Acoustic Reverb cs762

There are things that are inevitable. Here comes Guilherme with an absolutelly seminal and breakthrough solo album, recorded between May and October in Berlin, 2022, in various Berliner Kirchen: Passionskirche,Magdalenenkirche, Christuskirche, Herz-Jesu-Kirche, Evangelische Stephanus-Kirchegemeinde, St, ChristophorusKirche, Ms Heimatland, Zwinglikirche, Sophienkirche,Zionskirche, and Marthakirche.
Guilherme presents 58 shortminiatures for cello that sound truly amazingly with the acoustics of the churches. This music contains essentially everything, from the ancient to the contemporary. First associations are with ancient music from Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704), George Philipp Telemann (1681-1767), and, of course, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), whose solo violin music is so majestically interpreted by Maja Homburger. Indeed, there are moments in Guilherme's work reminding me of Maja's music, especially of her incredible attempts to combine baroque with free improvisation. Second, Guilherme's music reminds me of XXth century avantgarde from Anton Webern (1883-1945), the master of miniature form, through John Cage (1912-1992) and Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) to Helmut Lechenmann (b.1935) or Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988). Thirt, this is a free improvised music of the highest quality, and the recording of free improvisation for cello solo are not so frequent. My favorite, close enough, is "Trinity" for viola solo by Mat Maneri, a kind of paradigmatic album released in 2001 by ECM, based more on the American free jazz and free improvisation tradition, as well as Joe Maneri's micro-tonal ideas.
Guilherme's "Acoustic Reverb" is of equal superb quality. For me a Masterpiece of XXIst Century music!!! Maciej Lewenstein.

Guilherme Rodrigues sounds the spaces of eleven churches across fifty-eight vignettes in nearly as many minutes on Acoustic Reverb.
Herringbone bowings and dulcet pizzicato surround silences spacious enough to hear sounds’ delay, decay, and interplay within and with the architecture. A keen ear could parse damping, room size, and other parameters but even generally the characters of each space convey themselves in the differences felt in their reverberations. The space seems to color the cardinal sounding though, even with a wheelhouse of technique, unsystematic sounding makes it hard to examine particulars of the space and location within the space. Regardless, the rich reverb of every room ripples to realize the fluid that fills its container and what is a cup but for its contents. Keith Prosk (Harmonic Series) 

Ce n’est pas le premier album solo du violoncelliste portuguais Guilherme Rodrigues. Acoustic Reverb,tout un programme, fait suite à Cascata (chroniqué dans ces lignes) et se compose de 58 (oui, cinquante huit) miniatures enregistrées dans onze églises de Berlin : Passionskirche, Magdalenenkirche, Christuskirche, Herz-Jesu-Kirche, Evangelische Stephanus-Kirchegemeinde, St Christophorus Kirche, Ms Heimatland, Zwinglikirche, Sophienkirche, Zionskirche and Marthakirche. Chaque morceau porte le nom de la Kirche où elle a été enregistrée et est numérotée en chiffres romains jusque LVIII. Il s’agit d’un beau travail sur la qualité du son, de son grain particulier dans l’espace réverbérant de l’Église avec ses dalles de pierre ou de marbre et ses voûtes. Une multiplicité de formes, une qualité de silence et les résonnances particulières qui ronronnent lorsque les notes graves sont frottées par – dessus la touche ou vrillent l’acoustique lorsque l’archet frotte tout près du chevalet. La manière et la pratique de Guilherme Rodrigues sillonnent plusieurs domaines musicaux : minimaliste, expérimental, classique, improvisé; ou elles évoquent le polyphonique, le médiéval, le chant naturel ou ce que vos références suggéreront. Disons qu’il s’agit du violoncelle universel et d’un tour de force. En effet, concevoir instantanément autant de pièces réussies, dont la forme est concentrée dans une durée brève entre une et deux minutes, dans un laps de temps relativement court (Mai 2022) est la marque d’un grand talent et d’une belle inspiration. On peut s’hasarder à citer Telemann, Bach, Webern, Scelsi, Xenakis et les créations de Sigfried Palm il y a un demi-siècle, mais aussi, pourquoi pas, le chant des baleines ou Terry Riley. Le chant de l’âme en tout cas. J’aime ces staccatos flûtés, ces fragments de mélodie qui s’élancent le long d’une colonne, ces graves vibrants et ces aigus crissant maîtrisés comme un chant d’oiseau. Voilà de quoi écouter en profondeur, réécouter et piocher au hasard des 58 plages de l'album. Un bijou aux très nombreuses facettes qui révèlent leurs secrets au goutte à goutte. Bravo! Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg (Orynx)

