THE ART OF TRANSCRIPTION

As part of its organ concert cycle and in collaboration with the RACBA, Real Academia Canaria de Bellas Artes de San Miguel Arcángel (San Miguel Arcángel Royal Canarian Academy of Fine Arts),  the Auditorio de Tenerife offers a matinee with the organists Atsuko Takano and Pablo Márquez.

The art of transcription

The organ has always been a popular instrument due to its versatility, which gives a single performer control of complex and sophisticated music, such as that produced by large orchestral or vocal ensembles. Transcriptions have been used continuously, from Bach to Romantic and contemporary composers, to exploit these timbrical resources and possibilities. Continuing with this tradition, the duo Concertante a Quattro shall give a concert of German and French orchestral music using Pablo Márquez's transcriptions.

The concert begins with an interpretation of two movements of Bach's Orchestral Suite in D major, 'Ouverture', which is structured in three parts: slow-fast (fugue), slow, and its well-known 'Air'.

The next interpretation is the first movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, perhaps one of the most iconic works of what is often referred to as 'classical music'. Its first eight notes, played by all instruments in unison, are known worldwide. The transcription chosen for this performance seeks to harness Beethoven's orchestral complexity and the desperation he must have felt as a result of his growing deafness, which Takano and Márquez shall convey with an incessant rhythm that may be likened to fate knocking on one's door.

The second half of the programme centres on French works from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It includes Ravel's famous 'The Grave of Couperin', which pays homage to the French harpsichordist. During a period in which France was invaded by the Italian school of opera, Impressionist and Neoclassical composers considered themselves direct inheritors of Couperin's works. Also on the programme, Debussy's 'Nuages' is a clear example of the desire to use music to evoke imagery and sensations associated with nature.

Lastly, the concert includes Japanese Miniature composed by Pablo Márquez for the Iberian organ for four hands. Based on the traditional Japanese song Sakura Sakura (Cherry Blossoms, Cherry Blossoms), the composition features the musical forms most often used in the repertoire of Iberian Baroque music: variations, tientos (ricercars) characterised by dramatic dissonance, right- and left-hand solo lines and battaglia. The Japanese melody is modal and runs through the work as a common thread.

Pablo Márquez Caraballo