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PIECES BY ANCHIETA, PEÑALOSA, MORALES, GUERRERO, VICTORIA AND SCARLATTI, 12 SEPTEMBER 2005 |
| PAIS VASCO - ESPAÑA |
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| Date: 10.9.2005 Place: La Antigua Chapel, Zumarraga
Programme: Pieces by Anchieta, Peñalosa, Morales, Guerrero, Victoria and Scarlatti. Choir: Coral de Cámara de
Pamplona. Musicians: Patricia Mora (organ), Gartxot Ortiz (violoncello), Michel Frechina (double bass). Conductor:
David Guindano.
HIGH QUALITY CONCERT
Going to La Antigua to listen to music is becoming an important cultural event, not only because of the
natural and historical environment that surrounds us, but also because of the high quality of its traditional Ciclo
Musical, that this year has been the 22nd.
With the site full of people from all the province, as well as from Biscay and Navarre(it was necessary to use
folding chairs and there were parking problems), we enjoyed a concert in which the musical wisdom was in charge of the
singers of the Coral de Cámara de Pamplona, reinforced, sometimes, with voices extraneous to this group.
This choir showed a high quality (in tuning, cohesion, refinement, taste and diction) again in this concert,
which is distintive in this group since 2004, when David Guindano became the conductor, devoting hours of study,
dedication, and giving to its singers a permanent education.
The concert, devoted in subject exclusively to Mary, offered in its first part pieces by several authors. The
work Salve Regina, for four voices, by the brilliant basque author of the XVth century Juan de Anchieta, was
remarkably well interpreted in its fine polyphony. With Tomas Luis de Victoria’s Ave Maria the choir showed how imbued
it is with Renaissance style. In the second part the Stabat Mater by Domenico Scarlatti was performed. Guindano’s
work was evident in the conjunction of the voices in the fugues, being outstanding the tenor and soprano soloits for
their cleaness in Fac ut animae donetur.
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| EL PAIS-BABELIA
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| Angel Carrascosa |
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MISSA PRO DEFUNCTIS, 30 JULY 2005 |
| MADRID - ESPAÑA |
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| PADRE DONOSTIA
Missa pro Defunctis
Coral de Cámara de Pamplona
The Capuchin monk Padre Donostia (1886-1956)was an important musicologist with a romantic background. He was a
great connoiseur of Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphony, as well as of the music of his time, particularly the
French, and he also studied Basque folklore in depth. All these influences impregnate his eclectic music, of splendid
composition and palpable spirituality. This CD, which fills an unfair gap, contains the Missa pro Defunctis (1945) and
the Poema de la Pasión (1937), sung very well by the choir of Pamplona conducted by David Guindano.
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| DIARIO DE MALLORCA
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| Aguilo de Caceres |
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PIECES BY SCARLATTI, SCHUBERT, SCHUMANN AND BRAHMS, 26 JULY 2005 |
| BALEARES - ESPAÑA |
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| XLIV Festival Internacional de Pollença
Interpreter: Coral de Cámara de Pamplona
Pieces by Scarlatti, Schubert, Schumann and Brahms
Conductor: David Guindano Igarreta
Place: Saint Dominic Cloister. Date: 23 July 2005
IMPRESSIVE VOICES
The night woke up whirling out in Pollença, overturning some of the scores that lay on the music-stands of a
brief instrumental support: organ, tiorba and violoncello. I cannot tell the names of the interpreters, the three of
them worthy of the applause, because the programme did not mention them: it was a trio to accompany the Coral de
Camara de Pamplona, in Domenico Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater. This work which covered the first part, had been selected by
the ex-director of the festival, Eugen Prokop, as David Guindano Igarreta, the conductor of the choir, notified at the
beginning of the concert. Last year Guindano was named conductor of this choir, formed by twenty voices. Since its
foundation, seventy years ago, seven conductors have been in charge. At the beginning the choir interpreted
Renaissance music. After several reforms and renewals in the staff, it performed all sorts of repertoire, including
contemporary music. Clarity and expressive nuance were constant during the festival’s performance, reinforced, if
possible, in the interpretation of the religious piece of a mystic and monastic surge, except in the final Amen, very
different and distant from the famous Stabat Mater by Pergolesi or Rossini. The choir tells everything in this score
with divinized intimacy, until the Amen, when the redemptive joy of the Lady of Sorrows, in face of the Cross,
explodes with brilliant counterpoints and fugues. This passage was the most difficult technically. The choir faced it
with master quality, being preciously conducted. In the second part, the organ was substituted by the piano through a
brief Romantic cast, signed by Schubert and Schumann, leaving Brahms the festive reference.
