Debut

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 2021-11-12

Label: Fuga Libera

This project first began to take shape when I learned that I had been chosen as ECHO Rising Star by the European Concert Hall Organization in 2018. I wanted to mix original works for my instrument with transcriptions of works by composers whose art had created and formed my love for Western classical music, and so I created a wide-ranging programme that included some of the works that mean the most to me. I felt that this was an ideal moment to present my first solo programme of classical music: I’d have the opportunity to perform it in the best concert halls in Europe and, at the same time, I’d be able to record an extensive programme of works that define my relationship with notated music and with my instrument. One choice was obvious, if not mandatory: the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach’s music has always been part of the soundtrack of my life, at times as a performer but primarily as a listener. It’s very difficult for me, a musician who plays an instrument for which Bach did not compose, to explain how I approach his music. I always feel that I lack both the skill and the authority to answer this question — and in fact authority is the greatest problem when we come to discuss this. It’s a personal matter, like so many other topics in our field, and it’s music that we’re discussing.

I can’t imagine a musical practice that is hampered by the choice of an instrument. I don’t mean the musical performance as such; it would be totally unreasonable not to look at instrumentation and timbre as being essential characteristics of the works concerned, as well as the composer’s own original choices. The choice of instrument can’t go against our understanding of the music’s history. As an accordionist, not to play parts of or complete works written for other instruments by some of world’s most important composers can lead to being less well trained as both performer and creator; it also results in a lesser knowledge of the most important solutions of the musical process from a practical as well as an analytical perspective. From a personal point of view, it would mean that I wouldn’t have the moral right to discover the musical riches in certain works simply because either they weren’t specifically intended for my instrument, or because my instrument doesn’t seem to have the qualities necessary to perform it. Our commitment, in my opinion, should be to the music itself and not to the instruments on which it is performed.

Music is a phenomenon of perception and abstraction. No institution or aesthetic school can regulate how we relate to music, our seriousness and our knowledge. We can of course agree with such a premise, but we also have the freedom to make other choices. Understanding gained through repeated behaviour or through tradition is not an absolute truth. Any idea established as a norm disintegrates at the moment it is perceived by different listeners. The translation of an idea into musical practice occurs when the instrumentalist, thanks to his beliefs, his steadfast artistic preparation, and most importantly his conception of a greater musical purpose, demonstrates his understanding of some- thing that he greatly loves. This creates a compromise between the composer’s idea and the instrument. There can also be another compromise at the moment when the listener becomes the performer.

The first thing that I consider in Bach’s music is the choice of tempo for each of the pieces and their individual movements. We could consider, for example, Karl Richter’s interpretations. The perception of counterpoint comes next, as there is an almost unique balance between the individual and the collective. The final point: is the accordion a suitable instrument on which to perform this work?

I may well be at fault here, but I believe in all humility that a large part of Bach’s music (and not only Bach’s) is perfectly suited to the accordion and its sound. Knowledge of the past doesn’t compromise the future, for it offers us choices; it surpasses anything I can say about my accordion and Johann Sebastian Bach.

Transcriptions were needed to complete this programme, these including works by Domenico Scarlatti and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. My first choices of music written specifically for accordion were works by Luciano Berio and Astor Piazzolla, a com- poser and a composer / performer who gave the accordion a new musical language. Berio’s Sequenza No. XIII paved the way for a lyrical style and for an approach to sound colour that was unprecedented in modern works for accordion. Berio leads us into his musical world via this technically extremely challenging piece; his musical intentions are closely bound to and can only be realised by this aerophone with one bellow. Learning this piece changed my relationship with the classical accordion and its voice forever: its incredibly wide range, its use and unification of the Standard and Bassetti systems, and the discovery of solutions for technical and sonic challenges created the modern archetype of the accordion.

Piazzolla brought music to the worlds of the bandoneon and the accordion that is in complete contrast to Berio’s, with a unique musical language and rhythm that would leave a lasting mark on European music. His music is popular, melodious and can be danced to; it allows space for true improvisation, with choices available on every musical note. The Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas provide a literal counterpoint to the Baroque works that open and close this double album.

My warmest thanks go to the French composer Yann Robin, who composed his E[NI]GMA for me and made me its dedicatee; the piece was commissioned by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Casa da Música, and Philharmonie Luxembourg. Not only was the piece written in a musical language that is shared by both composer and performer, but it has also given me some of the most beautiful moments that I have ever experienced on stage; one such moment was its French premiere at the Philharmonie de Paris in March 2020.

Each of the two parts of this recording ends with works by J. S. Bach that have marked me deeply: Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott, BWV 721 and Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106; their keys serendipitously coincide with the keys of the works that open each disc, as if they mark the end of a cycle. This is exactly how I feel about this album, as if it were the ending of a musical cycle that has forever influenced my personal life — or possibly the other way around. I hope that this is just the first of several albums of works by composers I love, of pieces that I’ve been playing on my accordion since I was a child. My thanks to you all.

João Barradas