Musical Offering: Immersive concert on the theme of water

Combining classical music and visual arts, such is the challenge that the Tarbes pianist David Fray and the Franco-American video artist Antoine Wagner have set themselves. A challenge that will take shape during the “L’Offrande Musicale” festival with the immersive concert “Water Music” and its two new performances at Halle Marcadieu, in Tarbes (July 2 and 3). The eponymous work by Friedrich Handel will be sublimated by a video scenography created for the occasion by Antoine Wagner on the theme of water.

A world first

“Water Music is ceremonial music that Handel composed for the journey on the Thames of the King of England, George 1st. Performed here by the instrumental ensemble “le Concert d’Astrée”, under the direction of Emmanuelle Haïm , and accompanied by the video projection of Antoine Wagner, it will be a musical journey along an imaginary river, from the Thames to the Adour. It will be a world first, a unique experience. Children will be particularly welcome but it will amaze everyone, whatever the age”, invites David Fray, founder and artistic director of the festival.

An ode to nature in the footsteps of Handel

And if the great-great-grandson of the composer Richard Wagner is not at his first attempt in the matter (we owe him video creations for the Vienna concert center, the Miami opera or again the “White Night” at the National Archives), “this video, I built it for the Offering, he specifies. Since 2019 we have already started discussing with David to see how the video could be integrated in an opera or a concert. This will be done during this festival and it will be a real challenge. Water is an important element in the world and particularly in the Pyrenees. It is life itself. Filming s ‘ is spread over a year. I filmed the water of the River Thames in Italy, Germany, France, under bridges, in forests,…, and at different times for timeless effect. wanted to capture the colossal beauty of all this rich nature in the footsteps of Handel, who had a special relationship with water, and I worked on the sensitivity of music”, explains the videographer, inviting the public to a moment of meditation thanks in particular to special effects, accompanied by a finely worked harmony. “There will also be white canvases which, like the sails of a boat, will invite you to travel. Blank portraits where we will put the notes of Handel’s music. It will be quite intoxicating, even hypnotic”, he slips.

Conceived as “a bridge between the sound and the visual, between nature and music, between the classic and the modern”, this project is also intended to convey a double message. “I want to raise awareness about the preservation of nature and make classical music more accessible”, invites Antoine Wagner.