PRSO featured in Bartok concerto, Coral Lirica to showcase Villa Lobos
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 5 hours ago
- 2 min read
By PEGGY ANN BLISS
Special to The STAR
In a striking potpourri of precedent-breaking modern music, the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra (PRSO) will unveil three unique pieces this Saturday, with the help of Costa Rican guest conductor Norman Gamboa and Coral Lirica de Puerto Rico directed by native islander Jo-Anne Herrero.
Gamboa, who has directed several orchestras in the Southwest United States, is considered one of the outstanding conductors of his era. Herrero, a mezzo-soprano with many operas to her credit, here and abroad, has dedicated much of her career to choral preparation, including as director of the chorus of Opera de Puerto Rico.
The unusual program will open with a brief modern piece by Costa Rican composer Carlos Escalante Macaya, entitled “De garúas aguaceros y escampes” (“Of Drizzles, Showers and Clearings”), a musical triptych depicting a typical rainstorm of the Central American and Caribbean region.
The featured “soloist” of the first half of the evening will be Coral Lirica performing a work by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959).
The Portuguese title “Rasga o coração” translated as “Desgarra el corazón” in Spanish, is generally translated into English as “Rend the Heart,” a dramatic and poetic reference to the tone of the original Brazilian poem. The extremely difficult piece draws on Brazilian street rhythms and begins with some percussive indigenous sounds of the vast South American country.
The work proposes that even the roughest of storms in this tempestuous landscape cannot be compared to the pains of the heart.
The piece is especially challenging for the choir and the director because the singers must sing in the slapping rhythms of the Brazilian landscape.
The score has so many challenges that director Herrero declined to speak to the STAR about it. The audience will have to let her magic hands do the talking.
After the tumultuous emotions of the preceding pieces, Hungarian composer Bela Bartok, in his after-intermission five- movement “Concerto for Orchestra” employs a unique concept -- the orchestra, itself, is the featured instrument. Instead of highlighting one violin, clarinet or bassoon (among others), Bartok gives free rein to all instruments, which alternate as full sections, not one performer.
The work, unique in the world’s orchestral repertoire, has been a favorite among contemporary audiences since it was written in 1943.
The concert will be presented Saturday at 7 p.m. in the Pablo Casals Symphony Hall at Luis A. Ferre Performing Arts Center in Santurce.
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