HUMAN AND MUSICAL MIGRATIONS

An interview with Giovanni Antonini, the artistic director of the International Wratislavia Cantans Festival named after Andrzej Markowski

Grzegorz Chojnowski: The 59th edition of the International Wratislavia Cantans Festival is ahead of us, your twelfth. Are numbers important to you? Some believe in their magic.

Giovanni Antonini: I don’t attach significance to numbers, I don’t celebrate anniversaries, although I know that for many people they are important. But I am fascinated by the coincidences of events, facts. I will tell you about one, in a sense related to this year’s festival, whose theme is migrations: ideas, people. I recently learned that George Frideric Handel’s grandfather came from Wrocław.

Really?

Valentin Handel (1583–1636) was a coppersmith, a Protestant. He later moved to Halle, where the composer’s father was born, and in 1685, George Friedrich himself. I read about this in Handel’s biography, just after the decision to include two of his great works in the festival program. Actually three, because the participants of the Course for the Interpretation of Oratorio and Cantata Music will be working on arias from Almira. It’s a fascinating coincidence, especially in the context of this year’s edition title, and also evidence that many of the most outstanding figures in culture and art were connected with the city of Wratislavia Cantans.

Incredible. And if we are already talking about ancestors and Wrocław residents: this year marks the centenary of the birth of the founder and director of the festival, Andrzej Markowski.

Yes, we have a special concert on this occasion. The Silesian Philharmonic will perform works by Henryk Mikołaj Górecki and a new piece by Mikołaj Górecki written specifically with the anniversary in mind. The title 1944 refers to Andrzej Markowski’s participation in the Warsaw Uprising.

I want to ask one more thing before you tell us about the program. In recent years, there have been extraordinary concerts, one and only, here and now. Like the concert Angelic Voices from last year, that is Vivaldi performed by the European Union Baroque Orchestra and the NFM Girls’ Choir. Don’t you sometimes feel sad that there was no recording, no recording, that such magical moments remain only in memory? You must have had, have such moments in your artistic biography. How do you cope with that feeling?

Sometimes I have more of a problem with everything being recorded. After the coronavirus pandemic, there is a tendency to record sound and image, to capture those really fleeting moments. That’s good, but not every concert needs to be recorded, we don’t always want that, usually not at the beginning of a tour, not in the case of new repertoire.

During this year’s Wratislavia Cantans, you will start by playing with Il Giardino Armonico and soloists the first oratorio by Handel, l trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno. The composer was twenty-two years old at the premiere. In earlier versions, already presented in England, Handel replaced Disinganno (disappointment, disillusionment) with Truth. A subtle but significant difference. Which version do you think is truer, which will we listen to? The Triumph of Truth or rather lost illusions?

We will play the Italian version, the one composed by the young Handel, who may not have emigrated but traveled to Italy to develop his skills. In Rome, he was welcomed as a great star, the audience was delighted with his organ virtuosity. It was at that time a city of luxury, typically baroque splendor, a wonderful space for music. Handel got to know in the Italian capital Corelli, Scarlatti, Pasquini. He absorbed the Italian tradition and style. And as for the title of his oratorio, Disinganno – disappointment – sounds more dramatic than Truth, as it assumes hope for happiness, fulfillment, for paradise. So when the awareness of the truth about the rules of life, the world comes, disappointment appears.

I have the impression that the themes of Wratislavia Cantans in recent years refer to social contexts.

When we talk about music, we also talk about man, humanity. A part of the concerts directly refers to events from history or human experiences. For example, the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra will perform Nocturne for string orchestra by Roman Palester, a composer born in Złotoryja (in today’s Ukraine). He lived in Warsaw, Kraków, then moved to Paris, as a sign of protest against socialist realism in Poland. In Munich, he co-founded Radio Free Europe. Certainly, we come to a concert to listen to music, but works have their genesis – related to individual experiences or social situations. The program of Pedro Memelsdorff’s performance and his musicians refers to colonial migration to French Guiana in the 18th century. The commune founded there in Kourou did not last long, it was destroyed by an epidemic. However, a wonderful music remained after it, which drew not only from European sources but also from South American creativity. It should be remembered that despite the fact that European colonization often brought about a creative mixing of cultures resulting in the emergence of innovative works, it generally contributed to the suffering of individuals and entire social groups. Another concert, in the White Stork Synagogue, will remind us of another chapter in the world history of colonization: the destruction of the Inca Empire and the invasion of the Spaniards.

