Harmonia Artificiosa
BIBER – BERIO – PANNI
Elicia Silverstein & Marco Bianchi, violins
Riccardo Doni, harpsichord & chamber organ
Program
H.I.F. Biber: Harmonia Artificiosa-ariosa: Partia n. 3 in A Major (1696)
L. Berio: Duets n. 15 “Tatjana” (1980), n. 9 “Marcello” (1979)
M. Panni: Duets n.1 “Luciano” (1981), n.2 “Oskar” (2014), n.3 “Gaia” (2022)
L. Berio: Duet n. 10 “Giorgio Federico” (1979)
H.I.F. Biber: Harmonia Artificiosa-ariosa: Partia n. 1 in D minor (1696)
L. Berio: Duets n. 1“Béla” (1979), n. 6 “Bruno” (1979)
M. Panni: Duets n.4 “Jordi”, n.5 “Boris”, n.6 “Elicia”, n.7 “Marco” (2023)
L. Berio: Duet n. 24 “Aldo” (1981)
H.I.F. Biber: Harmonia Artificiosa-ariosa: Partia n. 6 in D Major (1696)
Program © Elicia Silverstein 2023 all rights reserved
In his author’s note to the 34 Duetti per due violini, Berio refers to these pieces as a sort of “private folklore” in which, beyond rigorously exploring various timbral possibilities and violinistic techniques, each duet refers to memories and fantasies linked to and inspired by the person to whom it is dedicated (each duet is dedicated to a person, many to [famous] composers and violinists, who gives name to its title). I found something complimentary in the profound lightness of these miniature Duetti, written between 1979 and 1983, and the Biber partitas of the extraordinary Harmonia Artificiosa-ariosa, published almost 300 years earlier in 1696. Anything but miniature, the Biber partitas are rather almost monumental in scope, but the spirit of intimate timbral experimentation and the type of dialogue between the two violins (even if, in the case of the Biber partitas, the violins are accompanied by a basso continuo) is very similar. Both the Biber Harmonia Artificiosa-ariosa, with its fascinating technical and expressive challenges posed by the various scordatura tunings, and the Berio duets, with their extraordinary lightness, which, as Berio’s friend and collaborator Italo Calvino put in his Six Memos for the Next Millennium, “is not frivolity but a lightness of touch that allows the writer and reader to soar above the paralyzing heaviness of the world” (it is sufficient to replace “writer and reader” with “performers and listeners”), formed my points of departure in creating this program. In June 2022, I asked Marcello Panni, composer most esteemed not only by my colleagues and myself but also by his historic friend Berio, to compose something that could link the Berio duets with the Biber partita (which seem, contrary to the Berio, almost to rise up from a great depth). Panni had already written one duet – Luciano, as a gift to Berio for his 61st birthday. This duet, which took Berio’s own duets as its model, was the starting point that Panni had in mind for his new Duetti per due violini soli, which Marco and I had the honor of premiering at the 2023 Ravenna Festival. Faithfully following the example set by Berio, each of Panni’s duets is dedicated to a person for whom it is named (including Elicia and Marco). What a delight to be able to contribute to transforming Berio’s 34 Duetti into the “kaleidoscope made up of about a hundred Duetti,” that he dreamed of writing, while following his belief that the future should be “remembered” in having his music encounter the marvelous early music of Biber alongside the brand new duets by Panni in a sort of sound mosaic that links past, present and future.
Marco Bianchi
Violinist Marco Bianchi has been one of the principal players and soloists of the famed Italian baroque ensemble Il Giardino Armonico since 1989. Born in Milan, Italy, Bianchi studied the violin under the guidance of Professor Aldele Riva Toffoletti at the Civica Scuola di Musica of his city, eventually graduating in 1987 from the “Conservatorio G. Verdi”. He continued his studies under the guidance of Renato Zanettovich and the Trio di Trieste and with Mariana Sirbu, receiving prizes in both national and international competitions. Active as a chamber musician on the international concert scene (with his sister – the harpist Cristina Bianchi, with Trio Sforza, Pianist Pierre Goy, La Gaia Scienza, l’800 Ensemble), he has recorded for Nuova Era, Amadeus, Tactus, Dynamic, Stradivarius, Arts, Winter&Winter and Claves.
He has collaborated with world-renowned artists such as Gustav Leonhardt, Gerhardt Schmidt-Gaden, Diego Fasolis, Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, Ottavio Dantone, Carlo De Martini, Enrico Onofri, Giovanni Antonini, Corrado Rovaris, Cecilia Bartoli, Eva Mei, Philippe Jaroussky, Magdalena Kozena, Max Emanuel Cencic, Bernarda Fink, Alexander Lonquich, Victoria Mullova, Maurice Steger, Franco Gulli, Katia and Marielle Labeque, Vaclav Luks, Giuliano Carmignola, Gabriele Cassone, Mario Brunello, Anthony Pay, Christophe Coin, Albrecht Mayer, Giovanni Sollima, Julia Lezhneva, Isabelle Faust, Sol Gabetta, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Anna Prohaska, and Justin Kim.
With Il Giardino Armonico, he regularly performs in prestigious concert series, halls and theatres in Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan, Israel, Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, South America, Australia and New Zealand, making recordings for major international radio and television broadcasts and for important record labels such as Teldec, Decca and Naïve. His interest in historical performance has led him to collaborate with groups such as E.B. de Limoges, Accademia Bizantina, I Barocchisti, Accademia d’Arcadia, and notably the Ghislieri Consort, where he has been concertmaster and soloist since 2001, and with whom he has recorded for Sony (Deutsche Harmonia Mundia) and Arcana. An eclectic musician, Bianchi was previously part of the group “Matt Deer and the Beale Street Band,” with whom he performed music of various genres from country and blue grass to blues and jazz, with musicians such as Vince Tempera, Franco Battiato, Nello Salza, Andrea Cacciapaglia, Sergio Scappini, Mariano Nocito, and Gianluca Littera. He is a tenured professor of violin at the Conservatorio “Maderna” in Cesena, Italy, and he previously held the same position in the conservatories of Messina, Cosenza and Foggia.
