“Oh, you can talk about cinema for a long time, it’s a beautiful thing,” says Raimonds Pauls, who writes not only music for movies – he watches cinema a lot and often. Asked what his favorite film is, Maestro does not hesitate to name the legendary Italian film “Phantom” … “And I’m not ashamed of it! ! ”
Indeed, he has a special relationship with Italian cinema classics, as well as with Italian composers Nino Rotu and Ennio Morikoni. Everyone is invited to make sure of this on July 30 at 20:30, when the concert “Raimonds Pauls. World Cinema Music” will take place in Dzintari Concert Hall within the framework of the Jurmala Festival. Maestro Raimonds Pauls, the string chamber group of the State Chamber Orchestra “Sinfonietta Rīga” and the Latvian Radio Big Band will play there. The live broadcast of the concert will be offered by LR3 “Klasika”, just before the concert in the 1st studio of Latvian Radio, inviting Maestro Raimonds Pauls and the leader of the Latvian Radio big band Kārlis Vanags to the conversation.
What will be the repertoire you offer to the listeners this time?
Raimonds Pauls: We call it a film classic – there will be composers like Gershwin, also Charlie Chaplin. And there will be many others who have created masterpieces – the fifties, sixties and beautiful melodies of cinema, real masterpieces created by Nino Rota, also his “Godfather” theme.
The masterpieces are already “Theater” and many more of your tunes. Or will something sound from your repertoire?
Raimonds Pauls: Probably let’s play. How can we do without the “Theater” – without it already in concerts (laughs). Like “The Long Road in the Dunes”. These are my two most played instrumental tunes. But now – every band’s encounter with strings is beautiful – it sounds like an orchestra with which we can play music that approaches the symphonic sound.
But in general, this often happens when big bands can make friends with strings?
Kārlis Vanags: That is the privilege we have. It is a pleasure to be able to collaborate with our neighbors, this time with the Sinfonietta Rīga Orchestra, but so far we have collaborated with both the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra and an independent string group led by Gidon Grīnbergs, so from time to time we form such combinations. It greatly enhances the sound and offers a wider range for both arrangers and listeners.
Raimonds Pauls: It could be done more often, but it’s a pleasure. Also, getting it all together is not that easy, but strings are a beautiful thing.
We also have the advantage that the big band itself is able to play music that is close to classical performance – we once did it by recording opera arias, which was quite a risky move – to “transfer” the vocal parts to the instrumentalist, but we did it, played with good arrangements. . The music, of course, sounds completely different. Any combination is possible with an orchestra, just search for and create a repertoire – the main thing is that.
Who was the determinant of the repertoire in this concert?
Raimonds Pauls: We shared this – we were guided by the arrangements we have in the repertoire. We are also looking for compositions by such a classical arranger as Gunārs Rozenbergs – his arrangements are often performed. Now Kārlis is the leading arranger. But we expect any of the musicians who can and want to arrange to do the same – the orchestra will be happy to play, because
arranging is a great art. It’s not so much to write that melody, but how to make it so that it sounds – that’s the most important thing.
Have there been any new arrangements for this particular concert?
Kārlis Vanags: Yes, there are also several new arrangements. Maestro has already mentioned – we have a new arrangement for Nino Rota’s legendary theme from the film “Godfather”. A small departure from film music will also be the maestro’s own six instrumental themes from the 1960s, which are also freshly arranged – this will be a small bridge to our next project, as we plan to release both Maestro themes from the early 1960s in original versions and contemporary arrangements. bigbendam. And here we will also have several soloists from among the big band – for example, Laura Rozenbergs, Gatis Gorkuša, there will also be an invited soloist – vibrophonist Miķelis Dzenuška, who will give a pleasant accent.
Raimonds Pauls: It is good that those works have been preserved! These are recordings from the sixties that were made on Latvian Radio.
Much is missing, but these records, thank God, have somehow survived. So when we were young, we tried to play jazz music.
Now Kārlis has taken these themes and rearranged them differently – it is a completely different sound, but the theme has been used, as it is usually done in jazz.
You said – survived. Didn’t you at least have your own handwritten at home?
Raimonds Pauls: No, not much. Back then, everything was recorded on narrow tapes, it was a completely different thing.
The records mainly released songs that could be sold. Instrumental music has always been so …
That is why I am still quite unpleasant that commercial radio instrumental music as such is no longer broadcast – this should also be taken into account by our Latvian Radio: why not use recordings that are in good quality? But – there is no singing … Yes, speaking of the program – I wanted to mention another surname that will appear in this program – this is my old friend, who, unfortunately, has already gone to the gods – Guy Kanchel. Great composer, great melodic. We will also include some of his compositions in the program.
–
Karl, you mentioned the new project due to Maestro’s instrumental melodies – can you say something more about it?
Kārlis Vanags: Today, be careful with your plans … But – we are very happy to work with the publishing house “Jersika Records”, which specializes in recordings on analog tapes and vinyl format – the head of this company
Mareks Ameriks has copied with great, very great reverence the original recording tapes, which were found to have been recorded in very good quality back then.
