Mozart in Havana

Cuban well known pianist, professor, producer and great cultural presenter, Ulises Hernandez, is also seeking a pretext for making something interesting. His latest undertaking, the Mozart in Havana DVD (Colibri Productions) has won four awards in Cubadisco 2008: the Grand Prize, Concert Soloist, DVD Show and Best producer. In an exclusive interview for this publication, Ulises Hernandez talks of the overall concept of the recording, the selection of the pianists and the success that the DVD is beginning to enjoy. How did the project begin? The year 2006 was called Mozart Year, given that it was the 250th anniversary of the birth of this composer, who is no longer Austrian, but of the world, because all the schools, everything has come from there, and Mozart's music, in addition to being studied and worked on, gives pleasure all over the world. I wondered what we Cubans could do within this world celebration and said to myself, let's try to do something integral based on the piano, and thought about his Sonatas. There are 26 Sonatas, 19 for solo piano, six for four hands and one for two pianos. I began to search out a group of pianists and try to arrange an integral performance in 2006, and then I thought about filming these performances, to have a memory, in sound and vision, of Cuban pianists playing Mozart. I wanted to do something that would attract attention to the concerts and so we decided to insert images of colonial Havana, although we even got as far as Vedado. How was the selection of the performers? The interest is in seeing pianists of different generations; there are students of mine, aged 16-17, and pianists from the generations preceding me, like Elvira Santiago, Yleana Bautista, Roberto Urbay, Maria Victoria del Collado; then Victor Rodriguez , Marita Rodriguez, Yanet Bermudez, Pedro Rodriguez, Fidel Leal and Leonardo Gell. The eleven of us took on the Sonatas and, as you hear the music, you also see this marvelous city. The DVD has a bonus track; we filmed the unveiling in Havana, on the Carmen Montilla Gallery patio, of a bust of Mozart that the Mozarteum Office brought from Salzburg. When the president of the Mozarteum heard about the project, he didn't believe it, but finally he became very interested in the idea of the Mozart Sonatas accompanied by images, because while there are recordings of the sonatas and we didn't do anything new in the sound sense, there was no DVD with footage of pianists playing all the sonatas. So you were invited to the Salzburg Festival of that year... That's right. He thought the project was so fitting that he invited us to the Festival that year, which is every January 27, Mozart's birthday, to present the work. This had a threefold effect on me. First, because being in the home of Mozart is something I had never ever imagined; every pianist would love to be in the home of Mozart, Chopin, and Beethoven, to inhale that atmosphere. They are like our fathers in the training we have received as classical pianists. After that, seeing with what interest the public . and that of Salzburg is a very specialized . approached the work that we took and greatly appreciated it, not just the interpretations, but the whole combination. Because it's distant; we're talking about a little island, and the points of view of our pianists, the work of mixing it with images of our city, was very interesting for them. It's your second Grand Prize... Yes, in Cubadisco 2007 it was for Heitor Villa-Lobos. Cinco conciertos para piano y orquesta, (Five concerts for Piano and Orchestra) another integral piece of work. My interest is in complete works being known, hence the five concertos for piano that Villa-Lobos wrote and now the Mozart Sonatas. I had another prize in 2003 for DanSoneo. The first Cubadisco Prize was for the Cervantes Cuatro Pianos CD, the first integral recording of Ignacio Cervantes' dances for piano. That was another really nice project and we're in the process of making a DVD of it. Prizes come and that is very emotional. Cervantes, Villa-Lobos, Chopin, Mozart, this little island, as you say, does it have pianists of that category? Yes, since the 19th century. It's amazing when you begin to look at and observe the musical and cultural development of this country. In the 19th we had a figure like Ignacio Cervantes, who won first prize in a Conservatoire competition in Paris. Here in Cuba there is an admirable training of pianists and this mix of generations, seen on the Mozart DVD, gives you a measure of what has been and will be continuity. Let's talk about Edelman, Hubert de Blanck, who founded a school, and Cesar Perez Sentenat. There is a tradition in the training of pianists in Cuba and, to a certain extent, this tribute to Mozart, to Havana, is also homage to the school of piano in Cuba. Are you planning new projects in classical music? Now I'm involved in trying to rescue the sound memory of the Renovacion musical group, which was born in Cuba in 1942, and from which figures like Harold Gramatges, Jose Ardevol . its creator . Edgardo Martin, Hilario Gonzalez, Argeliers Leon, and Giela Hernandez emerged, all of them fundamental names in the musical history of our country. We are talking of a lot of music, more than 20 hours. It will be a set of CDs dedicated to each one. We have already started with Argeliers Leon. We'll be working for the rest of 2008 and part of 2009. This is something completely new. Sometimes I don't understand why our performers haven't approached the Museum of Music, which is full of all these original unpublished scores. One has to delve into, research Cuban composers, rescue and play their music. I inculcate this in my students, I am head of the Piano Department at the Higher Institute of Arts, and we are creating a database of all the music we can compile. We have a lot from the 19th century already, and are moving on to the 20th and 21st, up to the youngest ones who are writing music. We are building a virtual library. To conclude this interview, your compositions for film There are always lots to do, I like doing music for the cinema and I'm motivated from composition. At the moment I'm finishing a beautiful documentary made by Lester Hamlet on the great Cuban painter Raul Martinez. It has not only been interesting and enriching for me to approach's Raul's work, but also Lester's proposal on Raul who, in addition to being a painter, is a tremendous, controversial and provocative character.

Cubarte News News posted on 6/20/2008 11:30:44 AM

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