Homage to Victor De Sabata

The third Symphonic Poem: “Gethsemani” dated 1925 was called by the author “Contemplative Poem “. So we are in front of an umpteenth conflict of feelings, within raises a taste for a refined wagnerism and a French spirit. The torment, the sufferings of an event develops with an orchestral sound sometimes thinning out the density of the same sound. Well then, an exhausting research of one's own language, knowing deeply the witnesses of other compositors. The other pieces, the scene music of “The Merchant of Venice “ and the ballet “ The Thousand and One Nights “ come from a stylistic maturation already seen in the previous scores, not disregarding an interest for the pop music even if in an apparently way. After dealing with the master's compositor role we cannot disregard the conductor role, which was so important in the evolution of the music of our century. Also this role was lived by the master in a peculiar way, quiet and not loving being in the limelight all costs. A slight obscure evil that could not have any solution since the objective result never was the subjective result. He succeeded in exalting all composers, since he was not limited to the Italian field, but rather he used to go beyond limits, getting close to the German school and the Vienna one. His way to approach scores were extremely problematic, going beyond the detail and getting far from the Toscanini tradition for the absolute respect of the ego. Reading and performing scores, he set apart the composer role and he got completely into the interpreter role; furthermore the conductor role had already prevailed over accepting the permanent charge at the Monte Carlo Theatre from 1918 to 1929. All that gave him the opportunity to meet musically all the main national schools, taking on Ravel, Puccini and other more. Gavazzeni circumscribe this experience writing: “the breakage of certain schemes was the direct way to steal from the score the force and the becoming of certain contents. It was his whole artistic and psychological physiognomy the reason he could not follow repeating paths, even if inferred from famous models. The fascination and the charisma he emanated is underlined by Maazel, who lived the experience of playing among the violins at the Pittsburgh Symphony in the 1948-49 season. His performance of the “Requiem” of Verdi, the symphonies of Brahms and the pieces of Strauss, Strawinskij, Mozart, Ravel concerns a problematic nature belonging to his personality. The master read the sign as a message of the moment, introducing as completeness of the whole, his own cultural preparation, without abusing the musical will of the composer at matter. He will not distinguish text from music, searching a fusion he could find in any score. A feature that often was not present in other conductors. De Sabata started off a school that gave figures as Von Karajan, Celibidache, who were more inspired in the gesture and in the philosophy of the reading of the score. The detail belonged to his way of understanding the sound message, getting far instead from the Toscanini “modus operandi” who configured the detail in a technical way and not in a philosophical way. Some people say that the figure and the portamento are essential elements of a conductor. Personally I am seriously in doubt, but De Sabata mirrors the perfection of this mythic performance, romantic kind. So it can be synthesised that De Sabata became a quality alternative in the cultural and musical environment, offering anyone a renewed reliance to the symphonic genre, living these times moments of trouble due to believableness. The honest and enviable transparency of his thought added to the clearness of his own role of interpreter is a point of reference in the history of the orchestra conduction. An important and nice anecdote, to better understand his deep and sensitive knowledge of the musical literature may close this excursus around the De Sabata world: a concert player so sensitive and exigent even from other concerts talked about by the violinist Guido Ferrari as follows: “an evening De Sabata sat in the front row at the Scala, during the playing of a work of Strauss. Suddenly the piccolo makes an 'entrance'. He mistakes. De Sabata who was present at the piece as in trance, rises suddenly and whistling makes at perfection the passage“.

 

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