“Vibrate Festival! », Bordeaux vibrates to the sound of the strings

The birds understood that something was going on. This morning, they met in the garden of Villa 88 to accompany the master class given by Laurent Marfaing with their perky songs. The violist of the Modigliani Quartet gives his advice to two young ensembles invited by the Vibre festival!

“I only joined the Velvet Quartet two months ago,” explains cellist Anastasia Averianova. It is therefore a great opportunity to be able to participate so quickly in this working session with the Modigliani. Founded in Essen, Germany, just three years ago, the Velvet Quartet brings together young women from backgrounds as diverse as Latvia, Turkey and Spain.

The fusion of strong individuals

With fire, they proclaim the heartbreaking chords – like so many blows of fate – of the first movement of La Jeune Fille et la mort, the 14th string quartet by Franz Schubert. We immediately admire their common musicality, overflown by the flexible grace of the violin of Ezgi Su Apaydin.

“However, you could vary the soundscapes more, bring more mystery to the end of the sentences, suggests Laurent Marfaing, giving the example on his own viola. Schubert constantly oscillates between exteriorization and confidence and, if the melodies entrusted to the first violin attract the light, the other instruments create the atmosphere, stir up emotion. »

Beethoven succeeds Schubert under the four bows of the Elmire Quartet. Formed in 2017 and already noticed among the ensembles “that count” of the new generation, it has just welcomed a new first violin, David Petrlik. An event for this small community whose quality is based on the fusion of strong individuals working, such as the musketeers of the novel, one for all and all for one…

The assured game of Elmire impresses more than it touches, and Laurent Marfaing will be able to breathe this supplement of naturalness and tenderness. “You should never hesitate to go for the softest nuances, to favor the articulation of the text, to savor a dolce and to develop a forte, he pleads with conviction. Here, you should not go straight but turn on small lights on the way…”

Various places, various audiences

The Velvets, the Elmires, but also two other young quartets (Quatuor Magenta and Novo Quartet) take part in the master classes open to the public that punctuate the Vibre! festival. On the tails side, precious and intense work sessions and, on the other side, concerts in various places in Bordeaux and the surrounding area, from the halls of the town hall to the agora of the Haut-Carré in Talence, the Sea Marine Museum, the Saint-André hospital, wine estates, schools, associations…

Long considered a particularly refined and demanding genre, in other words reserved for an elite of seasoned listeners, the string quartet attracts many young, very high-level instrumentalists who refuse to see their passion and the fruit of their labor reserved to a few. In addition to an incentive pricing policy (from free to €37), Vibre! therefore multiplies the addresses to all audiences.

“Polish my sentences like a melody”

Thus, at the La Machine à musique bookstore, in the heart of the city, the Modigliani Quartet spoke with the Japanese writer Akira Mizubayashi, author of Broken Soul, a novel haunted by Schubert’s Rosamunde Quartet. “I entered classical music through the symphony and the opera, to then access the string quartet as one accesses a treasure, he recalls. I try to polish my sentences like a melody, I read them aloud to experience their musicality. It is rarely convincing the first time! »

Admiring the “understanding”, in the noblest and most complete sense of the term, which must reign within a string quartet, he experienced it that very evening at the Bordeaux Auditorium. During the concert sealing their 20th anniversary, the Modigliani notably brought the Quartet op. 59 No. 1 by Beethoven whose adagio, a sublime and modest lament, revealed its “treasure” to each spectator.

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Sensitive strings

Vibrate Festival! Until June 11. Information: vibrefestival.com

Among the guest quartets:

Sunday June 4 To 11:00, Prometheus Quartet, at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux. Then, the same day at 3 p.m., Jerusalem Quartet, at the Bordeaux Auditorium.

Saturday June 10 To 19 hoursHanson Quartet, at the Church of Saint-Martin in Listrac-Médoc.

Sunday June 11 To 15 hoursQuatuor Voce, at the Domaine de Nodris, followed by a snack and, at 5.30 p.m., the closing concert by the Miksi ensemble (bringing together musicians from Bordeaux and refugees from Iran, Syria and Albania) and members of the baroque ensemble Pygmalion.

Throughout the festival, master class and concerts of young quartets. Without forgetting, from June 5 to 9, a cycle of workshop-concerts in the Médoc intended for new classical audiences.

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