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Vivaldi 4 seasons for 3 pianos | Matija Dedić, Hakan Ali Toker, Matej Meštrović

Date created: 02.02.2016.
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Vivaldi 4 seasons for 3 pianos

Matej Meštrović, Matija Dedić & Hakan Ali Toker

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PROGRAMME :

 

J.S. Bach / M.Dedić 

Badinerie

 

J.S. Bach / Hakan Ali Toker

Toccata & Fugue in Blue

 

Antonio Vivaldi/Matej Meštrović 

Le quattro stagioni, Op. 8, No. 1-4, concerts for violin, strings and basso continuo

La Primavera RV 269, E major

Allegro

Lagro e pianissimo sempre

Allegro

L'Estate RV 315, G minor

Allegro non molto – Allegro

Adagio – Presto – Adagio

Presto

L'Autunno RV 293, F major

Allegro – Allegro assai

Adagio molto

Allegro

L'Inverno RV 297, F minor

Allegro non molto

Largo

Allegro

 

Meštrović's left and Vivaldi's Seasons

Matej Meštrović is an unusual bird on the musical sky. He flies swiftly and with ease. One moment he rises and the other he plunges down. As he changes directions, he also changes flying styles, from peaceful soaring on strong currents high above valleys and mountains, to sweep flight between the crowns of trees and blades of grass, his feathers aglow with hundreds of colours and often taking the entire musicians’ flock with him.

Just like a bird’s heart, so does the musical heart of Matej Meštrović beat fast, in bursts of quavers, in his left hand. Matej Meštrović is left-handed and thus his view of the keyboard and score always begins from bottom up, from the bass section. As in life and the world arranged by right-handed people, so in music as well, it happens that the left hand becomes neglected and subordinated to the right. Meštrović’s left has always rebelled against that. It demands equality, often even taking control in its rhythm. That Meštrović’s left hand is giving – it rarely takes but it adds very often. In classical regular measures it likes to insert a quaver, which creates unrest from indifferent symmetry, odd numbers from even ones, the Balkans from Vienna.

Matej Meštrović knows what melody is. His right hand knows how to sing. But the rhythm, the rhythm! Life is in rhythm. In his most recent adventure he will be joined by famous piano players : Matija Dadić and Hakan Ali Toker.

Baroque Venice was the time and place of extreme thrills and hedonist pleasures. Nowadays, we would call it pure adrenaline. The music of Antonio Vivaldi is precisely like that, his Seasons are precisely like that. It is not necessary to disrupt the regular rhythms of these twelve virtuosic movements to unlock that naturalist musical display of vivid colours. A single master bow is often enough. But when the left hand of Matej Meštrović throws a net in those ponds, it will become obvious that there is much we haven’t heard or seen yet. Vivaldi’s music is not the worse for that mixing and ripple. On the contrary, it invites play and improvisation. Once you hear the first movement of Spring with changed rhythms, there is only the risk that you will tremendously miss something in the future "normal" performances without added instruments and notes. Meštrović’s cover of Vivaldi is rhythmical but also thermal. Harmonic molecules also get rearranged in that pot creating new compounds so Baroque adagios, as in the Summer, suddenly become pure jazz, lively waltz or both at the same time.

Vivaldi’s Seasons go well with the temperament and imagination of Matej Meštrović and his fellow musicians on this project. At that, they all meet the basic and main condition that needs to be met by anyone who dares and decides to play with Vivaldi's notes in this way: they are all masters of their trades, virtuosos every single one of them.

Branimir Pofuk

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