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| MUNDOCLASICO.COM
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| XOAN CARREIRA |
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MISSA PRO DEFUNCTIS, 22 DE JULIO DE 2005 |
| MADRID - ESPAÑA |
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| In Memoriam of a great composer and a great conductor.
In Memoriam. Padre Donostia: "Missa pro defunctis" for choir of four voices. "Poema de la pasión", for choir
of eight voices , English horn and two sopranos. Lola Elorza y Eugenia Echarren, sopranos, Eduardo Olloqui, English
horn, and Daniel Oyarzábal, organ.
Coral de Cámara de Pamplona. Conductor: David Guindano Igarreta. A Compact Disc of 67 minutes, recorded on the
17th, 18th and 19th September at Padres Carmelitas Descalzos Church, Pamplona-lruña.
In spite of what we can often read in the customaty histories of Spanish music, in the thirties, the presence
and influence of the so-called Republic generation in Spanish musical life was marginal. In any case, it was much less
influential than the role played by three Basque musicians, who are not included in the generation and are often edged
out by historians: Pablo Sorozabal, Jesús Guridi and Padre Donostia.
Unquestionably Sorozabal is the most influential composer of the thirties, for prestige, popularity, success
and also for talent and compositive quality. After seven decades, to deny it is to negate the evidence of a theatrical
music that is fresh, alive, original, greatly modern, and, I would even say, highly topical when it made its première
in the middle of the world´s economic crisis. After the Civil War, Sorozabal continued being the great master of
Spanish theatrical music, but the constant repression that hovered over him prevented the flourishing of new prodigies
like the trilogy Katiuska-La tabernera- La del manojo de rosas.
Guridi was a rara avis in Spanish society of the thirties, as a composer who found in his own town, Bilbao, a
receptive public, who was proud of the beautiful music offered by his fellow citizen. A calm visit to the Museo de
Bellas Artes de Bilbao helps to understand the refined and modern taste of Bilbao´s bourgeoisie between the world
wars. A fascinating phenomenon that was destroyed with the Civil War and Guridi´s depart to Madrid to work as a civil
servant. In the forties, he composed works that were not less beautiful or modern as Diez melodías vascas, so reviled
by Tomas Marco and other critics of the end of Franco’s era, but the link between a town and its artist had been lost.
José Gonzalo de Zulaica y Arregui (1886-1956), known as Padre Donostia, was the most cosmopolitan of the
Spanish musicians of his age. After his education in the monasteries of Silos and Besalu, he studied in the Schola
Cantorum of Paris and kept an intense connection with parisian musical ambiance all along his life. One of his
students told me once that when she had let him know that she had managed to enter the Conservatoire of Paris, the
Father advised her not to lodge in a convent or a residence run by nuns. The astonished girl asked him how a monk
could give such an advise, and Padre Donostia answered: ”because if you lodge there, its timetable will prevent you
from going to the opera, and that is as important as all they can teach you in the Conservatoire”. Apart from his
works for piano, his choral music is the most brilliant of Padre Donostia’s work, specially the religious one. His
dedication to popular choral music is connected with his research in ethnomusicology for the Cancionero Vasco and is
related with the neorrealism, a esthetic movement of great importance in Europe during the thirties and forties. In
the case of religious music, Donostia takes part in an international movement that began in France as a reaction
against the crisis of catholic culture and the rising of intolerance and authoritarism. From our viewpoint, perhaps
the most characteristic work of this movement is Dialoge of Carmelites by Bernanos, transformed in opera by Poulenc in
1953. It is precisely Poulenc’s extraordinary religious music the most admired of this new humanist mysticism,
inspired by early christian chant and gregorian repertoire.
As well as Poulenc, Padre Donostia was a refined, cult man who had a inexhaustible sense of humour that
penetrates all his music. His eagerness to concile the most modern with tradition made him write for several voices
and various martenot waves in Henri Ghéon’s catholic dramas.
