The Duo Barrenechea glimpsed the production of this CD/DVD as a way to portray the Brazilian music for flute and piano, including, besides historical names, as Ernesto Nazareth and Francisco Mignone, composers who are in full activity, such as Vittor Santos, Ian Guest, Dawid Korenchendler, Liduíno Pitombeira, Rafael dos Santos, Estércio Marquez Cunha and Elenice Maranesi, with the purpose to offer a view of the present production in Brazil.
The proposal
The Project Brasileiríssimo stemmed from our natural leaning towards Brazilian music and has had a character of continuous flow, always changing whenever we find a new piece or make a new arrangement for existing repertoire. This DVD is an excerpt of this 25-year journey of music making and building a life together.
The proposal of the musical documentary was idealized by the Duo Barrenechea, having the direction of Liloye Boubli and the photograph of the consecrated Fernando Duarte. Filming in Brasilia, Goiânia, Rio de Janeiro, Tiradentes and Pirenópolis, from January to April 2015.
In this musical documentary there are precious encounters (filled with good conversation) with each composer, in which each one talks about his work and his connection with the duo. Each meeting is interspersed with the interpretation of the works, recorded as a concert in Theatro de Pirenopólis.ro to April 2015.
The encounters
Estércio Marquez Cunha has a very significant role in our musical education. Composer and pedagogue, he has been one of the strongest examples of conduct and artistic integrity. As a professor and later our colleague at the Universidade Federal de Goiás, Estércio has always been a source of encouragement and motivation to our artistic projects. In 2003, Estércio presented us with his Música para flauta e piano nº 2, which takes us to the atmosphere of loneliness of the center-west cerrado, with his unmatched way to manipulate sound spaces and combinations of different timbric layers.
Encounter recorded with composer Estércio Marquez Cunha in Goiânia, January, 2014.
Sonata Breve is a work written by Ian Guest in 1972 and premiered by Francisca Aquino and Beth Ernst Dias. Born in Hungary, this Brazilian composer deeply marked the lives of young music students in Brasilia who, at some point, attended the famous CIVEBRA (International Summer Course of the Brasília School of Music), where he taught courses on harmony and arrangement which broadened the horizon of many musical minds. After having performed the Sonata Breve in one of the CIVEBRAs we took part already as teachers – and with Ian Guest sitting in the audience - this work has never left our repertoire.
Encounter recorded with composer Ian Guest in Tiradentes, March, 2014.
Our first contact with Liduino Pitombeira, composition professor at UFRJ, occurred thanks to the proximity with which the Internet has provided modern society. Back then he was living in the United States, and we we were living in Goiania. A mutual friend gave us his email address so we could request works for flute and piano. Liduino promptly sent us not only all the compositions he had written for this formation until then, but also works for wind quintet and piano solo. Our contact has since then endured and culminated in the work Vitrais, which is full of sonorous color patches, especially written in 2014 to be recorded in this project.
Enterview recorded with composer Liduino Pitombeira at Parque das Ruínas, Rio de Janeiro, March, 2014.
Upon our arrival in Rio de Janeiro in 2006, one of the first colleagues to welcome us at UNIRIO was Dawid Korenchendler, professor of composition and counterpoint and fugue. Some time later, we debuted his work for piccolo and piano, Primeiras Ideias, in the USA in 2010. With his keen sense of humor, he wrote Zinfandel for our duo to debut in the XX Bienal de Música Contemporânea in 2013. The work, charged with neo-romantic sonority, proposes a musical dialogue over red wine.
Composer H. Dawid Korenchendler during the filming at Praia Vermelha, Rio de Janeiro, March, 2014.
Our connection with Vittor Santos takes us back to Brasília. We first met while teaching in the CIVEBRA, where we met again and again for several years, always in the month of January. Because we are admirers of his work both as a composer and an arranger, we asked Vittor to write a work to include in Brasileiríssimo. We were honored that he promptly agreed, and Divagações nº 37 is the result of that request. Written in 2014 and divided into three parts, the work is charged with numerical meanings that lead to our celebration of 25 years of career and marriage.
Interview recorded with Vittor Santos at Mureta da Urca, Rio de Janeiro, March, 2014.
Elenice Maranesi was present in our musical life long before she became a great friend. As young music students, we already admired her presence on the stages of Brasilia and her activity as a professor in the Escola de Música de Brasília. Céu de Maio, which evokes the beautiful blue of the sky Brasília has this time of year, was written in 1987, originally for flute and harp, and dedicated to the flutist Beth Ernest Dias and the harpist Silvia Braga. At our request, Elenice transcribed the work for flute and piano and it has since then remained in our repertoire as a constant.
Encounter recorded with Elenice Maranesi in Brasilia, March, 2014.
Rafael dos Santos is a professor at UNICAMP, whom we first met in Iowa, USA, where we were colleagues in the Doctoral course in music, when we spent time closely together for a year. We had the opportunity to see him on stage as a pianist, and to get to know several of his beautiful compositions and arrangements. Back in Brazil years later, we asked him to write a choro for our duo, which he did and named Tardes Goianas. After all, the request had been made in our home in Goiania, in a sunny afternoon of the year 2003. This spirited choro abounds with dialogs between the flute and the bass of the left hand of the piano.
The CD and DVD Brasileirissimo are available to purchase.
Order the DVD "Brasileirissimo: Encounters".
Order the CD "Brasileirissimo: Encounters".