Interestingly, in the following centuries, Kourou became a French prison, and today there is a space center. And it still belongs to France, it is in the European Union. The audience will remember the famous film Papillon, but let’s also emphasize that Pedro Memelsdorff’s concert will take place in the Gothic church dedicated to the three saints: Stanisław, Dorota, and Wacław, who patronize the agreement on the rights to Silesia between Czechs, Poles, and Germans. Was this intentional, or are we dealing with another extraordinary coincidence?

It’s the latter. When we arrange a festival program around a certain idea, invite artists, and inspire them to perform specific works, after some time it turns out how many common themes connect them. There are philosophical concepts on this subject. It resembles a web. I don’t know how it happens, maybe that’s how the human brain works, finding connections between – it would seem – distant spheres, concepts. And let’s not forget about the recurrence of events. Migrations have always been the result of social shocks and unrest, wars, and economic crises. Despite all our modernity, awareness of history, the feeling that war is evil and should never happen, we still hear about another one, about new nationalism, something that again divides instead of being curious and connecting.

We know this well in Wrocław, knowing the history of this city and its inhabitants, whether meeting and accepting refugees. Migrations are today a so-called hot topic, very political, we forget how organically they are connected with the history of man, humanity, with our social roots. Is this also what you want to draw attention to? Not only to the problems of the contemporary world? After all, we have been migrants from the very beginning, always.

Of course, homo sapiens supposedly appeared in Africa. I know fascinating stories about the music of the Bushmen or Pygmies from many thousands of years ago. Hoketus, a medieval polyphonic technique based on interrupting melodies with pauses, is their invention. It can also be found in Georgian music, in the music of New Guinea (as a result of ancient migrations from Africa to the east, we observe the same phenomena in the music of very distant countries). And if we look at ourselves, at races and nationalities, migrants evoke fear, which I understand, but migrations are also an opportunity for meeting and the permeation of cultures.

In the mentioned church of the three saints, we will also listen to Georgian songs. Georgia can be an emblem of the existence of autonomous ethnic minorities in one state.

Georgia is an area of very rich, perhaps the most diverse musical tradition. Precisely because of cultural coexistence. Coexistence is possible. There was, for example, a moment in the history of medieval Sicily, when Catholics, followers of Judaism, and Islam lived side by side. However, antagonisms almost always appear, some kind of flashpoint, someone who initiates it, and then what we know too well from the history of the world happens.

From history and the present, unfortunately. Similar threads can be found in the concert of the Wrocław Baroque Ensemble and Andrzej Kosendiak, who proposed works by Mykoła Dylecki, born in Kyiv, died in Moscow, active in Vilnius and Warsaw, a musician from the times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

In his music, the East meets the West, a lot of forms and techniques of Western European, especially Italian baroque entered church music. It’s an extraordinary combination of geographically and religiously distant regions, but – as you can see – possible. This concert perfectly fits into the festival’s slogan: migrations of people and ideas.

We are talking about spaces of music, both ethical and physical. You mentioned the concert in the White Stork Synagogue of Adrián Rodríguez Van der Spoel and his Música Temprana, specialists in Latin American baroque repertoire. This is probably an important place for you in Wrocław, not only in the context of this year’s festival theme.

I believe it is an excellent place for music. At one of the previous festivals, we performed music related to the Bassano family, whose members were probably of Jewish nationality. We started the concert with a 17th-century Italian melody titled La Mantovana, which Smetana later used in the symphonic cycle My Country, and recently it was quoted in the national anthem of Israel. I liked this coincidence, but my primary goal and task is to match the artist, ensemble, and repertoire to the acoustically appropriate hall. The size of the hall also matters.

And do you remember your concert, in which what and where you played became particularly significant and elevated the music, the performance above the music?

