Cuentos de Amor by Waldo Geuns

Waldo Geuns, Enrique Granados

Waldo Geuns

Cuentos de Amor

Price: € 14.95
Format: CD
Label: Antarctica
UPC: 0608917730722
Catnr: AR 007
Release date: 06 April 2018
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Label
Antarctica

UPC
0608917730722

Catalogue number
AR 007

Release date
06 April 2018

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

What do we listen to when we play music? We listen to emotion, and passages which inspire. These passages sometimes stay with us in the form of indelible memories, if we hear them at the right time and in the right place. What are these ‘right’ moments? They are the moments during which the music’s emotion matches the events in our lives perfectly. A piece of music – indeed, a single chord may even be enough – can remind us of the joy or sadness we experienced in that moment. Through experiences like these, music speaks to us and becomes part of our lives.

For Waldo Geuns, one such unforgettable musical work is Goyescas by the Spanish composer Enrique Granados. He gives voice to love in all its joyful and challenging moments in this, his greatest piano suite. Granados uses the titles and the scenographic notes in the score to illustrate how two lovers make overtures to each other as they dance, how their relationship blossoms even as it weathers darker days, until fate ultimately takes its toll and one of the lovers passes away, leaving the other behind with nothing but beautiful memories.

Granados, like Sergei Rachmaninov, was one of the last great pianist-composers. His mastery of the piano can be heard in his exceptional virtuosity and lyricism. It inspired Geuns to walk in his footsteps and write his own music, using his melodies as points of departure. Not only did this give Geuns greater insight into Granados’ music, but it also allowed him to add to his story one of the most beautiful moments in a romantic relationship: the moment of first eye contact, and the realisation that one’s life will never be the same from that moment on.

Cuentos de Amor trailer

Waar luisteren we naar als we muziek spelen? We luisteren naar emoties, en passages die inspireren. Deze passages blijven soms bij ons in de vorm van onuitwisbare herinneringen, als we ze op de juiste tijd en de juiste plaats horen. Wat zijn deze ‘juiste’ momenten? Het zijn de momenten waarop de emoties van de muziek perfect aansluiten op de gebeurtenissen in ons leven. Een muziekstuk – sterker nog, een enkel akkoord kan zelfs genoeg zijn – kan ons herinneren aan de vreugde of verdriet die we op dat moment ervaarden. Door middel van dergelijke ervaringen spreekt muziek tot ons en wordt het een deel van ons leven.

Voor Waldo Geuns is een van deze onvergetelijke muziekstukken Goyescas van de Spaanse componist Enrique Granados. In dit werk, zijn grootste pianosuite, geeft hij uitdrukking aan de liefde in al zijn vreugdevolle en uitdagende momenten. Granados maakt gebruik van de titels en de en scenografische aantekeningen in de partituur om te verduidelijken hoe twee geliefden ouvertures voor elkaar maken terwijl ze dansen, hoe hun relatie opbloeit, zelfs als zij donkere dagen moet doorstaan totdat het noodlot uiteindelijk toeslaat en een van de geliefden sterft, de ander achterlatend met niets dan mooie herinneringen.

Granados is net als Sergei Rachmaninov een van de laatste grote pianist-componisten. Zijn beheersing van de piano is te horen in zijn uitzonderlijke virtuositeit en lyriek. Het inspireerde Geuns om in zijn voetstappen te treden en zijn eigen muziek te schrijven, waarbij hij zijn melodieën als uitgangspunt gebruikt. Dit gaf Geuns niet alleen dieper inzicht in de muziek van Granados, maar maakte het hem ook mogelijk om een van de mooiste momenten in een romantische relatie aan zijn verhaal toe te voegen: het moment van het eerste oogcontact, en de realisatie dat het leven vanaf dat moment nooit meer hetzelfde zal zijn.

Was hören wir, wenn wir Musik machen? Wir hören Emotionen und Passagen, die inspirieren. Diese Passagen bleiben uns manchmal in Form von unauslöschlichen Erinnerungen erhalten, wenn wir sie im richtigen Moment und am richtigen Ort hören. Was sind diese "richtigen" Momente? Es sind die Momente, in denen die Emotionen der Musik perfekt mit den Ereignissen in unserem Leben übereinstimmen. Ein Musikstück, ja, ein einziger Akkord kann sogar ausreichen, kann uns an die Freude oder Traurigkeit erinnern, die wir in diesem Moment erleben. Durch solche Erfahrungen spricht die Musik zu uns und wird Teil unseres Lebens.

Für Waldo Geuns ist ‘Goyescas‘ des spanischen Komponisten Enrique Granados ein unvergessliches musikalisches Werk. Er gibt der Liebe Stimme in all ihren freudigen und herausfordernden Momenten in dieser, seiner größten Klaviersuite. Granados verwendet die Titel und die szenographischen Notizen in der Partitur, um zu veranschaulichen, wie zwei Liebende sich beim Tanzen gegenseitig Ouvertüren machen, wie ihre Beziehung aufblüht, selbst wenn sie dunklere Tage überstehen muss, bis das Schicksal schließlich seinen Tribut fordert und einer der Liebenden stirbt und den anderen mit nichts als schönen Erinnerungen zurücklässt.

Granados war, wie Sergei Rachmaninoff, einer der letzten großen Pianisten-Komponisten. Seine Beherrschung des Klaviers ist in seiner außergewöhnlichen Virtuosität und Lyrik zu hören. Es hat Geuns dazu inspiriert, in seine Fußstapfen zu treten und eigene Musik zu schreiben, wobei seine Melodien als Ausgangspunkt dienen. Dies gab Geuns nicht nur einen tieferen Einblick in seine Musik, sondern ermöglichte es ihm auch, seiner Geschichte einen der schönsten Momente in einer romantischen Beziehung hinzuzufügen: den Moment des ersten Blickkontakts und die Erkenntnis, dass das Leben von diesem Moment an nie mehr dasselbe sein wird.