O violoncelista Guilherme Rodrigues apresenta neste “Acoustic Reverb” um conjunto de pequenas peças: 58 temas curtos de solo de violoncelo, uma experiência imersiva.
Violoncelista com uma discografia já vasta, Guilherme Rodrigues é um improvisador de visão alargada. Nascido em 1988, Guilherme começou a tocar com o seu pai, o improvisador Ernesto Rodrigues, mentor da imparável Creative Sources Recordings, em paralelo com os seus estudos musicais – começou a estudar trompete e violoncelo, passou pela Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa e pelo Conservatório Nacional de Música de Lisboa. Desde então, Rodrigues tem trabalhado com inúmeras formações, em colaborações com músicos portugueses e internacionais, sendo uma das presenças mais regulares do catálogo da editora Creative Sources. Guilherme mudou-se há alguns anos de Lisboa para Berlim, cidade onde se estabeleceu e onde se tem afirmado, mas não deixa de regressar a casa e tocar frequentemente na capital portuguesa.
Se a sua produção discográfica é quase impossível de acompanhar, nas sua múltiplas parcerias e colaborações (na sua página Bandcamp estão 12 edições editadas em 2022!, incluindo o disco “Cosmos”), mais rara será a sua produção a solo. Neste novo disco, “Acoustic Reverb”, o violoncelista reuniu um conjunto de atuações a solo, gravações que partilham algumas características centrais: os temas foram gravados em dez diferentes igrejas de Berlim e num barco (MS Heimatland), entre maio e outubro de 2022. É uma verdadeira experiência imersiva: trata-se de um conjunto de 58 temas (!); as peças são quase sempre muito curtas (menos de dois minutos); aproveitam as características acústicas dos espaços; e remetem, muitas vezes, para uma toada de câmara. E se nas diversas formações – duos, trios, quartetos – ouvimos o seu violoncelo numa vertente comunicante, nesta configuração a solo ouvimos um lado mais concentrado, sobressaindo por vezes um lado mais clássico. Rodrigues serve-se do arco, do pizzicato e de técnicas extensivas, criando momentos sonoros ricos, apesar de breves. Uma abordagem criativa ao violoncelo, numa experiência rara e especial. Nuno Catarino (Jazz.pt)

Portuguese, Berlin-based prolific cellist Guilherme Rodrigues describes his solo album Acoustic Reverb  as the most important one he did in 25 years of his career. The album is a sound investigation process of the cello, in different spaces with particular reverberation. It was recorded between May and October 2022 in eleven different churches in Berlin (Passionskirche, Magdalenenkirche, Christuskirche, Herz-Jesu-Kirche, Evangelische Stephanus-Kirchegemeinde, St Christophorus Kirche, Zwinglikirche, Sophienkirche, Zionskirche and Marthakircheand) and one historical boat (MS Heimatland gallery). Each location had its distinct sonic qualities that tempted Rodrigues to explore its unique qualities.
Acoustic Reverb is the second solo cello album of Rodrigues, following Cascata (Creative Sources, 2020), and it offers 58 concise compositions for acoustic cello, the longest one lasts 3:15 minutes, but many pieces last a few dozen seconds. Obviously, each space affects all parameters of playing – the manner of bowing, the extended bowing techniques or touching and rubbing the strings, the elasticity of the acoustic sounds, and the way the vibrating sounds resonate within the rich reverberating architectures and spaces until they completely decay.
These spaces allow Rodrigues to reflect and investigate his own art and his instrument as well as the music written for the cello throughout the centuries. His open and encompassing approach embraces all elements  – chamber, reverent and melodic, minimalist and experimental, or freely improvised and sound-oriented, often in the same piece. Rodrigues succeeds to make this ambitious journey a cohesive, immersive and beautiful one. A real tour de force. Eyal Hareuveni (Salt Peanuts)