This record offers two of his most outstanding religious works. The Poema de la Pasión, written in Paris in
1937 over a poem by Juan López de Úbeda for the Cancionero general de la doctrina cristiana (1579), is a master work
of rethorical music over a Castilian text. The deep knowledge of Spanish prosody, the exquisite poetic taste, the
creation of musical images linked with the text, the allusion to popular melodies, dazzling and brief as lightnings,
the master handling of dramatic tempo make the Poema de la Pasión a master work of Spanish religious music of the XXth
century. It would also be so because of the irruption, in the moment of greatest poetic and musical tension, of the
English horn, a traditionally bucolic instrument that also represents death in Belle Époque’s rethoric. The English
horn represents the redeemer’s death, but also symbolizes redemption.
The Misa pro Defunctis (1945), written two years after his return to Spain and signed with the name of José
Antonio de San Sebastián, has the subtitle Glosa libre (melódica y rítmicamente) de la melodía gregoriana. Contrarily
to the intense expresionism of the Poema de la Pasión, in the Misa predominates neoclassical calm and distance, a
neoclassicism that refers to Spanish medieval religious music as a basis of all the subsequent religious music and
that reveals the fascination of Donostia for the constructive perfection of the polyphony of the XVIth century. There
is no doubt that his friend Ravel would have been pleased with this return to an utopian past, that for Donostia was a
protecting shield against the violent environment of Barcelona in 1945.
The record is also a tribute to a great musician and better person, Juanito Eraso (1914-2002), founder and
conductor of the Coral de Elizondo, with which this Misa made its debut as well as many other works by Padre Donostia.
The Coral de Cámara de Pamplona is a wonderful choir, in which is noticeable its long dedication to
Renaissance polyphony and to the XXth century. Its conductor, David Guindano, understands and poses perfectly the
double perspective of the Misa pro Defunctis and the Poema de la Pasión, and he deserves the dedication, as a praise,
of the title of the study included in the record’s brochure: spirituality, passion and decorum in two works by Padre
Donostia.
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MISSA PRO DEFUNCTIS, January 2005 |
| MADRID - ESPAÑA |
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| RECOMMENDED RECORD
RTVE MÚSICA 65228
PADRE DONOSTIA: Missa Pro Defunctis; Poema de la Pasión
Lola Elorza; Eugenia Echarren, sopranos. Eduardo Olloqui, English horn. Daniel Oyarzábal, organ
Coral de Cámara de Pamplona
Conductor: David Guindano Igarreta
José Gonzalo Zulaica, known as Padre Donostia, was one of the most important basque composers of the first
half of the XXth century, with interesting folk compilations and an extremely worthy work for piano and choir. This
record of the Coral de Cámara de Pamplona, conducted by David Guindano Igarreta, is an homage to this composer as much
as to Juanito Eraso, founder of the Coral de Elizondo, and also conductor of the Orfeón Pamplonés. Being a friend of
the Capuchin himself, Eraso conducted his Missa Pro Defunctis during his funeral and, later on, he recorded it with
the Coral de Elizondo. This record was awarded "Disco de mayor valor artístico y cultural del año 1982" (Record of he
highest artistic and cultural value in 1982).
Dedicated to the deceased parents and brothers of Padre Donostia, it reflects the deep interest he always felt
towards gregorian chant, that he studied in the abbeys of Silos and Besalú. According to Padre Donostia, his Missa is
a “free gloss (in melody and rhythm) of the gregorian melody”, which can be appreciated in the monodic accents of the
composition. The Coral de Cámara de Pamplona accomplishes an admirable task, achieving a naked and bright
interpretation of a piece that is complex because of its personal eclecticism, through which the composer aims to
regain the spirit of classical polyphony, facing a peaceful and desired death, in the way of Fauré and Duruflé (whose
Requiem was composed two years later). The Poema de la Pasión, writen in 1937, based on a text by Juan López de Úbeda,
is very similar in character. The Coral irradiates an atmosphere of a fervent warmth, supported by the voices of the
sopranos Lola Elorza and Eugenia Echarren. The extraordinary interpretation of both pieces offered in this record
makes up a gate into a work that deserves a place of honour in the traditional repertory of our country and that,
unfortunately, has been reduced to the status of a rareness. We hope that this record will help to spread it.