Kompositionen des spanischen Pianisten und Komponisten Enrique Granados. Waldo Geuns fügt der Geschichte, die Granados erzählt, ein Kapitel hinzu, indem er sein eigenes Stück komponiert.

Artist(s)

Waldo Geuns (piano)

Waldo Geuns is a pianist, philosopher and musicologist who brings these three disciplines into each and every one of his projects. His style at the piano is marked by a musicality and adroitness which is as rousing as it is considered. His aim with every performance is to create an innovative concert experience. He uses new emotive and philosophical approaches to communicate, to allow us to recall the time when compositions were originally scored. Musically, he opens our senses to the melodies of the past. He delights in alloying classical music with other disciplines, such as fashion, dance, literature, jazz and equestrian shows - an approach which has led to some very successful tours in Belgium. His passion for philosophy and...

Waldo Geuns is a pianist, philosopher and musicologist who brings these three disciplines into each and every one of his projects.

His style at the piano is marked by a musicality and adroitness which is as rousing as it is considered. His aim with every performance is to create an innovative concert experience. He uses new emotive and philosophical approaches to communicate, to allow us to recall the time when compositions were originally scored. Musically, he opens our senses to the melodies of the past. He delights in alloying classical music with other disciplines, such as fashion, dance, literature, jazz and equestrian shows - an approach which has led to some very successful tours in Belgium. His passion for philosophy and the piano comes through clearly when he speaks at conferences on musicology in cultural institutions or on Radio 1 or Klara (VRT).

Waldo trained with the pianists Jan Michiels, Hans Leygraf and André De Groote after which he continued to hone his craft with the Polish pianist and teacher Wieslaw Szlachta. He has already been awarded a number of prizes, including the prestigious “Mayor Paul Meyers Prize”, and is a musician in residence at Hollands College, Louvain (KU Leuven), giving lectures and recitals there every year.

In addition to his career as a soloist, Waldo also enjoys performing with chamber music ensembles, playing piano for the De Drij Coppen trio (with Hugh Desmond on violin and Stijn Kuppens on cello). He is also one-half of the Doppio Stile duo; with his accomplice Desmond, they tackle music from a philosophical angle.

Owing to this original approach to music, Waldo has had the opportunity to perform in a number of major concert halls in Belgium and beyond, including Amuz and DeSingel in Antwerp, Bozar and Flagey in Brussels and the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He has also been invited to numerous festivals, including the Ten Vrede Festival, the B-Classic Festival (Limbourg, Flanders), Festival van Vlaanderen / Festival 20/21 (Vlaams-Brabant), Jazzathome, the Sopra la Musica Festival and Gentse Vleugels. He has performed as a soloist with a range of orchestras, including Limburgs Kamerorkest, Limburgs Orkest Jeugd en Muziek, Hasselts Symfonieorkest, Frascati Symphonic and symphoniaASSAI, and with such conductors as Wouter Lenaerts, Jasper de Waal, Koen Dries, Willy Claes or Pierre Bartholomee.

As well as sharing his vision of music on stage, he also commits it to paper. After having studied music writing (Royal Conservatory of Brussels) and musicology/philosophy (KU Leuven), Waldo Geuns now regularly writes programme pieces and press articles for cultural magazines such as Staalkaart. In addition, he is also a writer for the Flagey Cultural Centre in Brussels.

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Composer(s)

Enrique Granados

Enrique Granados Campiña was born in Lleida, Spain, the son of Calixto Granados, a Spanish army captain, and Enriqueta Campiña. As a young man he studied piano in Barcelona, where his teachers included Francisco Jurnetand and Joan Baptista Pujol. In 1887, he went to Paris to study. He was unable to become a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but he was able to take private lessons with a conservatoire professor, Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot, whose mother, the soprano Maria Malibran, was of Spanish ancestry. Bériot insisted on extreme refinement in tone production, which strongly influenced Granados’s own teaching of pedal technique. He also fostered Granados's abilities in improvisation. Just as important were his studies with Felip Pedrell. He returned to Barcelona in 1889. His first successes were at the end of the 1890s, with the zarzuela Maria del Carmen, which attracted the attention of KingAlfonso XIII.
In 1911 Granados premiered his suite for piano Goyescas, which became his most famous work. It is a set of six pieces based on paintings of Francisco Goya. Such was the success of this work that he was encouraged to expand it. He wrote an opera based on the subject in 1914, but the outbreak of World War I forced the European premiere to be canceled. It was performed for the first time in New York City on 28 January 1916, and was very well received. Shortly afterwards, he was invited to perform a piano recital for President Woodrow Wilson. Prior to leaving New York, Granados also made live-recorded player piano music rolls for the New-York-based Aeolian Company's "Duo-Art" system, all of which survive today and can be heard – his very last recordings.
The delay incurred by accepting the recital invitation caused him to miss his boat back to Spain. Instead, he took a ship to England, where he boarded the passenger ferry SS Sussex for Dieppe, France. On the way across the English Channel, the Sussex was torpedoed by a German U-boat, as part of the German World War I policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. In a failed attempt to save his wife Amparo, whom he saw flailing about in the water some distance away, Granados jumped out of his lifeboat and drowned. However, the ship broke in two parts and only one sank (along with 80 passengers). Ironically, the part of the ship that contained his cabin did not sink and was towed to port, with most of the passengers, except for Granados and his wife, on board. Granados and his wife left six children: Eduard (a musician), Solita, Enrique (a swimming champion), Víctor, Natàlia, and Francisco.

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