Con LOS 12 VIOLONCHELISTAS de la FILARMÓNICA DE BERLÍN

               Die 12 Cellisten der Berliner Philharmoniker. ‘Round Midnight. EMI Classics, 2002.

En el número correspondiente al mes de julio, 2002, de la revista Círculo MixUp
(www.circulomixup.com.mx) , aparece el siguiente artículo firmado por el Director de esa revista, Sr. Mauricio Hammer, sobre el disco compacto 'Round Midnight, grabado por LOS 12 VIOLONCHELISTAS DE LA FILARMÓNICA DE BERLÍN,  lanzado a nivel mundial por la firma EMIClassics, de Londres. El mencionado CD incluye mi pieza THE FLOWER IS A KEY (A Rap for Mozart), sobre un poema de DYMA EZBAN, traducido por mí al inglés, compuesta por encargo de y dedicada a los mismos violonchelistas.

Sergio Cárdenas y su encuentro con doce cellos,
por  Mauricio Hammer   
   
“’Round Midnight” es una pieza emblemática –si las hay– del jazz. Creada por Thelonius Monk y Cootie Williams y grabada por vez primera en 1994, desde su título mismo nos remite al carácter nocturno y taciturno de la música sincopada; ha sido objeto de incontables versiones a lo largo de su historia y hasta sirvió de título para la cinta con que Bertrand Tavernier rindió homenaje al género y a dos de sus principales exponentes, Lester Young y Bud Powell. Así que cuando uno ve este disco lo primero que se le viene a la mente es que se trata de un álbum de jazz. La verdad es que esto es cierto sólo a medias. ’Round Midnight es un curioso álbum realizado por Los Doce Violonchelistas de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Berlín. Se trata de un homenaje a Norteamérica que continúa el proyecto comenzado con su South America Getaway, una mezcla de tango y otros ritmos latinos que les valiera el “Echo Klassik 2001” y la nominación para un Grammy de ese mismo año.
Ahora, para celebrar el aniversario número treinta de la agrupación, los violonchelistas han grabado una auténtica ensalada que contiene “America”, la célebre pieza de Leonard Bernstein incluida en su West Side Story; la “Caravan”, de Juan Tizol y Duke Ellington; dos piezas de Gershwin, “Clap Yo Hands” y “Preludio No, 2”; la clásica de grandes bandas “Serenata a la luz de la luna”, de Glenn Miller, y “Spain”, de Chick Corea; el spiritual “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”, “Deep River”, el ragtime de Shigeaki Saegusa ¡y hasta el tema de “La pantera rosa”, de Henry Mancini!
Y en medio de esta mezcla de muy conocidas melodías, casi todas muy cercanas al jazz, nos sorprenden las únicas dos piezas comisionadas especialmente para este disco: “America 2002, In Memoriam”, de Robert Brookmeyer, y muy especialmente la pieza de nuestro compatriota internacional Sergio Cárdenas, “The Flower Is a Key (A Rap for Mozart)”.
En el primer caso se trata de una obra elegante donde se dan cita una muy jazzística trompeta a cargo del germano Till Bronner –que parece representar la modernidad y el dinamismo de Norteamérica– contrastada con un conmovedor concierto de cellos que nos trae a la mente praderas, cañadas, locomotoras… y toda esa parafernalia de que está hecha la historia (mítica) de los Estados Unidos.
No obstante, la pieza de fuerza de ‘Round Midnight es “The Flower Is a Key (A Rap for Mozart)”, una obra tan original y fuerte que prácticamente es imposible encuadrarla dentro de este disco bastante tranquilo.
Basada en el poema “Mozart”, del guanajuatense Dyma Ezban, la obra fue grabada por Sir Simon Rattle y Los 12 Violonchelistas de la Filarmónica de Berlín, a quienes está dedicada. Es en efecto un rap, ya que contiene un relato hablado (o más bien rapeado) al que acompaña, acentúa y acota la música. El rapero es nada más y nada menos que Mr. Rattle, sucesor, a partir de agosto próximo, de Von Karajan y de Claudio Abbado como titular de la Filarmónica de Berlín y uno de los directores más cotizados del mundo.
Cárdenas ha ocupado la titularidad de orquestas en Alemania, Austria y México; aquí fue Director de la Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional y fundó y dirigió por más de diez años la Filarmónica de Querétaro. Como compositor ha estrenado mundialmente catorce obras musicales en los últimos cuatro años. “The Flower Is a Key (A Rap for Mozart)” es un nuevo triunfo para este talentoso director: por una parte, el haber sido elegido por una agrupación musical de ese calibre y, por la otra, el contarse dentro de una lista de compositores tan notables como Gershwin, Bernstein o Ellington son hechos que demuestran el reconocimiento de que goza Cárdenas.
‘Round Midnight es, sin lugar a dudas, un must have para los amantes de la gran música contemporánea.


