Under the direction of Jocobs, Torres recorded the Vespro della beata Vergine and, more recently, Monteverdi’s Eighth Book of Madrigals. For the Alpha label he did an exquisite recording, Zeichen im Himmel by Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, along with the group Stylus Phantasticus, composed of Pablo Valetti, Friederike Heumann, Eduardo Egüez, Siobhán Armstrong, Dirk Börner, David Plantier, Sophie Watillon and Brian Franklin (reviewed in edition Nº 21 of Goldberg, five stars). The Garrido theory that Torres explains is simple: “I believe that the ways of singing baroque music survived naturally, spontaneously, in the folklore of Latin America. There is a way of singing which suits us Argentines and is easy and fluid. It also fits in almost exactly with what many European musicians who perform this repertoire want.” Another statement that Torres turns into a virtual statement of principles seems iconoclastic at a time when specialization is the rule: “I sing Monteverdi in the same way I sing Fauré, songs by Guastavino or Simon Boccanegra by Verdi. I am not a baroque singer. I am a singer.” It is not that Torres doesn’t care about style. Just listen to how he does those devilish ornamentations of the Possente spirto. Rather, he says that before style, even before thinking about a given work, there is always an approximation that has to do with understanding the text and “entering the expressive world of that work”.
Are you aware that this way of thinking places you at odds with the prevalent position in today’s music market, which above all seeks specialists?
My basic premise is that I like music. I love music. Not all music, but, yes, all genres and music from every period. I am an instrumentalist. And my instrument takes me from the Gregorian era to today. And the truth is I like to do everything. Because in every one of those expressive worlds I find something that moves me. It is important to be true to myself. And if that makes me less appealing to some record producer or opera theater director, I’m sorry. I cannot contradict myself. On the other hand, if we can be sure of any change that has taken place since the Gregorian era, it is the change in the human ear. I don’t know about the morphological aspect, but it surely has changed in perception of intensity. The decibels of 1,000 years ago were not the same as those of today. And if hearing has changed, voices must have changed. Singing in one period is not the same as singing in another. A medieval monk in his world of medieval monks is not the same as a castrato of the 18th century performing in that kind of marvellous circus, or a singer of lied of the middle of the last century such as Gérard Souzay or Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. I identify a lot with a singer like Dieskau, not because my voice is like his but because he, or Van Dam, for example, sang a bit of everything, especially within the repertoire of chamber music. And they did not change the way they sang. What changes is the music.
|
‘I love music. Not all music, but, yes, all genres and music from every period’
|
|
|
|
|