They opened in one voice. As her fingers touched piano keys, his gently plucked guitar strings. Together, their music rose and fell in a soft, soothing lilt, until suddenly, he burst forth into all the splendour that flamenco music can be. In fast flourishes on a minor key, he hammered anger, danger, suspense and seduction from his guitar, while she laid a steady, solid foundation for him to show off on. It was this beautiful dance of give and take, call and answer, that French pianist Nathalie Marin and Spanish flamenco guitarist Serge Lopez served the audience for an hour at the Alliance Française event ‘From classical music to flamenco’.
Nathalie and Serge’s collaborative journey began in honour of French composer Claude Debussy, who, though he had never been to Spain, “imagined the nation so well into his French classical repertoire”, explained Nathalie. By day a conductor of an orchestra, Nathalie invited Serge to in turn “reinterpret flamenco for a symphonic version”, and together, they’re now on a nine-city tour of India, presenting this ever-evolving conversation between two nations. Heads bobbing and feet tapping, they launched into a jazz-influenced, sprightly song of syncopated beats and quick arpeggios, at times complementing each other’s frills and graces, at others layering over each’s music into a powerful crescendo, in this composition by Serge, titled ‘La Familia’.
Nathalie then left the stage to give Serge his time under the limelight and how he shone! His first piece was a lesson in flamenco dynamics, ranging from whisper soft solo notes to jarring power chords, often drumming percussively on the body of his guitar, playing all the while. Eyes shut, as he eased every emotion from his extraordinarily sensitive strings, Serge’s body too made music with his guitar. In his second solo, and the first piece of the evening in a cheerful major, Serge grunted, groaned, sighed and moaned in the love song he sang almost entirely to his guitar.
Nathalie rejoined Serge at the piano to perform ‘Danses’, by Debussy, the longest piece for the evening, and a strange eerie composition of atonal chord progressions and surprise movements that never quite let you get a grip on the idea of the piece. With their next piece though, Nathalie and Serge built a beautiful, contemplative classical piano-like accompaniment of chords, and just when you were wondering where the singing’s going to come from, Serge’s voice soared as Nathalie urged him from one line into the other with gentle phrases on the piano. Soon enough, she joined him too, singing parallel harmonies to his melodies.
As the evening came to a close, Serge performed two more of his own compositions. With ‘Nomadia’, you could almost see dancers’ skirts madly swirling and hear boots banging on wooden floors on a sultry Spanish afternoon. With ‘A Maina’, Serge got the audience to snap to his music, playing games with them in the off-beats, before suddenly shifting to a crazy double time, squeezing notes into microseconds, his fingers flying too fast for the eye to see. It was in the final piece together that Natalie came fully into her own, soloing in between Serge’s silences, while Serge mirrored her movements, together talking back and forth in a language far beyond words.
