La Palma hosts the 'live' recovery of the musical heritage created around Saint Saëns
From left to right, Dionisio Rodríguez, Pedro Espiau and Gonzalo Angulo, this Wednesday morning, at El Museo Canario. /
The Insular Museum of the palm capital opens on Saturday the first concert of the future tour with pieces by the Gaul and island composers
A book that is not read is as useless as a score that is not played. This void is on the way to being resolved within the musical heritage of the Canary archipelago thanks to the rescue work undertaken by the
cultural society Lyric Workshop of the Canary Islandsthat
this Saturday begins to see the light in public with a concert in
Holy Cross of La Palma with recovered pieces born from the passage through Gran Canaria of the legendary French composer Camille Saint-Säens and other musicians influenced by his creative and social impact.
Starting at 8:00 p.m., the
Gran Canaria String Quintet, together with the pianist Víctor Naranjo and under the direction of
Dionisio Rodriguezwill give life in the Insular Museum of the Plaza de San Francisco in the palm capital, to pieces rescued from the
Camille Saint Saëns, Bernardino Valle, Fermina Henríquez, José and Andrés García de la Torre and Teobaldo Power.
It's about a
first advance of the fruits harvested after
year and a half of work with funds mainly from El Museo Canario in the capital of Gran Canaria.
Some works
«This recovery work was initially linked to the centenary of the death of Camille Saint Saëns, in 2021. Some of the works were already played during the centenary acts and now we add a new series of authors close to this composer, including a female figure who was pre-eminent at that time,
Fermina Henriquez. She was a girl from good society, who studied at the Conservatory in Madrid, she took her career and some of her works were published that caught the attention of Saint Saëns. we have recovered
'The kiss'", Explain
Dionisio Rodriguez during the presentation held this Wednesday in the library of El Museo Canario.
Another of the rescued pieces corresponds to the
Garcia de la Torre brothers, "greatly forgotten music in Gran Canaria", according to Rodríguez. “They have a street and nothing else. From the family legacy, which is deposited in El Museo Canario, we have begun to make arrangements as a sextet. Why in sextet? At that time, the great Spanish and European composers were supported by good publishers and were offered to play in cafes and salons.
We have tried to be as faithful as possible to the originalwith arrangements for the showcasing of the music and not of the arranger”, clarifies the musical director of the project.
When the concert tour ends in September in the capital of Gran Canaria, they plan to premiere, Rodríguez advances, a
'Capricious Waltz', by Andrés García de la Torre, from «a manuscript given by the Bello family». Added to this rescue effort is a
'Tanganillo' by Teobaldo Power, belonging to "its last stage, which contains one of the themes of what would be the 'Cantos Canarios'". “It is very virtuosic for the piano, we have adapted it and it works very well in a sextet format,” he adds.
Full
Dionisio Rodríguez underlines the importance of this company including "the full cycle." He alludes to "
research, to the revision of the scores, with corrections, and make them music with a Chamber Music Classroom and with the Canary Islands Lyric Workshop, which has allowed us to have a series of young Canarians with magnificent training and who were delighted to make this music».
Saturday's concert, in the museum courtyard, is complemented by the projection of a series of images provided by the
Canary Islands Astrophysical Institute of the skies of the islands, which indicate the passion of Camille Saint Saëns for this scientific discipline. "He was an amateur astronomer. With the first royalties, a telescope was bought," says Dionisio Rodríguez, who will curate an exhibition on the French composer that will open its doors on
December 1 at the Casa de Colón in the capital of Gran Canaria.
Peter Espiau, professor, archivist of the Municipal Symphonic Band and in charge of the technical process of editing and digitizing scores, explains that he has used the
Sibelius program for this process. “We have transcribed the complete works. Some were handwritten and therefore difficult to read because they were discolored. We've fixed slurs, false notes, and some accidentals. This program allows you to listen to what is written. It's important because
music can fool the eye, but not the ear if there is any false note or that is not clear", he points out next to
Gonzalo Angulo, president of the Canary Islands Lyric Workshop.
