Who is Johann Sebastian Mastropiero?
A classical music composer.
Invented by Les Luthiers.
With him we parody pedantries of classical music.
Mastropiero, how is it?
Clumsy, deceitful and plagiarizing, in public he mimics the clichés of musical geniuses.
And in your house?
If you come to see Mastropiero’s More Stumbles, we will reveal something else: surprise.
Is it the last work of Les Luthiers?
Yes, we say goodbye to 56 years on stage.
Of parodic instruments and humor.
We are musicians. I am a musician who became a clown.
An artist.
At Les Luthiers I have been able to deal with artists that I admired from a young age. And I discovered that they admired me!
For example?
Gabriel García Márquez: He came to see us in Bogotá. And that night we ended up at a friend’s house, sitting on the floor and sharing an impromptu ajiaco.
What did you talk about?
I told him about One Hundred Years of Solitude: I read it in 1967, the year in which he had published it and in which Les Luthiers were born.
Share some of your talk with Gabo.
He told me that he mailed the original manuscript divided into two envelopes: it weighed less, it was cheaper.
Les Luthiers have liked everyone.
Felipe and Letizia, still princes, came unannounced. Since then we have shared a lot, they are warm.
Where did your deal with music begin?
I reacted to how out of tune my mom sang.
Thanks Mom!
And at the age of seven I took up a violin.
What’s with the violin?
The legato: leagues notes without breaks.
And it’s close to the human voice, isn’t it?
The voice interests me: I have directed choirs.
And you have a powerful voice.
I impose it on my choir to direct it. In Les Luthiers I use the scream of horror.
explain it
A corpse appears, I discover it and scream… horrified! Some viewers say that the blood in their veins froze.
See, scream.
You wouldn’t like it. I haven’t had to use my scream in real life, thankfully!
I read that you are an orchestra conductor.
Being an orchestra conductor was my life goal. I admired Von Karajan –my Messi!–, Barenboim… Humor arrived and I distanced myself, and I already made parodic music.
Fondly.
Young people always make fun of their elders: we did it without hard feelings.
Your humor will have evolved…
Now we consult our grandchildren for jokes. “Don’t say this!” they warn us. We obey. We don’t want to hurt.
They parodied musical instruments.
The informal instruments, we call them. There’s the Latin or viola de lata, viola on a tin of York ham.
Did it sound good?
With precious metallic harmonics, very interesting.
another instrument.
The bass-pipe a vara, a trombone made with pipes found in the garbage dump, a great instrument moved on wheels.
How is it played?
With a trumpet or trombone mouthpiece, making the lips vibrate: it’s complicated.
Other.
The mandocleta: mandolin played while pedaling a bicycle. The lirodoro is a mandolin with a toilet lid box.
Other.
The nomeolbidet: a bidet with PCV tubes. Another, the hookah: it is played like an Arab water pipe and releases smoke.
Other.
The ferrocaliope: an organ based on railway whistles. I am a virtuoso instrumentalist of the ferrocaliope!
Difficult to travel with all that junk!
Several tons in each of the 8,000 functions, which require twenty expert employees: this has been one of the logistical difficulties suffered by Les Luthiers.
Has it influenced your decision to close?
Yes, managing this company was already weighing too much on us.
What has been the best moment?
For me, one day we played with Daniel Barenboin.
How have they managed to last so long?
Thanks to group therapy with an Argentine psychologist: on the verge of breaking up several times, he helped us channel tension.
And what will he think when he looks back?
It hasn’t been bad.
What will he do next?
I will read all of Proust. I have it pending.
