Belgian ensemble Laterna Magica’s recent performance at the Alliance Francaise showcased a captivating blend of Western classical music traversing centuries and styles. The ensemble, co-founded by renowned recorder artists Nathalie Houtman and Laura Pok, joined forces with the Pondicherry Flute Ensemble, a renowned institution fostering Western classical music in the city.
Together, they conjured the polyphonic textures, melodic flights, and subtle variations of an orchestra, recreating works from the 16th-century French composer Thoinot Arbeau to the 20th-century Hungarian Béla Bartók and Argentinian Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla. The Nathalie-Laura duo, graduates of the prestigious Royal Conservatory of Brussels, established Laterna Magica as an ensemble dedicated to interpreting music from the 17th and 18th centuries. Their ongoing collaboration with the Pondicherry Flute Ensemble brings them to Puducherry annually, with this year’s concerts held at Pitanga and the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Auroville.
“Our aim was to explore dance through music,” explained Dominic Goodall, head of the École française d’Extrême-Orient, who contributed the viola’s rich resonance to several pieces. “We chose pieces from various eras that showcased the recorder’s capabilities.”
The program featured Renaissance dances, including Les Bouffons by Jean d’Estrée and Bransle de Lorraine, a 16th-century French dance collected by André Danican Philidor. A chaconne by the Danish-German composer Buxtehude, originally written for organ, was skillfully adapted for recorders. Bartók’s Five Dances for Two Violins, rearranged for flutes, were performed by pairs comprising members of the Pondicherry Flute Ensemble and Brussels musicians.
A quartet of local musicians – Moïse, Sathish, Mathi, and Goodall – presented four movements from Suite in Trio No. 4 by Marin Marais, a 17th-century French court composer. “Marais was renowned for his viola da gamba compositions,” отметил г-н Гудалл. “It offers a clear yet unobtrusive bass accompaniment, and its rhythmic drive surpasses that of a low recorder.”
Regarding their choice of repertoire, the duo explained that they adapt violin pieces to suit the recorder’s tessitura, sometimes transposing them to different keys and adjusting certain passages. The evening culminated with Laterna Magica’s rendition of Libertango, a tango composition by Piazzolla, a unique arrangement for recorders. The ensemble also performed six movements from Handel’s The Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks, showcasing their versatility and the recorder’s expressive range. The concert concluded with Bourrée d’Avignonnez, a French renaissance dance from the Philidor collection, bringing the evening to a fitting close.