SERGIO CÁRDENAS Y LOS 12 VIOLONCHELISTAS DE LA FILARMÓNICA DE BERLÍN. Un Rap para Wolfgang Amadeus.por MICHAEL THUMSER*

Los 12 violonchelistas de la Filarmónica de Berlín (www.die12cellisten.com)  se fueron de viaje a América  y se llevaron consigo a Sergio Cárdenas (www.excelencia.uat.mx/pariente/seriscarta). O mejor dicho: se lo encontraron allá, pues en América del Norte, en México, es donde él reside. De 1985 a 1989 Cárdenas ocupó como Titular el podio de la Sinfónica de Hof (www.hofer-symphoniker.de) y desde entonces ha mantenido una estrecha relación con esa orquesta. En el nuevo CD del famoso grupo de cuerdas, su composición “THE FLOWER IS A KEY” marca el punto central del programa, que se compone de arreglos de melodías de Broadway y del cine, de Spirituals y de Jazz. El consorcio disquero EMI Classics (www.emiclassics.com)  nombra al ‘Rap para Mozart’ de Cárdenas como un “punto culminante” del CD.

En 1972, a sus 21 años de edad, Sergio Cárdenas escuchó por primera vez a los violonchelistas berlineses. Por aquel entonces, los doce apóstoles de las sonoridades profundas de las cuerdas empezaban su ascenso internacional como un ensamble tan curioso como innovativo. Para el joven mexicano, ese encuentro fue “una experiencia inolvidable.” Décadas después, Georg Faust, Violonchelista Solista Principal de la Filarmónica de Berlín (www.berliner-philharmoniker.de) preguntó a Cárdenas sobre la posibilidad de componer una pieza para los violonchelistas. Debería ser un ‘rap’, una composición que si bien pudiera  catalogarse como clásica, se introdujera en  los terrenos de ese intrincado estilo ‘parlante’ de ritmos extremos tal y como desde los años ’80, emergiendo de Afroamérica,  se ha mantenido vigente en la escena pop internacional.

Así nació “THE FLOWER IS A KEY (A Rap for Mozart)”, pues al recibir el pedido de Berlín, Cárdenas “pensó de inmediato en el hermoso poema MOZART, de Dyma Ezban” (poeta guanajuatense), escrito en 1991 (y dedicado a Cárdenas) en ocasión del Bicentenario Luctuoso del genio de Salzburgo. El poema describe, de manera elegante, cómo el niño  Wolfgang Amadeus acercó “su oído al tronco de un árbol y el crujir de sus ramas le hizo escuchar” su Alma; cómo él, posteriormente, descubre “que la flor es una clave en la instauración de la belleza” y que “la cadencia del mar es el origen de toda melodía.” Y cómo “el Celeste” a él, que se extinguió demasiado pronto en su arte, le dio un reflejo de la armonía de la creación divina.

