"Nostalgia for the Absolute"

This performance by Duo Gazzana is a tribute to a great Russian filmmaker Andrey Tarkovsky. Of profound ethical content, the event alternates readings from Sculpting in time, Tarkovsky’s autobiographical opus on aesthetics and the theory of cinema, with musical pieces performed by sisters Natascia Gazzana, violin, and Raffaella Gazzana, piano. The artistic direction is by Andrey A. Tarkovskij whose video projections run throughout the performance, comprising of scenes from his father’s films plus previously unpublished images and documents from family archives. Duo Gazzana wish to express their appreciation of the Art of Tarkovsky for the profound spiritual values it conveys. For this purpose, Duo Gazzana offer the concert as a homage to the filmaker, performing musical pieces most dear to him, or which would have undoubtedly touched his heart. Just as Tarkovsky enriched the then-young art of cinematography with a profound cultural depth by including images and music from universally celebrated painters and composers, the event’s program juxtaposes works by Johann Sebastian Bach, much loved by the filmmaker and frequently used in his films, with compositions by contemporary authors whose spiritual moods reference his creations.
The concert opens with Bach’s movement Adagio ma non tanto from the Sonate in E major BWV 1016, followed by Fratres by Arvo Pärt, a living Estonian composer, widely acknowledged for the emotional transparency of his works, who dedicated one of his recordings to Tarkovsky. The piano choral Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ by Bach Busoni recalls the evocative atmospheres of the film Solaris. This is followed by Bach’s renowned Sarabanda for solo violin from the Partita II BWV 1004, echoes of which are distinctly heard in the subsequent Hommage à J.S. Bach, a brief composition for violin and piano from 2009 by Valentin Silvestrov, a contemporary Ukranian composer. The Thème and the Variation V from Thème et Variations by Olivier Messiaen prelude the conclusion of the concert, entrusted to Bach, in whose Largo from the Sonate in D minor BWV 1017 it is possible to hear the theme of the air Erbarme dich which pervades the intense images of Sacrifice, Andrey Tarkovsky’s last film and spiritual testament.