Facundo Agudin News
Argentinian conductor
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2016-08-03 22:36:00
1973, a terrible year: four presidents, turmoil. And the Colón reprograms after the well-founded resignation of Enzo Valenti Ferro (the Mayor had closed down arbitrarily the German season). Antonio Pini was the new Artistic Director, and I his assistant. Along with the conductor of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Pedro Calderón, we programmed a rich season with eminent conductors and valid premières. In August Pini was summarily fired and the successors played havoc on the Phil´s programming. But in June and July we had Serge Baudo and Vaclav Smetácek. You may wonder, why this bit of history? Because it is relevant to the purpose of this article. Years before I was bowled over by the revelation of "Roméo et Juliette" by Hector Berlioz in […]
2015-11-12 05:56:00
July 1995. I contemplate the two Coventry Cathedrals: the ruins of the old one, ravaged by Nazi bombs, and the new, Saint Michael´s, built between 1955 and 1962 by Sir Basil Spence. The remnants of the Gothic original (Fourteenth Century) are still beautiful, especially the Tower. The Porch leads to the vast and luminous great cathedral dominated by a gigantic modern Aubusson tapestry showing Christ surrounded by the four Beasts of the Apocalypse. It was inaugurated by the most moving post-WWII choral-symphonic work, Benjamin Britten´s War Requiem. The author imagined two orchestras: a full symphony and a chamber one; he led the latter and Meredith Davies the former; plus a full mixed choir and a children choir. And the three soloists: a British […]
2015-05-18 04:57:00
The National Symphony (Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional) ended its pre-season series at the Bolsa (Stock Exchange) main hall with an uneven though interesting concert. Not many months ago the same orchestra but with a different chorus had offered that strange Mendelssohn score, "The First Walpurgis Night", on an equally intriguing text by Goethe. Now they played it again but with the Coro Polifónico Nacional de Ciegos directed by Osvaldo Manzanelli. The conductor was Facundo Agudín, a Swiss-based Argentine. Although I wrote about it in that previous occasion, I think it´s worth recapitulating the main facts. The legend tells about a festival of witches and devils on the mountains of the Hartz, on the Brocken, and it is integrated to "Faust" (you also find it in […]
2014-07-07 07:34:00
Innovation in orchestral programming doesn´t only mean premières of contemporary composers, but also second performances of meaningful scores, premières of creations that somehow have never arrived to Buenos Aires although they may have been written centuries ago, or revivals of neglected works. There is a good percentage of unnecessary or even wrong choices, although that´s the risk that must be taken; unless that quota is very large, it is always better than deadly routine. The only partial justification for a programme made of surefire hits is to present grade A performers. I recently wrote with enthusiasm about interpretations by the Buenos Aires Philharmonic under their Principal Conductor Enrique Arturo Diemecke. Well, they did it again. A night with just two masterpieces proved endearing […]
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