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French music festival "Le Vent sur l'arbre" under Christian Rivet's poetic inspiration
The artistic director of the festival has launched the event with his compositions for the baroque guitar on Monday August 1st in Millay's church.
Christian Rivet has not made a habit of performing in Le Vent sur l'arbre - a festival that has been under his artistic direction for fourteen years - but he made an exception on Monday
August 1st, to honour the memory of a friend and to raise the curtains of Millay's church (Nièvre, located in the south of the Morvan) for the launch of the 2022 edition. A gentle start on the baroque guitar which he caressed with expertise. The scores mapping out his recital are mostly composed of guidelines that the performer must refine himself.
It is the case for the portraits of the Demoiselles (Catalonia, Naples, Portugal) sketched by Gaspar Sanz in
1674. Christian Rivet's approach of these scores is precise and careful, with a subdued touch, as if he were afraid that the notes - having waited for more than three centuries locked inside a precious instrument - would get damaged by a sudden exposure to today's acoustic "light". After Spain (Gaspar Sanz, Francisco Guerau), France (Robert de Visée in malleable dances) and England (arrangements of folkloric themes) benefit from these revelations, often akin to a hide and seek game between a softened form and its intensified double.
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The metaphor is also in tune with the 58 year old musician and his career - renowned performer and belated composer. His first creation, Hüdor (2013) had the effect of a contemporary mirage within the
baroque landscape of the recital. Made of furtive exclamations, filtered offers, the permeation of passages - which may have been borrowed from John Dowland since the piece is dedicated to Hopkinson Smith, a reference in the interpretation of the English master from the 17th century - and a way to handle time, characteristic of Christian Rivet's way to adopt the early music repertoire. His explorations come to an end when he feels like he has nothing left to
"say'. Hüdor is a witness of a similar deepening of freedom from a note, an anchor point from which the composer distances himself, without ever truly letting go.
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A fascinating score
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After having welcomed the gentle and poetic wind of the soloist in the afternoon, the gusts of chamber music arrive in turn in Millay's church, during the evening, following a programme around the prestigious Hagen Quartet.
Romantic whirlwinds for Franz Schubert two cellos string quintet - with the young Julia Hagen playing the second cello - and contemporary blizzard with
Christian Rivet's Une nuit de plein jour, present on stage himself with the archlute for the world creation. A fascinating score, with arachnidan textures that, for about twenty minutes, transcend the notion of collective movement.
With evanescent lyricism and deceptive accomplishment, it alludes to the great György Kurtag. Indeed, the archlute - with its peculiar tone - seems to be for Christian Rivet what the cimbalom is to his Hungarian elder.
Other uncommon associations are left to discover until August 6th, like the piano and its Haitian inspiration under
Celimene Daudet's touch (August 3rd)
since the purpose of Le Vent sur l'Arbre, according to its artistic director, is to
"universally gather what has been, what is and what will be. A wager held beyond measure on the first day of the festival.
Translated from article written by Pierre Gervasoni - available in French on lemonde.fr
"Musique : « Le Vent sur l'arbre » sous le souffle poétique de Christian Rivet"
