Six Portraits Of Pain - Oscuro António Pinho Vargas, Remix Ensemble Casa da Música & Franck Ollu

• António Pinho Vargas (b. 1951): Six Portraits Of Pain:
• 1 Vargas: Six Portraits Of Pain: I. Deleuze/Espinosa 07:13
• 2 Vargas: Six Portraits Of Pain: II. Thomas Bernhard 04:34
• 3 Vargas: Six Portraits Of Pain: III. Manuel Gusmão 01:58
• 4 Vargas: Six Portraits Of Pain: IV. Akhmátova 04:48
• 5 Vargas: Six Portraits Of Pain: V. Cadenza sopra Spinosa 04:00
• 6 Vargas: Six Portraits Of Pain: VI. Manuel Gusmão II / Paul Celan 04:12
• Oscuro:
• 7 Vargas: Oscuro: I. Atlas 05:51
• 8 Vargas: Oscuro: II. Abgrund 07:28
• 9 Vargas: Oscuro: III. Abgrund Corale (1855) 04:56
• Total Runtime 45:00

Info for Six Portraits Of Pain - Oscuro

The new album by Portuguese composer António Pinho Vargas brings together two landmark works, performed live by Casa da Música’s resident ensembles. Six Portraits of Painwas one of the highlights of the venue’s inaugural programme in 2005, featuring the virtuoso cellist Anssi Karttunen as soloist alongside the Remix Ensemble, conducted by Frank Ollu. A deeply moving work, it draws inspiration from texts by Deleuze/Spinoza, Thomas Bernhard, Anna Akhmatova, Manuel Gusmão, and Paul Celan, each evoking different forms of existential suffering. Oscuro, on the other hand, stands as a testimony to more recent times, an era marked by tragedy and disfigurement, from the pandemic to the wars afflicting the world. It is performed by the Casa da Música Porto Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Pedro Neves. These historic recordings, captured live at the premiere performances, are now released in a carefully produced edition by Artway, reaffirming Pinho Vargas as a vital voice in contemporary European music.

According to António Pinho Vargas, ‘The work's six portraits of pain (Six Portraits of Pain), with their form and foundations made up of six sentences of texts (short excerpts from scattered writings of various origins, letters, poems, etc.) written on the score, with the musicians being invited to read from the authors who gave each of them their titles; Oscuro, whose founding metaphors resulted from the catastrophic events that killed millions of people.) written on the score, which the musicians are invited to read, by the authors who give the titles to each of them; Oscuro, whose founding metaphors resulted from the catastrophic events that killed millions in the preceding years, the pandemic followed by wars, still ongoing at the time of writing, with their procession of misfortunes. The first sentence of the programme note, which I repeat here, is rooted in this global context: ‘Each work is always a response to the determinations of a body and the determinations of a world.’ However, the 17 years that separated the two premieres may partially explain the differences that I'll only try to point out. They were 17 years that gave time to all the creative crises that affect composers while, at the same time, forcing them to find the most diverse ways of moving forward in the making of works. The thematic entities of one and the other are very different and are treated very differently.’

“This piece of music is of unparalleled distinction, hence, it must not be compared with anything else in the realm of classical, romantic or even contemporary music. It is in a class of its own. It is a sublime expression through the sound of cello, violin and percussion. It is ethereal!”

Remix Ensemble Casa da Música:
Anssi Karttunen, violoncelo cello
Frank Ollu, conductor (Six Portraits Of Pain)
Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música
Pedro Neves, maestro conductor (Oscuro)

Remix Ensemble is Casa da Música
contemporary music group. Since its debut in 2000, the group has already performed the world premières of fifty-one new works by twenty-eight composers and a considerable range of contemporary music, covering all currents of style and idiom. In addition to its work on the concert platform, the group has made incursions into opera and music theatre, music accompanying films, dance and jazz. It has regularly invited featured composers to undertake workshops alongside performances of their works, including Brice Pauset, Emmanuel Nunes, Frédéric Durieux, Heiner Goebbels, Iris ter Schiphorst, James Dillon, Magnus Lindberg, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Rolf Wallin, Bernhard Lang, Matthias Pintscher and Harrison Birtwistle. To date, the Remix Ensemble has been conducted by Stephen Asbury, Ilan Volkov, Kasper de Roo, Pierre-André Valade, Rolf Gupta, Jonathan Stockhammer, Jurjen Hempel, Matthias Pintscher, Franck Ollu, Reinbert de Leeuw, Diego Masson and Emilio Pomàrico, amongst others conductors. At international level, the Remix Ensemble performed in Paris (IRCAM, Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord and L’Odeon), Strasbourg (Musica), Brussels (Ars Musica), Huddersfield, Rotterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, Valence, Budapest, Orleans and Reims. The first double CD of music by the Remix Ensemble was released in 2004, containing live and studio recordings of works by Pauset, Azguime, Côrte-Real, Peixinho, Dillon, Staud and Nunes. From 2007 to 2008, Remix Ensemble will perform several world premieres, including the first opera by Emmanuel Nunes and works by Miguel Azguime (with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation), António Chagas-Rosa (with the Klangforum Wien), Johannes Maria Staud, Rebecca Saunders, David Horn, Georg Friedrich Haas, Vykintas Baltakas, Georges Aperghis, Jon Balke, Wolfgang Mitterer and Mauricio Sotelo. The Remix Ensemble is scheduled to play concerts at various international festivals during 2007: Nordic Music Days (Sweden), Musica Festival (Strasburg), Wien Modern, as well as at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. Peter Rundel is the Remix Ensemble’s Chief Conductor.

This album contains no booklet.