Violinist Joseph Gold keeps virtuoso style alive
By Bob Kelly August 29, 2008 San Miguel de Allende
Pro Musica concerts
Joseph Gold, Debbie Dare, Miles Graber
Sat–Sun, Sep 6–7, 5pm
St. Paul’s Church
Cardo 6
200/150/80 pesos
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Joseph Gold has won international recognition for his dazzling violin technique and his interpretation of the repertoire of the nineteenth-century violin virtuosos, Niccolo Paganini and Pablo de Sarasate. He has served as concertmaster and director of chamber music at the Spoleto music festival in Italy and was selected by the late Luciano Pavarotti to be his private violin soloist. |
Gold will make his second appearance in San Miguel, accompanied by his wife, violinist and violist Debbie Dare, and pianist Miles Graber.
Gold discussed his career and approach to music after arriving in San Miguel to prepare for the concerts.
Bob Kelly: A Bucharest newspaper said you are “acclaimed as a virtuoso and specialist in the music of Sarasate and Paganini.” Is this an adequate description or would you like to expand on it?
Joseph Gold: I am proud to be called a a virtuoso and specialist in the music of Sarasate and Paganini, who were my first heroes. My first violin teacher studied with Sarasate in Berlin in 1907. He related many stories of his contact with this immortal violinist. These stories remain vivid in my memory. Two other friends of mine heard Sarasate play in concert and also met him. Another friend introduced me to Paganini. This elderly friend knew a man who had actually heard Paganini play a concert circa 1836! He also knew two protégés of Paganini. My contacts with these people strongly influenced my musical interests. In this regard, I continue the traditions of these two great immortals in the most intimate way possible—through direct contact with their traditions. I dare say that no other living violinist has been so lucky.
BK: How many hours a day do you practice to maintain your technique and repertoire?
JG: I have a terrible confession: I practice the violin relatively little. However, I think about music and all things violinistic 24 hours a day. This is absolutely not an exaggeration. It is my firm belief that all things in art and in nature are interrelated. Thus, in reality, my entire day is spent in study and in analysis.
BK: Are you touring regularly?
JG: For 30 years, I was a music teacher in the San Francisco city schools. During that time, I toured regularly as a concert violinist. My tours were limited to school vacations. Immediately upon my retirement, I was engaged for countless international concert tours. These tours are fascinating events. As I said before, all things in nature are interrelated, so I’m able to bring my favorite music throughout the world. At the same time I receive the greatest of pleasure in studying the history and culture of every place that I visit. What could be better in life than being with friends old and new, enjoying the best of food and learning every minute of the day?
BK: What do you think about the trend in chamber music as personified by the Ahn Trio: any music belongs if it’s played by a small group of classically trained musicians?
JG: There has been an interesting change in classical music recently. I am delighted to say that the performers on the stage today are more beautiful than any time in the past. If the audience is attracted by these beautiful people, then the future of music is aided. I cannot compete in this realm of beauty. To make up for it, I try to thrill the audience with virtuoso derring-do and endeavor to make it all look easy. Either way, I hope that more audiences will come to classical concerts.
BK: Are audiences getting older?
JG: The age of the audience and the amount of white hair has always been a concern. But, art does not know age nor does it care. We are happy when young and old alike attend concerts and enjoy themselves.
BK: Is this business healthy financially? If not, what needs to be done?
JG: The death of classical music has been predicted for many generations. Curiously, more people attend concerts now than in the good old days. The difference is this: in the good old days, more musicians earned their livelihood percentage-wise in music. They didn’t make a lot of money, but they did make a living. Today, more players make lots of money. Unfortunately, a bigger percentage is barely able to make a living. To be blunt about it, there is a great disparity between the highly paid performers and the impoverished performers. Many times the difference in quality is minimal, if it exists at all.
BK: Is your wife, Debbie Dare, still active with the Pro Musica String Quartet?
JG: Debbie continues her career as a violinist and a violist. Our activities have changed, and we do not play as many quartet concerts as we did in the past. Debbie now plays in more orchestras than before. She is busier than ever.
BK: Does your son, Raphael, still play with the quartet? What direction has his career taken?
JG: Raphael has finished a four-year engagement as violist with the symphony orchestra in Mérida. He will attend the University of Chicago in the fall to earn his Ph.D. in Mexican history and Latin American studies. Raphael is married to a Yucatecan woman, and will return to Mérida and the orchestra next year after his studies are completed. He hopes to become a history professor and teach in Mexico.