I will repeat that the most important thing is the acoustics. Sometimes we don’t feel comfortable in some interior, but we hear that the acoustics are excellent; sometimes it’s the opposite. Of course, it’s best when both work. There are also places with a special aura, like the Wiener Konzerthaus. I also consider the Wrocław National Forum of Music to be one of those places. I have recorded several albums here, and each time, along with the sound engineers, we had the feeling that it was enough to set up the microphones, and the sound would be excellent. When you play, even on a delicate-sounding instrument, you know that the sound lives. We should not underestimate the scenographic beauty of the NFM Concert Hall. There are wonderful musical spaces in the world. Recently we played at Wigmore Hall in London, where you can feel the spirit of that hall, its tradition, where the audience’s reception and enthusiasm confirm the uniqueness of the place. The acoustics of Wigmore Hall are beautiful, velvety, which affects the sound of the instruments.

This year we have two great returns to Wrocław for the festival. The beloved by Wrocław residents Václav Luks with Collegium 1704 will present Israel in Egypt by Handel, a work with which Sir John Eliot Gardiner performed here fifteen years ago. You are returning to this title.

Wratislavia Cantans is an oratorio festival, so we are returning to certain works. Fifteen years is a long time, and the story of the Israelites’ exodus from Egyptian captivity perfectly reflects the theme of migration. And we present two works by Handel from different periods of his creativity and life. The Oratorio that I will perform with Il Giardino Armonico is a work of his youth. Meanwhile, Israel in Egypt was written by the composer as a mature man in his fifties.

So we can also observe stylistic migrations in the creativity of one composer.

Handel gave a lot of himself when composing his works. He wrote operas in the Italian style, but we think that a great change occurred when he took on oratorios, where the choir is important. Following the taste of the English audience and the British choral tradition was significant. Few works of 18th-century music became classics often performed in later centuries. Stabat Mater by Pergolesi, The Creation by Haydn, but above all The Messiah by George Frideric Handel.

We talked about the good and bad aspects of migration. Is then the one-act opera by Britten – the story of Noah’s Ark performed by the NFM Girls’ Choir and the NFM Boys’ Choir – and the concerts for children by the Ukrainian-Wrocław vocalist Danny Vynnytska rays of hope for the world?

That’s one thing, but the choice of the children’s opera is also an effect of festival experiences with the boys’ and girls’ choirs. The energy of children, their passion for music is extraordinary, fantastic. These are choirs at a high level, so above all, I hope for wonderful music. I have a personal relationship with Britten’s work. As a young musician, I played the solo part in this opera – at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan – I knew that I would return to this title someday, whether as a performer or as a director arranging the festival program. I am looking forward to this moment of Wratislavia Cantans. We need youth, children in music, and they need music that can give direction, shape, educate, detach youth from computers, smartphones, short forms, and focus attention through the pleasure of performing it.

As a child, Christoph Eschenbach, born in 1940 in Breslau, felt the burdens of fate and history, orphanhood, and migration, who will conduct the final concert with the mass and symphony of the Austrian Anton Bruckner. It’s hard to find a stronger conclusion to such a festival.

Maestro Eschenbach personally chose the program for this concert. For me, it was obvious that someone with such a dramatic biography, connected with the city of the festival, someone who returns to the place of his childhood as the director of the local orchestra, would perform at Wratislavia. We titled the concert New Beginnings, although in fact, it is a return of a great interpreter of music to Wrocław. And – you will agree – a wonderful coincidence. We start the festival with a work by Handel, whose grandfather came from Breslau, and we end with the performance of a conductor born here, who comes to Wrocław as the artistic director of the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic.

I admit. But with all this, the reflections that accompany us while discussing the program, we think that we should not forget about the beauty of music migrating from genre to genre, from instrument to instrument, mandolin, harpsichord, human voice. Is this a value that does not succumb to the truth of time and illusions?

Absolutely. The theme of the festival and its contexts are starting points, hints, inspirations. We do not intend to moralize, we do not have ambitions for a university lecture on historical or social topics. The most important thing is the music and the people who create it, as authors, composers, performers. Avi Avital brings a program composed of transcriptions for mandolin, including works by Bach or Vivaldi. The concert will take place in the Museum of Mr. Tadeusz, an ideal space for such music. Jean Rondeau, an outstanding harpsichordist, one of the best virtuosos in the world, will also perform there – for the first time in Wrocław. I am not only looking forward to his performance; I am curious how works originally intended for orchestra will sound on a solo instrument. This is also a kind of, in this case, purely musical migration.

Interviewed by Grzegorz Chojnowski, Radio Wrocław Kultura