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MISSA PRO DEFUNCTIS, June 2005 |
| MADRID - ESPAÑA |
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| DONOSTIA:
Missa pro defunctis. Poema de la Pasión. Lola Elorza and Eugenia Echarren, sopranos; Eduardo Olloqui, English
horn; Daniel Oyarzábal, organ. Coral de Cámara de Pamplona. Conductor: David Guindano. RTVE 65228.DDD. 57:43".
Recorded in Pamplona IX/2004. Producer: Juan Manuel Pérez Morales. Engineer: Joaquín Manzano. N PN
This interesting compact, composed of two religious pieces by Padre Donostia, joins the recent recovering of
this composer in the discography, being conspicuous the recording of Choral-Symphonic pieces in Clefs, and those of
music for piano by Requejo (also in Clefs) and Masó (Naxos). The Missa pro defuctis a cuatro voces de soprano, alto,
tenor y bajo con órgano obligado. Glosa libre (melódica y rítmicamente) de la melodía gregoriana (such is its complete
title) was written in 1945 and is a clear example of the eclectic language of his author. Donostia is a folk
connoisseur and a Gregorian scholar, but also a lover of renaissance polyphony who has been educated in romanticism,
and even closed to impressionism, and, generally speaking, to French music of the time (in particular Roussel and
Ravel). Thus, listening to this music, some will think of the most famous choral pieces by Fauré and Duruflé. The main
role is for the voices, since the organ only “glosses” or attends, most of the times in a discreet way, with soft
registers perfectly fused with the choir. The programme also offers the Poem of the Passion for choir of eight voices,
two soprano soloists and English horn. The text is based on verses by the XVIth century poet Juan López de Úbeda. The
composer confers a narrative role on the choir, while the two soloists and the English horn seem to take part in the
dramatic action. Aesthetically is very closed to the preceding piece, with the deliberate archaisms typical of this
author who is closed to renaissance but who also shows the influence of his romantic education. These excellent and
true interpretations emphasize the interest of a compact which should not go unnoticed (although we are afraid that it
will go. What a pity!)
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BELLO PORTU AND AITA DONOSTIA, 21 May 2005 |
| PAIS VASCO - ESPAÑA |
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| Date: 21.5.2005 Place: Santa María Parish Church, Azkoitia
Programme: Pieces by Bello Portu and Aita Donostia.
Interpreter: Coral de Cámara de Pamplona. Organ: Daniel Oyarzabal. Conductor: David Guindano.
LUMINOUS NUDITY
The long history kept inside the stone walls of the monumental church of Santa María in Azkoitia will reserve
a place of honour for the concert that the Coral de Cámara de Pamplona offered in the XIVth Spring Music Cycle of this
town.
In the last years, this choir has done research and has rescued important pieces that were poorly widespread,
giving them renewed freshness and making them suitable for the vigorous voices of the choir.
This time the concert started with a very agreeable piece by the composer and eminent music Javier Bello
Portu, who died last year, entitled Homage to Iparragirre, whose première was in Tolosa in 1951. His author was always
very proud of it and always denied any political manipulation over it. In its performance, by reason of the position
of the choir in front of the high altar, the melodic effects of the piece were lost, due to a deficient acoustics,
with an exaggerated shimmering in the high pitch, although the ten women and eight men sang wholeheartedly, which is a
lot.
The Missa pro defunctis of José Gonzalo Zulaica (Aita Donostia or José Antonio de San Sebastián in the
Capuchin Order), has been the last success of this choir, that has recorded it on a CD, with a good result according
to the experts, although someone has criticized the slowness of the tempi.
The version of this piece, that they offered yesterday, which is powerful, even ascetic, lacking in
tremendousness, and where Gregorian chant is treated in a renaissance way, was sound, due to the precise conduction of
Guindano - to the most minute detail -, as much as for the right balance of vocal timbres.
Daniel Oyarzabal’s work helped a lot, playing the wonderful Cavaillé Coll of the church, just as the pleasing
production of the concert, since the choir’s singing was transmitted by tv from the choir of the church to a screen in
the high altar. This was a great success of the organization, which allowed us to enjoy even more the luminous nudity
of this important piece.
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MISSA PRO DEFUNCTIS, APRIL 2005 |
| MADRID - ESPAÑA |
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| Padre Donostia
Missa pro defunctis. Poema de la Pasión.
