listen to complete piece

composer	Mario Davidovsky (b. 1934)
performers	International Contemporary Ensemble: Daniel Lippel, guitar Maiya Papach, viola Kivie Cahn-Lipman, cello Randall Zigler, bass
publisher	C. F. Peters (BMI)http://www.edition-peters.com
label	New Focus Recordings FCR104http://www.newfocusrecordings.com
duration	10:24

about the music

Daniel Lippel:

"Festino is an ideal window into Mario Davidovsky's style. It contains all of the facets of his characteristic voice: rhythmic ingenuity, constant equalization of extreme expressive worlds, flaunted expectations, and an internal identity struggle within the piece. [...]

"Davidovsky is well known for his pioneering role in the world of electronic music, ... [but] his interest in technology was strictly driven by a desire to achieve musical means that he felt were not possible with acoustic instruments. In many of his more recent acoustic works like Festino, he brought the language of electronic music full circle, incorporating characteristically electronic gestures into his acoustic writing. The tightly coordinated rhythmic machines that punctuate so many of the phrases in Festino are an outgrowth of this retranslation.

"More often than not, these quirky ensemble mechanisms are used in a wry, comical context, frequently to break the tension of a serious passage. Davidovsky's expressive world is meticulously balanced. Moments of raw emotion are balanced by clever humor. Moments of visceral impetuosity are balanced by poignant nostalgia. As Davidovsky related in an interview, 'I have this kind of valve inside, it's almost automatic inside myself, I am always two places at the same time, or nowhere.' [...]

"Throughout his body of work, Davidovsky flaunts expectations, particularly with respect to his handling of instrumentation. In his Synchronisms [No. 5] for percussion ensemble, he flaunts the expectation of a loud drum ensemble by avoiding non-pitched percussion for almost the first half of the piece, opting instead to emphasize quiet rolls on mallet instruments. In the guitar Synchronisms, the tape part doesn't enter until five minutes into the piece, long enough for the listener to forget that it's an electroacoustic work. Similarly, in Festino he effectively neuters the low string trio (viola, bass, cello) by asking the players to imitate the guitar with plucks, pops, and body hits ... He saves the more traditional string writing for string tutti sections without guitar, which alternately explode with pathos and whisper with a mournful calm. The string trio augments the guitar to create a hybrid instrument, 'a big guitar,' mirroring the role of the electronic part in Synchronisms No. 10. The texture emphasizes accents, and diminishing decays, just as the guitar's sound is loudest at the attack and decays immediately. [...]

"In some ways, Davidovsky's music is very traditional. It proceeds linearly, introducing motives that develop and later reconcile with each other. What is new in his narrative process is how he juggles several 'strata' in the piece, almost as if the protagonist is struggling with multiple identities all inside one personality. Davidovsky:

"'I will begin the piece, more often than not, with a statement like a motive. I try to make a statement like how Beethoven would present a theme in a symphony -- very consistent and cohesive and natural and elegant. In my case, I construct that kind of statement out of motives that are essentially very different from each other. You could say that each of those motives have their own implied rhythm, their own implied harmony, even character. Then what I do, more or less looking back at Beethoven, I take those motives, and actually generate a different piece of music. Instead of voice leading things, I will develop a strata. You could say that [Elliott] Carter does that stratification as well, but the difference is that Elliott seems to talk about each instrument as a different person. In a way, my stratification involves one person telling four stories -- the one person is the remnant of the voice leading ... [T]hough they might seem completely unrelated, eventually the four voices come together.'

"Festino is a perfect example of this stratification of motives, indeed, of multiple 'stories' within a piece. The juggled identities in Festino include several moods: clever/clownish, melodramatic/passionate, awkward/apologetic, nostalgic/wistful, and focused/resolute. In almost all of these passages, the primary motive of the piece, the short three-note figure that opens the work in the viola appears, dressed in different expressive garb. This little motive (the same motive that drives Synchronisms No. 10 in fact) is the part of oneself that we carry through all the different spaces of our lives. As we wear many hats, that core marker of our persona shifts, but it is never left entirely behind. This style of stratification is a hallmark of Davidovsky's music, and allows him to musically capture something about the layered process of how the mind works, and how we perceive our complicated identities.

"The [word] 'festino' refers to a work like a serenade, with the character of an opera buffa perhaps. I've often felt that Davidovsky's Festino is a deep portrait of a clown, with the virtuoso trickster outside hiding the loneliness and longing underneath. [...]"

about the composer		back to top

Mario Davidovsky (b. 1934) is widely recognized for his pioneering work in electroacoustic music. His Synchronisms are early examples of successful integration of acoustic instruments with electronic sound; Davidovsky received the Pulitzer Prize in 1971 for his Synchronisms No. 6 for piano and tape. Since the 1970's the bulk of Davidovsky's output has consisted of chamber, orchestral, and vocal works.

Davidovsky was born in Médanos, Argentina into a family of 11 children, all of whom were musicians; he studied violin as a child and began to compose at the age of 13. His formal musical training began with Guillermo Graetzer in Buenos Aires, with whom he studied theory and composition. In 1958 he was invited by Aaron Copland to study at the Berkshire Music Center (now Tanglewood) in Lenox, Massachusetts; two years later he settled in New York City and began a long association with the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Davidovsky has since taught at a number of educational institutions: University of Michigan, Instituto Torcuato Di Tella of Buenos Aires, Manhattan School of Music, Yale University, City College of New York, and Harvard University. He has served as director of the CRI record label, Fromm and Koussevitzky Foundations, and for many years the Composers Conference at Wellesley College, Massachusetts.

Davidovsky has received commissions from a wide range of chamber ensembles and orchestras from across the US. Recordings of his work can be found on the Albany, Artek, Bis, Bridge, Capstone, Centaur, CRI, Decca, Delos, Deutsche Grammophon, and New World labels.

about the performers		back to top

Cofounded in 2001 by composer Huang Ruo and flutist Claire Chase, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a new music collective comprised of young musicians and composers from around the world. The group's mission is to advance the music of our time through innovative programming, interdisciplinary collaborations, commissions of young composers, and performances in nontraditional venues. ICE currently presents over 50 concerts a year in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and abroad. The ensemble has collaborated with leading composers such as George Crumb, Mario Davidovsky, David Lang, Pauline Oliveros, Bernard Rands, and Augusta Read Thomas, and has given over 400 world premieres. In 2004 ICE launched the 21st Century Young Composers Project, a worldwide call for music by composers under the age of 35. The project culminated in the weeklong festival Polyphonic Voices: Music by Emerging Composers from Around the World. The following year it received first prize in the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming. ICE was ensemble-in-residence at New York University between 2004-2008, and will begin a residency at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in the 2008-09 academic year. The group has recorded for the Bridge, Naxos, and New Focus labels.

related websites
http://www.iceorg.org