Riccardo Doni
Born in Milan in 1965, Riccardo Doni graduated in organ and composition at the “Arrigo Boito” Conservatory in Parma under the guidance of Lorenzo Ghielmi. He later perfected himself in organ and harpsichord at the Schola Cantorum in Basel with Maestro Jean-Claude Zehnder. In Switzerland, a few years later, he will record two discs dedicated to the organ works of Johann Ludwig Krebs at the Silbermann organ of the Arlesheim cathedral. From 1984 to 2009 he assumed the artistic direction of the association Musica Laudantes which had a vocal group with which he performed over 300 concerts, deepening the choral repertoire a cappella and with instruments, in particular from the baroque and classical periods. With this ensemble he records music by Antonio Vivaldi, pieces by Giuseppe Sarti and compositions by Isabella Leonarda from Novara. The experience in the field of choral music is enriched with the Nuova Polifonica Ambrosiana, which he directed from 1990 to 1996, and with the Madrigalisti Ambrosiani, with whom he performed from 1996 to 1998 in Italy and abroad. In 2002 he became harpsichord player of the ensemble Imaginarium, founded by violinist Enrico Onofri, and since 2008 he has been playing in duo with violinist Giuliano Carmignola.
As a harpsichord player and organist – both soloist and accompanist – Riccardo Doni currently has over 3000 concerts to his credit, many of them with instrumental formations of absolute importance. For almost thirty years he has collaborated with the prestigious ensemble the Giardino Armonico directed by Giovanni Antonini, with whom he has performed all over the world, in the most important halls and with internationally renowned artists including Avi Avital, Isabelle Faust, Cecilia Bartoli, Christophe Coin, Ottavio Dantone, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Gustav Leonhardt, Eva Mei, Viktoria Mullova, Anna Prohaska and others. Also with the Giardino Armonico he took on the role of master preparer of numerous vocal productions including The martyrdom of S. Lawrence by Conti (1999, Mozarteum of Salzburg), The pilgrims at the Holy Shrines by Hasse (2000, Vienna), The Resurrection (2003, Graz) and Orlando (2020, Vienna) by Handel, Representation of soul and body by De’ Cavalieri (2021, Vienna). He was also a master collaborator in the staging of operas such as Ercole lover by Francesco Cavalli (Alighieri Theatre in Ravenna), Orfeo by Monteverdi (2000, Styriarte di Graz; 2005, Grand Théâtre de Genève), Agrippina by Händel (2002, Graz Theatre).
In addition to the Giardino Armonico, he has collaborated with the chamber orchestra I Solisti di Pavia (conducted by Enrico Dindo), the Cameristi della Scala, the orchestra of I Pomeriggi Musicali.
Since 2011 he has directed the Accademia dell’Annunciata, an orchestra specialized in baroque and classical repertoire performed on original instruments, constantly collaborating with famous soloists: in addition to Mario Brunello and Giuliano Carmignola, with whom he has an intense recording and concert activity in Italy and Europe, we also remember Gabriele Cassone, Evangelina Mascardi, Andrea Mastroni and Filippo Mineccia. With the Academy, since 2018, he has worked for the Arcana record company and, in parallel with his concert activities, has taught at the conservatories of Castelfranco Veneto, Ferrara and Frosinone. He is currently teacher of basso continuo at the Conservatory of Parma.
Other projects
Leipzig Metamorphosis
Elicia Silverstein, violin
Accademia dell’Annunciata
Riccardo Doni, harpsichord, chamber organ & conductor
In this program, Elicia Silverstein, Riccardo Doni and his Accademia dell’Annunciata offer the listener a window into a dialogue between the musical world of J.S. Bach and that of his Leipzig compatriot, the young Felix Mendelssohn, who, through his knowledge of the music of Bach is able to “remember the future,” as Luciano Berio later put it, forging a new musical language, informed, colored and perfumed by the past.
E se sei solo?
BACH SONATAS & PARTITAS
Elicia Silverstein, violin
BIBER MYSTERY SONATAS
Elicia Silverstein, violin
Riccardo Doni, harpsichord & organ
Silverstein and her esteemed musical collaborator, harpsichordist and organist Riccardo Doni, explore the highly spiritual world of Biber’s Mystery Sonatas (also known as the “Rosary Sonatas”), some of the most fascinating music ever composed for the violin. Rich with symbolism, each sonata depicts one of the fifteen Mysteries of the Cross described in the Catholic liturgical tradition. With unusual scordatura tunings and symbolically charged harmonic and rhythmic devices, Biber brings each Mystery of the Cross vividly to life. The fourteen different scordatura tunings help establish the unique character of each sonata by varying the tension on the violin and thereby eliciting from the instrument a distinctive resonance, color, and affect matched to the Mystery depicted. In order to equip themselves to recreate for both themselves and modern listeners the scenery, action, and emotions of each Mystery, Silverstein and Doni have delved deeply into the liturgical texts associated with each. Their aim is nothing less than the fully immersive meditative experience they believe Biber envisioned when he composed the sonatas in the seventeenth century.
THE REVOLUTIONARY WORLD OF J.B. VIOTTI
CHERUBINI - VIOTTI - MOZART
Atalanta Fugiens
Vanni Moretto, conductor
The Dreams & Fables I Fashion
BIBER - SCIARRINO - MONTANARI - BERIO - BACH
Elicia Silverstein, violin