The plan would be to release original versions that have never been released – these compositions have been lying on the shelves of the Latvian Radio sound library for many years. And to record the same compositions in a completely new way, arranged for the already expanded big band in the live recording. This company specializes in recordings in one go – so everything is written on tapes without editing capabilities. It is a live performance that allows you to leave all the emotions of a live performance in the recording. We plan to make such a recording with a small audience presence and we hope that we will be able to do it here even, in the 1st studio of Latvian Radio, where the original version was also recorded.
Raimonds Pauls: Until very recently, while walking around the half-empty city in an empty time, I had a cycle of instrumental compositions. I have been thinking for a long time what to call it – at the moment there would be something about Riga. But not because there are elections (laughs).
I call them “Riga Motifs”, which we play with the classical jazz trio – bass, drums and piano. I think maybe in the future we will “sweep” some of these topics for the big orchestra. I will also play it as instrumental music.
Maestro, you mentioned the sixties. It was probably 1956, when both of them together with Egils Švarcas went to Jānis Ivanovs, showed him something at his own grand piano and he agreed that a new genre was entering Latvian Radio. What did you convince him of?
Raimonds Pauls: At the beginning, I changed somewhere. Ivanov was a great man, a great musician. He was the musical director of Latvian Radio – there was such a position at that time. By the way, Ivanov introduced the fact that sound directors can only be with the education of the Conservatory – those who are oriented in scores. Many young composers worked here even after that.
When I had to play a song for the first time, I didn’t feel very good …
But was it your initiative that it was needed?
Raimonds Pauls: Radio itself has already begun to realize that it is necessary to work in another genre. The classics, undeniably, dominated, and that was right, but the idea emerged that something else was needed. Basically, German hit music was already playing, but few Latvians – something from “Bellaccord”, recorded before the war, a light message. But then a sextet was established on Latvian Radio, from which what was called Latvian pop music gradually began to form. At that time, it was called the Latvian Soviet stage, but
the very word “stage” was also like covering up not to use the word “jazz”. At the same time, with the support of Latvian Radio, post-war Latvian light music began.
But the sixties also began the era of your film music. 1963, 1964 were the very beginnings. Do you remember which was the first movie?
Raimonds Pauls: In concert directly
let’s play one of my first compositions in this field, and it was the first major documentary shot by Uldis Brauns – “235 000 000”, meaning the people of the USSR. But that movie is great!
To this day, much can be learned from the documentary footage taken. I didn’t talk about what it was for, but the film was very interesting, and then I wrote music for it for the first time. However, the Riga Film Studio produced quite a lot of films – eight or nine films every year! All the composers worked on them, not me alone. If you look today, these movies are at a pretty good level.
Gold classic!
Raimonds Pauls: From the beginning, of course, everyone put them down, as usual …
But in terms of collaboration with directors. Ennio Morikone, for example, said – as soon as the director can’t tell him his wishes in concrete terms, he starts telling how Morikon should write this music and, for example, says a phrase that here needs something in Tchaikovsky’s style, Morikone says to him – listen, composer I am me: you do your work, I do your own, and cooperation with it is often over. How do you collaborate with directors?
Raimonds Pauls: There are different directors. For example, the great Jānis Streičs, who has created our film masterpieces, has always found music somewhere. He hears – oh, there is a popular song, it should definitely be put in the film. And he did the right thing! If Nora Bumbiere sang with Viktor Lapchenok, it should have been put on. About “Theater” – what I wrote, for the first time for him not particularly. No one already knew the final sound of how the music would stick to the film.
The most interesting thing is that you then watch the movie and feel whether its music for the movie “sits” or “does not sit”.
At the time, the ones I took as a model were, of course, the two Italian composers, Nino Rota and Ennio Morikone, who had recently passed away. An outstanding, outstanding composer! We could learn from them. They were, of course, working on a larger scale, we could not afford it. We recorded in the same Riga film studio.
Today I sometimes go there for rehearsals, walk around these rooms and some kind of depression comes on top – especially when I see photos on the walls with everything that has ever been here – how this building has worked, what has happened here.
Now all that remains are photos on the walls.
But at what point did you realize if “Theater” music was “sitting” or “not sitting”?
Raimonds Pauls: There was also a professional sound director. A lot depends on him – how he assembles. Like cinema, the most important thing is editing. Oh, you can talk about cinema for a long time, it’s a beautiful thing. In the meantime, we’re trying to restore it.
I had a very pleasant collaboration with Anna Viduleja in the film “Homo novus”. While everything went pretty nasty, in the end, it seems like the movie isn’t out of the bad.
By the way, what about movies – do you watch them in the evenings?
Yes, all the time!
And what is your favorite repertoire?
Raimonds Pauls: “Phantom”. And I’m not ashamed of it at all! (laughs) Or when I’m in a bad mood, I post an episode where Louis de Finess conducts an orchestra – it’s from another film, from “The Great Walk”. A real movie masterpiece! People learned to make comedy. Italian films are great, especially after the war, many masterpieces were created. Now … Cinema is already going through the same crisis. (..)
I don’t understand what people are laughing about anymore – I get a cry for those movies, but they laugh. Also series standards – one after another.
But you don’t watch them.
Raimonds Pauls: Why not? For example, the Russians had a great TV series “Liquidation” about Odessa. Very good TV series, with good actors.
–