Más con vehemencia y virtuosismo que con sensibilidad es como los excelsos violonchelistas abordan esta música. En el CD (‘Round Midnight, EMI Classics, CD 5 57319 2), la pieza de Cárdenas es, sin lugar a dudas, la que más cautiva. La parte del ‘rapero’ corre por cuenta de uno de los más brillantes directores de orquesta de la actualidad y, a la vez, nuevo Titular de la Filarmónica de Berlín: Sir Simon Rattle. La conjunción de los berlineses con el británico convierte al rap en un asunto muy europeo. Rattle hace oír su voz ora de manera nasal y gutural, ora golpeada, pero siempre lúdica y cool. Pero también los músicos, como coro en diálogo con él, tienen algo qué decir. De manera sincopada empujan la música (que se apoya tanto  en ritmos latinoamericanos como en un minimalismo norteamericano)  hacia delante, la hilvanan estróficamente y rica en contrastes, por momentos desafiantes, luego retraídos en un pianissimo murmurante. “Aleluya”, murmulla Rattle al final, pero no tanto  como elogio del “Celestial” sino de ese único terrenal: “Mozart”, gritan los violonchelistas como respuesta y, con ello, tienen la última palabra.

Este no es, de ninguna manera, el primer Rap de la “fábrica” de Cárdenas: en Hof, con el tarabillero André Wilkins como rapero solista, estrenó hace unos dos años su (obra) “VOCES DE LOS MONTES ALTOS”, que encendió al público a un aplauso entusiasta. Tampoco se trata de la primera grabación de obras propias: apenas en julio de 2001, Cárdenas presentó en Hof un CD con sus obras corales (”Enturia”), grabadas por el Coro de Concierto de la Sinfónica de Hof. Ahora, en esta nueva grabación, el nombre de Cárdenas aparece junto a los de Bernstein y Gershwin, Glenn Miller y Mancini, Chick Corea y Thelonius Monk: un ilustre vecindario a su altura.+
 
*Michael Thumser es crítico musical y Jefe de la Sección Cultural del periódico regional de Franconia (Baviera), Alemania,  “Frankenpost” (www.frankenpost.de).  Este artículo apareció en la edición correspondiente al 27 de junio de 2002.


Article on the magazine THE STRAD, March, 2003, London.

CELLOS INC
Shirley Apthorp talks to the twelve cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic, who have managed to tame their strong personalities to form a harmonious union

