opportunity to see, hold and play on one of the Felix’s instruments, you do begin to wonder how he can possibly better himself further! The moment you start tuning it in, the powerful sound of the violin begins to resonates through your body, and you are taken on the journey by which the instrument responses perfectly well to wherever you wish to go musically. The beautiful balance across all four strings leaves you gliding through different positions effortlessly, and if anything, once you start playing on it, you just want to keep exploring to reach the next level, held back only by your own lack of practice and technical excellence. That sense of ‘faszination’ that Felix as the maker has about his craft is fully embedded in the instrument and transferred to the player who, in the same manner, in turn continues to be fascinated and inspired by the sound it produces.