SAUDADE
A fruitful collaboration with award-winning Danish guitarist Jakob Bangsø resulted in Saudade, Constantine’s first concerto for guitar and orchestra. The work received its premiere in Tallinn, Estonia, and was subsequently recorded at the Eesti Rahvusringhääling (Estonian Public Broadcasting Recording Studios) by Bangsø, the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and conductor Kaisa Roose. It was released in 2020 by Orchid Classics (UK) alongside internationally acclaimed guitar concerti by John Corigliano and Wayne Siegel.
Listen to Teneramente (Mov I) from Saudade
When the Danish guitarist Jakob Bangsø asked if I would consider writing a guitar concerto, my immediate reaction was a counter suggestion to first work on a humbler piece for solo guitar. That allowed me to become more familiar with all things technical regarding the instrument and its characteristics that make for idiomatic writing. The resulting work, Prelude (2016) for solo guitar, was the starting point that gave birth to many ideas, most of which were ambitiously sketched in anticipation of writing a concerto for the guitar.
My preferred process when creating a form that utilizes a single instrument at the eye of the storm against an orchestral ensemble is to design a skeletal blueprint for each movement, which details its thematic, harmonic, contrapuntal, orchestrational and other components. Nonetheless, Saudade was through-composed, without solely depending on my various compositional techniques, but instead creating structures that mirror different melancholic and nostalgic images from my early years living in the Aegean. This developing voyage allowed for the thematic material to be reclaimed throughout the concerto, not only bridging materials within movements but between them as well.
Saudade is constructed using two thematic ideas. The first is an original simple motif ascending to the minor third and descending to the major second, reminiscent of the lullabies my grandmother sang to me. The second derives from a well-known Greek folksong called Kaneloriza, its roots in Asia Minor. Kaneloriza’s starting melody (used in Saudade) is a pinnacle for many Hellenes who fled to the islands of the Aegean during the Asia Minor Pogrom at the turn of the twentieth century. To many, it portrays images of a pre-industrial, bygone era and a longing for a rural life.
—about Saudade
Saudade is cast in four movements with only hints of the traditional concerto form; its cadenza is carefully placed before the start of the fourth movement.
Teneramente, the first movement, is an exposé of both motifs. This movement is neither tonal nor modal. Instead, it uses qualities from these worlds through the constant re-imagining of the two motifs. The role of the guitar, apart from exposing and elaborating on the motifs, is to intervene through all the pictures painted by the orchestral part by either reinforcing them or bringing the listener back to current reality. This curational role is taken on in the rest of the work.
However, in the Presto e Giocoso, the second movement, the soloist and the orchestra are almost in constant disagreement, breaking the rules established thus far. Here again, the motifs are omnipresent, even if much of the time in disguise. Yet when not disguised, they appear in counterpoint with themselves adding all necessary colours to the monochrome pictures they once represented.
The third movement is an admittedly deeply felt Adagietto where the feelings of reminiscence, separation, emptiness, absence and ultimate void are most apparent. The first part of the movement brings these feelings and emotions to the surface from the deepest waters of the emotional scale until the soloist takes on the role of a brother’s keeper, planting the seeds of hope by restating both motifs, sometimes fragmented and other times merged or inverted. The Adagietto culminates with the constant re-occurrence of the first motif under a momentum-building ostinato in the guitar, its ending bars allowing for a clear statement of it, converging with the gloomy sound of a celeste.
The Cadenza, following that, integrates thematic ideas and the emotions they represent as in the preceding movements while preparing the listener for a grand finale, Con Slancio, where the motifs culminate in counterpoint with one another.
Even though there is no exact translation of the original Portuguese word, Saudade represents the most profound desire for something that cannot exist in the present. It is a journey through the yin and yang of the emotions one experiences when a memory of the past resurfaces.
—Constantine Caravassilis
—featured reviews
Pandemic aside, there is still a decent flow of recorded music coming to light, some of it featuring substantial orchestral works written by living composers. From guitar concertos and Latin-American dances to a haunting exploration of loss, each of these three exceptional, yet starkly different recordings would make for a stimulating evening of home listening.
First, the concertos. On the British Orchid Classics label, Danish guitarist Jakob Bangsø joins Estonia’s Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and conductor Kaisa Roose for contemporary music by two Americans and a Canadian. Inspired by the idea of the trobairitz, a female medieval poet and musician, John Corigliano’s Troubadours incorporates a theme by one of the most famous: La Comtessa, Beatritz de Dia. Written in three sections—slow, fast, slow—the composer’s cunning use of offstage brass and percussion allows for complex orchestral sonorities that never overwhelm the soloist. It’s an intoxicating, shimmering work full of ethereal passages bound together by a series of returning variations. Bangsø’s impeccable pointillist technique lands each idea with admirable clarity and the scrupulous care taken by Roose and the orchestra does the rest.
Los Angeles-born Wayne Siegel also takes his cue from early music in his endlessly evolving Chaconne. According to the composer’s sleeve note, the work opens “with the soloist searching his memory, trying to recall a forgotten melody. The duly remembered 10-bar theme is then repeated as a ground bass over a chugging 20 minute-span while the guitar weaves in and out of the vaguely minimalist orchestral texture. Its easy appeal is equaled by Canadian composer Constantine Caravassilis’s Saudade, another lyrical work that incorporates Greek folk-music in a sometimes wistful, sometimes jaunty four-movement concerto full of memorable ideas. Bangsø deserves full credit for championing three such attractive and substantial works.
—Clive Paget, Musical America
Danish guitarist Jakob Bangsø, 32, may not be widely known in the US, but he has already commissioned seven works. This generous recital includes premiere recordings of Constantine Caravassilis’ beautiful, must-hear Saudade: Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra (2018) and Wayne Siegel’s more derivative Chaccone: Concerto for Guitar and Chamber Orchestra (2016). Both were inspired by the one modern classic on this generously timed recording, Corigliano’s Troubadours: Variations for Guitar and Chamber Orchestra (1993).
Troubadours, composed for Sharon Isbin, features a beguiling Spanish melody, eerie accompaniment, original language, and a pervasive sense of nostalgia. Hence Caravassilis’ title. I can ‘t get enough of Saudade’s mysterious, wistful beauty, with iridescent touches punctuated by deep bass and fascinating percussion. Its Adagietto evokes memories of the Adagio from from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, but it ‘s strikingly unique.
Less unique is Siegel’s Chaconne, which quotes Philip glass too often and directly. Chaconne starts strong, with evocative vocals, but can’t seem to decide what it is or where it’s headed.
Thanks to the superb partnership between Bangsø and conductor Kaisa Roose, as well as excellent editing and mixing by a team of engineers, balances are ideal, with a natural-sounding guitar placed in front of an orchestra whose percussive ventures are captured well.
—Jason Victor Serinus, Stereophile Magazine