Coral de Cámara de Pamplona
Conductor David Guindano Igarreta
RTVE 65228 DDD
José Gonzalo Zulaica Arregui, Padre Donostia, as he was known, (1886-1956), was soon valued as a composer,
having always admirers of his style. Together with his religious vocation, he was a Capuchin, was his as an organist
and composer. His life marked by his deep devotion for Basque folklore (his most extense collection of Basque songs is
Euskal, with more than 400 popular songs) gave rise to a music inspired by his. His introverted and mystic way,
although his declared romanticism, helps to create radiant and serene atmospheres, full of hope and calm. Padre
Donostia wrote a lot of different musics, all of them for voice and organ. His ecclesiastical style reminds the
religious offices, specially those of monasteries and contemplative monks. Therefore, this is religious music, but
different in temperament.
In this CD we can enjoy the Missa pro defunctis and the Poema de la Pasión, both interpreted by the Coral de
Cámara de Pamplona, conducted by David Guindano Igarreta. Both are grand works performed with a solid interpretation.
The vision of Guindano and his choir is moderate, thoughtful, meditated. Its balanced spirit pours on resplendent
versions that surround the listener and immerse him in quiet and calm climates which tend to an introspective
reflection. Two works of sonorous purity that are enjoyed thanks to these good versions. The Poema de la Pasión stands
out as it is a brilliant and audacious composition, surprising because of its style and expression, concuring in it
strength, warmth, fantasy and creativity.
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| EL MUNDO EL CULTURAL
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| RAFAEL BANÚS |
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MISSA PRO DEFUNCTIS, 3 FEBRUARY 2005 |
| MADRID - ESPAÑA |
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| PADRE DONOSTIA
Missa pro Defunctis. Coral de Cámara de Pamplona.
Rtve 65228 DDD
After the excellent album devoted to the orchestral work by Padre Donostia, classified by Clefs , this new CD
enriches José Gonzalo Zulaica’s discography (San Sebastián, 1886-Lecároz, Navarra, 1956), with two of his main sacred
compositions: The Missa pro defunctis of 1945 and his Poema de la Pasión of 1937. The first one is a beautiful
reflection upon death, with an elegant harmonization, very French, over which hovers the shade of Fauré’s and,
specially, Duruflé’s Requiem. The second one is a moving narration of Christ’s Passion from a XVIth century’s text by
Juan López de Úbeda. The Coral de Cámara de Pamplona shows its acknowledged sensitivity towards music off the beaten
track.
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THE HAENDEL´S, 22 DE DICIEMBRE DE 2004 |
| PAIS VASCO - ESPAÑA |
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| HAPPY EVENT
The Bastero Cultural Center took the right decision programming Haendel´s Messiah at Christmas, not only
because it is a work appropriate for these days, but also because it is an important challenge for its vocal and
instrumental interpreters. It is almost three hours of intense music.
We are in front of a masterpiece of History, conceived as a sacred oratorio, which tells in three well defined
parts all the liturgy of the Roman Church, and that was interpreted for the first time in Dublin´s Music Hall in 1742,
curiously with a strong ecclesiastic opposition.
Its audition is always a happy event, although, as it happened in this case, the public only filled half of
the seats of the precious symphonic hall of the Bastero. It is important to emphasize that the version conceived by
Guindano was very closed to the original concept of the author. A reduced choir, 21 singers, and an orchestra in the
purest baroque essence, with 21 musicians too. Thus a great degree of intimacy is reached, very far from the
oppressive feeling produced by huge choirs and orchestras.
Even in tempo, Guindano suited Haendel´s measures, offering a heavy impression in some recitatives, almost a
capella, of the soloists.
The Coral de Cámara de Pamplona offered a very fresh version, with a measured balance between the four chords,
and being always just in attacks and closings. Nothing to object to a permanently fined tuning. The very famous
Hallelujah, for the Lord God! was intimate. The Empordá´s Chamber Orchestra, sounded always well, rich in its graded
dynamics and with a wind final section that was restrained (as it must be) and very fondling.
The soprano Gutiérrez, with a round and wide voice, expressed always well. The contralto Martínez lacked a bit
in volume and in giving. The tenor Casalí, has got a beautiful timbre, but is not appropriate for this piece. The bass-
baritone Echeverria was convincing, singing with legato and good taste.
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