In the grey, relentless Berlin rain, a girl trudged along the muddy pavement, thumb extended towards the passing cars. She was just 15, and could not know, when finally a car squelched to a halt beside her, what a high price she would be asked to pay for the lift.
It’s a story the twelve cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic love to relate. The similarity to a Hitchcock film fades as the story continues. The girl was Tatjana Blacher, daughter of eminent German composer Boris Blacher, and the man who picked her up was Rudolf Weinsheimer, principal cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic. It was the spring of 1972. Just days before, his section had recorded Julius Klengel’s Hymnus for Austrian radio. For the first time the twelve cellists had played as an independent ensemble, and the occasion had been such a success that they had all agreed they should do it more often. The problem was, what would they play? Weinsheimer looked at the soggy young hitch-hiker and decided she was heaven sent. Fortunately, she understood immediately what it was that he wanted and she was able to persuade her father of the worthiness of the cause.
So it was that Blacher’s Rumba Philharmonica became the first piece composed for the twelve cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic; his Blues and Espagnola soon followed. Adding Villa-Lobos’s Bachiana Brasileira no. l, the ensemble had a complete concert programme. In October 1973 they gave their first concert in Tokyo’s Okuma Hall. It was rapturously received. Their next concert at the Salzburg Easter Festival the following year went down just as well.
Now 30 years old, the twelve cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic are an institution. They receive far more invitations to perform than they can accept. Repertoire, the question which so troubled Weinsheimer back in 1972, has not been a problem since the immortal hitch-hiker incident; the list of works written for the group reads like a who’s who of contemporarv music. Jean Françaix, Arvo Pärt, Udo Zimmermann, lannis Xenakis, Brett Dean and Wolfgang Rihm have all written works which have entered their repertoire; Helmut Lachenmann, Matthias Pintscher and Tan Dun are busy with new pieces. And then there are the arrangements, from Bergel’s Bach and Dean’s Purcell and Haydn to the enduringly popular crossover settings of Wilhelm Kaiser - Lindemann (affectionately known to the group as Kaiser Wilhelm). More recently, there have been Jose Carli’s tango settings and a range of other South and North American popular music arrangements.
In 2000 their CD entitled South American Getaway was a great success, more than paying for itself in spite of EMI’s initial reluctance to record it. It had been 17 years since the group’s last recording, an LP of Beatles arrangements. Last year, a new disc entitled ‘Round Midnight was released, selling 30,000 copies within two months. Plans are afoot for the next recording. The fact that it’s a good time for the twelve cellists is closely linked to the fact that it’s a good time for the Berlin Philharmonic. Simon Rattle took over as chief conductor in September, inheriting from Claudio Abbado an orchestra which is younger, stronger and considerably more flexible than that which Herbert von Karajan left behind. The cello section has gained six new members over the past seven years, with auditions offering a selection of applicants of mind-bogglingly high standards.
It wasn’t always like that. ‘About ten years ago there was a review of the twelve cellists in The Strad,’ recalls Martin Menking. ‘The critic wrote that it was hard to believe that this was the cello section of one of the best orchestras in the world. And it was fair; the group was in bad shape. But times have changed since then. You can feel that everybody wants the best and that it’s special for all of us.’ Of the original twelve, only Götz Tuetsch remains. After Jan Diesselhorst, section principal Georg Faust is the next longest-serving member, having joined 17 years ago. Today there are few grey hairs to be seen and the group exudes the boundless self-confidence of youth. That, together with apparently limitless technical ability and extraordinary collective musicianship, is a formidable combination.
There’s something both comic and impressive about the sight of twelve cellist, grouped in a semicircle on stage. Also, arrestingly, there’s something utterly natural about the formation. The six-octave range plays a major role in it, as does the expressive versatility of ihe instrument. ‘I remember listening to their Proms debut on the radio,’ Rattle wrote in the programme book of their jubilee concert last October,’ and for one dangerous moment I thought, “Why does one actually need a whole orchestra?”’
But it’s the sheer physicality, the completely sensual engagement with the instrument that really seems to characterise the group. Virtuosity is a given, breathtaking feats tossed off with a self-evident lack of effort every few seconds. How do they define what it is that makes them this kind of a unit? ‘We look for strong personalities. We don’t just look for people who can play the cello. This orchestra in general doesn’t look for people who just want to fit in, who just sit still and play along. We look for people who have their own desire for expression, who have a real energy and who want to express something,’ says Menking. As usual with the Berlin Philharmonic, the best way to extract a clear definition is by making a goading comparison with the Vienna Philharmonic. ‘In Vienna it’s more the case that they have leaders with strong personalities, and the others blend in. Which you can also hear in the total sound,’Menkin responds. ‘In our case there are twelve cellists sitting there, and everyone thinks, “I’m right”. That’s both an advantage and a disadvantage. But the energy in our case is much stronger.’