The Rodrigues family and I seem to share a distant personal connection. The father, violist Ernesto, was among the first people to alert me to the fruits of his labor on the ever-magnificent Creative Sources imprint. His talented cellist son Guilherme, besides collaborating with illustrious comrades already at the age of 15 or so, launched his webpage in the early 2000s with a somewhat naive introduction scribbled by a still-young Massimo Ricci. Twenty years later, with more experience and more sophisticated improvisational and compositional skills, Guilherme Rodrigues exhibits a significant advancement in his own musical development. I’ll go right to the point: this CD is superb, one of the few in recent months that were revisited time and again in this writer’s house.
The album’s title is quite straightforward, and easily understood since the inaugural listen. Except for a single episode captured within a historical boat, the recordings took place inside ten different churches, whose spaces facilitated the natural extension of the cello’s voice, enriching it with an air that is indeed sacred, but of a “clean” sacredness, unsoiled by religious or faux-otherworldly implications. Although the audio quality would make ECM’s Manfred Eicher jealous, it fortunately lacks the German label’s trademark coldness that sometimes shields the sonorities from revealing their throbbing hearts. There is no feeling of excessive fragmentation or lack of structural consistency despite the program consisting of 58 tracks (!), many of them fleetingly concise. On the contrary, what is heard is, in all actuality, suggestive of a full-fledged suite for solo cello.
When the soul of an instrumentalist is tuned to a concept of whole vibration – meaning both inner and outer – they are able to extract from the instrument, with firm yet sensitive touch, all the myriad nuances that define it. This is exactly how it sounds as one’s ears get used to Rodrigues’ acumen, always in line with the expressive signal’s deepest connotation, not overly virtuous, eventually capable of transmitting to the listener a sense of sober solemnity that is hard to find nowadays. Whatever you hear in Acoustic Reverb will comprehensively satisfy your psychosomatic nature, whether it be combinations of singing partials, melody fragments flavored with Bachian canon, minimalist cues, rattling drones bathed in glissando, or string and wood noises that nearly let you smell the cello itself. It is music that puts the audience in a calm mental state, entirely open to consistent evidence of evolution. A reminder to get back on track and resume paying attention to the pitch’s oscillating core, the diaphanous halo around it, the resonating silence currently not included in the lingo of the dominant auditory mediocrity. Thankfully, Guilherme Rodrigues has never been a part of that ridiculous anthropomorphic microcosm. Massimo Ricci (Touching Extremes)

Wiosn?, latem i wczesn? jesieni? ubieg?ego roku Guilherme Rodrigues spacerowa? ze swoj? wiolonczel? po berli?skich obiektach sakralnych, raz te? … przycupn?? w rzecznej barce. Rejestrowa? tam krótkie lub bardzo krótkie formy muzyczne, syci? si? ich przestrzennym brzmieniem, transcendencj? napotykanych miejsc i d?wi?ków, jakie generowa?. Na album wystruga? a? 58 takich miniatur. W ich trakcie zaprezentowa? wszelkie dost?pne techniki gry na wiolonczeli, ale nade wszystko dba? o klimat, nastrój chwili, urod? pojedynczej frazy. Jego ponadgatunkowe inklinacje muzyczne s? nam ?wietne znane, tu w wersji terenowej zdaj? si? jeszcze uwypukla? artystyczn? ró?norodno?? Portugalczyka. P?yta jest stosunkowo d?uga i sk?ada si? niemal wy??cznie z narracji, które trwaj? mniej ni? dwie minuty (tych niewiele d?u?szych jest raptem dziewi??). Czasami bywaj? one urywane w pó? s?owa, ale koncepcja ca?o?ci zdecydowanie wygrywa. Bo to nie zwyczajny koncert w obiekcie sakralnym, ale podró?, spacer, namys? na istot? pi?kna akustycznego brzmienia wiolonczeli.
Nie sposób pochyli? recenzenckie pióro na ka?dym utworem tego albumu. Wska?my zatem te najbardziej spektakularne. Ju? sam pocz?tek stawia nasze uszy do pionu – post-barokowe melodie, zgrzytaj?ce pulsacje arco & pizzicato, polerowanie pud?a rezonansowego na po?ysk, a wszystko w ?ywej, niemal ?piewnej interakcji z echem. Muzyk pracuje na ogó? medytacyjnie, ale nie brakuje mu rockowej pasji (utwór 4), w obr?bie krótkiej konwencji potrafi budowa? zgrabn? narracj? ze strz?pów d?wi?ku nadaj?c im ciekaw? form? (5), nie stroni od wyj?tkowo smakowitych klimatów muzyki dawnej, ale filtrowanej wspó?czesnymi technikami i indywidualn? kreatywno?ci?. Równie ch?tnie si?ga po d?wi?ki preparowane, które zdaj? si? przypomina? otwieranie wielkich drzwi ko?cielnych (9). Czasami gwi?d?e na wietrze (10), innym razem nuci melodie z domowego ?piewnika (11), ?yka renesansowe frazy (14), czy te? dyskutuje z przelatuj?cymi ptakami (20). Gdy na moment przesiada si? na bark?, brzmienie cello gubi przestrze?, staje si? matowe, mroczne, intryguj?co niemelodyjne (28-31). W kolejnym ko?ciele instrument znów zaskakuje swoim tembrem – zabrudzonym, surowym, jakby zakurzonym up?ywem czasu (32 i dalsze). W nast?pnych miniaturach muzyk znów obdarza nas wyj?tkowo urokliwymi foniami – jego smyczek ta?czy i ?piewa (41), gubi drog? w mrokach muzyki dawnej (45), pnie si? do samego nieba (47), tudzie? zdaje si? gwizda? na palcach i dociskanych do gryfu strunach (51). Swoj? niebywa?? podró? ko?czy wystudzonym strumieniem minimalistycznych, dogorywaj?cych d?wi?ków. Andrzej Nowak (Trybuna Muzyki Spontanicznej)