BK: As I recall from your first concert here, you like to talk to the audience. Why is this important and how do you benefit?
JG: Talking to an audience is as natural as can be and it brings the performer closer to the audience. I have a wealth of interesting stories to tell the audience and enjoy my role as the guide through the history of music. It is important to tell the most interesting stories in combination with the most interesting music. In this way we all have a good time. It is all interrelated.
Tickets are available at La Tienda in the Biblioteca, Insurgentes 25; Casa de Papel, Mesones 57; La Conexión, Aldama 3, at St. Paul’s office weekdays 11am–2pm and at the door one hour before the concert. For details, see
www.promusicasma.com.
Bob Kelly was a reporter for his hometown newspaper and the editor of a weekly, both in Parkersburg, WV. His last newspaper job was with the Chicago Sun-Times.
The poem within the note
By Elena Arriola
Concert
Joan Sibila
Fri, Sep 5, 7:30pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
100 pesos
Creative works are born with a temperament of transgression—chords that demand the presence of words and words that do not conform with the passive sobriety of ink and paper, poems that seek to model with more noble materials, as music or chant.
I don’t know if Joan Sibila’s creations start in the rhythm or the letter, or if once they are finished, they turn into musical poems or poetic songs. The truth is they have the deep simplicity of spontaneous creation, without pretension or the aspiration to imitate conventional melodies.
Sibila’s sound reconciles the desperate will with quiet resignation, the nonconformist primal scream with the silence of surrender and total renunciation: “Please close my eyes again, but this time to the eternal blue/cierra mis ojos por favor de nuevo, pero esta vez a el azúl eterno.”
Songs of sarcastic complaint coexist with others of silent abandon; the rebel’s impetus and the humble wisdom of contemplation are united in a voice that is always reflective and melancholy: “I like to look through the window, feel how life goes/Me gusta ver desde la ventana, sentir como la vida pasa.”
Her music doesn’t sound like anything else I can recall and though I know her passions (Dylan, Chavela, Led Zeppelin and Nick Cave) they all sink unnoticed into her songs.
I write about Sibila’s world from my personal knowledge of her expressive vocation, regardless of the medium in her hand, but most of all, I write from the point of view of a spectator who waits for provocation from any artist.
Sibila has fulfilled all of my expectations. To put it in her words, we’ve got nothing to do but to ”wait till the sky gives up her space, till the lips close the scream/esperar que el cielo ceda su espacio, que los labios cierren el grito.”
Gitano doesn’t hold back
By Dick Avery
Concert
Javier “Gitano” Estrada
Gypsy guitar and voice
Fri, Sep 5, 7pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
100 pesos
| Javier “Gitano” Estrada feels “because I am an outlaw, I play out of the law of the music formations.” He doesn’t care about conventional musical trends, ideas, or thought. His music is an existential free-form, flowing back and forth from improvisation to structure. It becomes at once passionate, emotional, intense and fiery. | |
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He doesn’t try to “woo” an audience. “I try to play the way I can…I try to play according to my understanding…about what I can do with the music. I don’t pretend anything; I don’t discover anything; everything has been done, everything has been discovered, I’m just using whatever is there according to my approach of understanding the music of my background [as a gypsy]. [To my audience] I give them my heart, I open up my senses, I give myself, my soul, everything; I don’t hold [back] anything, I give it all.”
The audience must, therefore, involve itself with him, participate with him. He is giving his all and the audience can be a part of his musical experience.
Flutes are easier to carry
By Dick Avery
Concert
Folklore harp and flamenco guitar
Sergio Basurto
Mon, Sep 1, 7:30pm
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50 A
150 pesos, limited seating
Equally at home on the guitar and the Irish harp (smaller than the large harp played in symphony orchestras), San Miguel-based Sergio Basurto comes from a musical family in Mexico City. All family members sing or play a variety of musical instruments and his great-grandfather was an orchestra conductor.
As a child, he fell in love with Paraguaian harp and Quena flute (traditional Incan flute) music. He began with the flute (“because it was easier to carry around and I couldn’t afford a harp”). Many of his friends were playing Latin American folk music in school and invited him to join them. “I never went to classes; I just went to play [music] with them.”