José Navarro-Silberstein: Vibrant Rhythms
GENUIN Classics

Bolivian pianist José Navarro-Silberstein (b. 1995) clearly hasn't forgotten his roots. Though he's currently based in London, his debut album features no less than three South American works, namely Heitor Villa-Lobos's Ciclo Brasileiro, Alberto Ginastera's Suite De Danzas Criollas, and Marvin Sandi's Ritmos panteísticos. At the same time, half of the recording's seventy-minute total is allocated to Robert Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze, the result a diverse programme whose imaginative pieces share a common focus on rhythm. In the four selections, an abundance of infectious pulses and polyrhythms emerge in engaging pieces with roots in folk and art music forms. They're also united by concision, as the greater number of the recording's thirty-one tracks make their case with dispatch.

The La Paz-born pianist comes to the project as an award winner of multiple competitions—the Anton Rubinstein Piano Competition in Düsseldorf and the Claudio Arrau Competition in Chile, to cite two—and as someone who's performed at venues around the globe. He studied at the Franz Liszt University in Weimar and Cologne's University of Music and Dance and currently is part of the Royal College of Music's Artist Diploma programme in London.

The set begins with Ginastera's five-part suite, an early work composed during his time in the United States. An interesting blend of elements surfaces in the movements, brief though they are, with hints of Bartók and Stravinsky interspersed with aspects of various South American folk dances. The dreamy, almost sultry lilt of the “Adagietto pianissimo” makes for a seductive start, the subsequent “Allegro rustico” all the more startling for being so aggressive. Elsewhere, a gently rhapsodic character informs the “Allegretto cantabile,” “Calmo e poetico” is, yes, peaceful and poetic, and the robust “Scherzando – Coda: Presto ed energico” is Stravinsky-like in its jagged rhythmic displays.

Written after returning to Brazil from a stay in Paris, Villa-Lobos composed Ciclo Brasileiro in 1936-37. Similar to Ginastera's, Villa-Lobos's four-part work draws upon traces of his native country with stylistic gestures one night also hear in the piano music of Debussy and, again, Stravinsky. After the opening “Plantio do caboclo” blends softly flowing rhythms and sparkling upper-register patterns into an entrancing serenade, the pensive “Impressões seresteiras'' pursues a more dramatic and mysterious course. The animated penultimate movement “Festa no sertão” is so reminiscent of Stravinsky (Petrouchka, for instance) it could pass for a homage, if not material by the legend himself. The closing “Dança do índio branco,” on the other hand, is the very embodiment of the album title.

Sandi created Ritmos panteísticos in Buenos Aires in 1958 during a time when the Bolivian composer was living and studying in Argentina but returning to his homeland for holidays. At six minutes even more concise than the eight of Ginastera's Suite De Danzas Criollas, the four-part Ritmos panteísticos deftly merges earthy dance rhythms associated with different areas in Bolivia with daring new musical ideas, polytonality and serialism among them. As short as they are, the four exercise-like miniatures possess no shortage of charm or appeal.

From 1837 comes Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze, thought to be an homage to his future wife, Clara Wieck. Seventeen parts in total, the work opens with a reference to a work by her and alternates between pensive, lyrical expressions and dance-driven sketches, the extreme contrast in tone mirroring the one between Robert's wild Florestan and dreamy Eusebius personae (by way of illustration, compare the rambunctiousness of “Sehr rasch” to the youthful innocence of “Einfach”). At the work's start, “Lebhaft” entices with a florid salon music tone, after which follow settings of romantic lyricism (“Innig,” “Zart und singend,” “Wie aus der Ferne”), wistful balladry (“Nicht schnell”), and light-hearted exuberance (“Mit Humor”). Both Florestan and Eusebius surface in “Wild und lustig” when it alternates between rollicking abandon and dream-like splendour. Headings included with the first edition of the work helped guide Navarro-Silberstein in his renderings; text included with the closing “Nicht schnell,” for example, reads (in translation), “Quite superfluously, Eusebius thought the following; and all the while his eyes spoke with a great deal of bliss,” and such words would obviously be helpful in fashioning an interpretation.

January 2024