The two different concert halls, adds Nikolaus Römisch, are an immensely important factor in the two different approaches. ‘The Musikverein in Vienna is so loud and the sound there is so good that if everybody were to play like a soloist there it would just sound unpleasantly loud. Here in the Philarmonic it’s not possible to play too lodly. There is no limit to how much sound you can produce.’ That explains much of the muscularity of the ensemble’s approach. In the capacious hexagonal hall, the audience surrounds the stage on all sides. With no back wall to bounce the sound back to listeners, players much produce more sound themselves in order to fill the space. But an equally important element, Römisch says, is the social one. Of course it’s also a question of sympathy – what happens between people has an impact on the quality of the group. If the human harmony isn’t right, it also can’t be right musically’, Menking nods. ‘I must say, we sat together with a solo cellist from the Vienna Philarmonic in Salzburg, and he said that it wouldn’t just be unthinkable for the twelve cellists of the Vienna Philharmonic to play together – it would be unthinkable for them to all sit at one table and eat together! And then to play together – he has unbounded admiration for it and he can’t quite imagine how it would feel!’ So are the Berlin cellists one big happy family? Not quite, he admits. ‘People say of a string quartet that it’s like a marriage with four people in it. For us it’s like a marriage with twelve, so it’s incredibly difficult to form a collective opinion.’
With twelve strong-minded, competent individuals, rehearsals can become argumentative, tours volatile. Tensions are par for the course in the pressure-cooker environment of the Berlin Philharmonic. Assembling a large body of extroverted, highly intelligent musicians, all good enough to have successful solo careers, and obliging them to suppress their individuality to serve a common cause is inevitably a high-risk business. ‘There are a lot of Alpha animals,’ agrees Faust. ‘And it’s quite clear that there are always little territorial battles or borders to be defended - not on a grand scale, but in small things. After you’ve been there for a couple of years, the hierarchies in the different groups become quite clear - every society is like that. One knows when to keep silent and when to speak.’
Though there have been awkward moments over the years, the twelve cellists have learned to live with one another. Much of that, they agree, was due to the patient determination of Weinsheimer, a father figure to the emerging ensemble who helped to iron out personal differences and to motivate the musicians to believe in what they were doing. These days, it’s Faust who fills this role. ‘There’s often a great deal of work,’ he says. ‘There’s never enough time, and yet we want to achieve the best possible results - and that demands the highest concentration. lf twelve people all want to say something about a particular passage, it would take forever. So it’s clear that my colleague Ludwig Quandt and I dictate a lot in the rehearsals, even though it’s also a democratic process. We try to keep fun in the foreground; humour helps.’
Faust is also best able to define what it is that unites the twelve musicians. ‘Of course there’s something specific about the sound. The tradition of the orchestra is very strongly governed by this dark and very beautiful sound, and we listen for it in auditions. Perhaps it has changed a bit in recent years - we regard the matter of expression as very important, perhaps even more than a lovely sound. And of course there’s a process of adaptation that new members go through. In the group we have very different kinds of players: lighter, darker, more direct or softer - also in the vibrato - but you have to be able to feel the potential and the willingness to vary.’
Interestingly, there are no female members of the Berlin Philharmonic’s cello section and there never have been. For that matter, there has never been one who was not a native German speaker. ‘We don’t have any prejudices,’ explains Römisch. ‘It just looks that way - we don’t seek it out. If the best applicant was a woman, or came from Australia or South America or Timbuctoo, they would get the job.’ Faust is more qualified. ‘Twice it was very close, with female applicants who were also very good, but with the orchestra’s vote the majority was for the male applicant. Of course it could perhaps have been the other way around. But it’s quite obvious that to accept a woman would change the whole constellation.’ In defence of the essential niceness of the cello section, Römisch cites the fact that no probationary member of the orchestra has ever been ditched at the conclusion of his trial period.
The cellists do benefit, though, from a sense of unity provided by common links: six of the twelve are students of former Philharmonic principal cellist Wolfgang Boettcher. A ‘family tree’ prepared by Quandt links the members to their teachers and their teachers’ teachers, from Palm and Geringas to Rostropovich and Casals and ultimately, in all cases, back to Johann Sebastian Bach. Light-hearted as the family tree is, the Boettcher connection is irrefutably dominant. ‘Because of his experience in the orchestra,’ says Römisch, ‘Boettcher knew - whether Consciously or unconsciously - exactly how to create the ideal new member for the orchestra. Perhaps that means that a Berlin student has better chances than someone from outside, but it’s the same in Paris or Vienna. Our orchestra is, in principle, very international. But I think thatwithout Wolfgang Boettcher the tradition would not have been so continuously tended – to that extent it’s like a path that’s laid out, and one can go further with that.’
Going further does carry a price. Twenty concerts a year, big Asian tours, recordings and rehearsals are a lot when added to the Berlin Philaharmonic’s already full schedule. Players with families feel the strain particularly acutely. But there are perks. The twelve cellists have been singled out for numerous awards, have played for the Japanese Emperor and at the Nato summit and are the favourites of many heads of state. And they’ve rapped with Rattle.
As the tale goes, Rattle was so floored by the cello section’s rendition of the finale’s recitative passage of Beethoven’s Ninth that he agreed to provide the voice line of Sergio Cárdenas’s The Flower is a Key (A Rap for Mozart). The extraordinary result is there for all to hear on the ‘Round Midnight disc. With a chief conductor ready for anything and a willingness to turn their bows to something so subversive, who knows what the next 30 years will bring the ensemble?