Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Navarra, André(-Nicolas)

(b Biarritz, 13 Oct 1911; d Siena, 31 July 1988). French cellist. He received his early training at the Toulouse Conservatoire, where he was awarded a premier prix at the age of 13. In 1926 he graduated to the Paris Conservatoire as a pupil of Jules Loeb for cello and Charles Tournemire for chamber music; there he again won a premier prix (1927). From 1929 to 1935 he played with the Krettly String Quartet. His début as a soloist took place in 1931 at the Concerts Colonne in Paris, with Pierné conducting. He appeared in most European countries, in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Japan, the USSR, Australia and India. His British début was at the 1950 Cheltenham Festival, when he played Elgar’s concerto, a work with which he was much associated; in 1957 he recorded it with Barbirolli and the Hallé Orchestra. Navarra taught at the Paris Conservatoire from 1949 to 1979, and he held other important teaching posts at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, Siena, the Vienna Hochschule für Musik, and the Detmold Musikhochschule. He was an Officier of the Légion d’Honneur and Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et Lettres. Navarra’s thoughtful, refined yet ardent playing was equally suited to solo work and chamber music.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CampbellGC

S. Milliot: Entretiens avec André Navarra (Béziers, 1992)

RONALD CRICHTON/R

Navarrini [Navarini], Francesco

(b Cittadella, nr Padua, 26 Dec 1855; d Milan, 21 or 23 Feb 1923). Italian bass. He studied in Milan and made his début at Treviso (1878) in Lucrezia Borgia. After a season at Malta, he sang in various Italian cities, acquiring a large repertory and making his first appearance at La Scala in 1883 as Alvise in La Gioconda. His portrayal there of the Grand Inquisitor in the first Italian presentation of Don Carlos was highly praised and he soon took his place as the theatre’s principal lyric bass. He sang Lodovico in the première of Otello (1887) and was the Pogner of the production under Toscanini of Die Meistersinger (1898). Abroad he appeared in London, Paris and Madrid, and from 1894 to 1912 was a favourite in Russia. At Monte Carlo his singing of the Slander Song in Il barbiere di Siviglia was a highlight of the 1900 season, and in 1902 he visited the USA as a member of Mascagni’s touring company. His virtues as a singer are demonstrated in his 16 recordings of 1907: a fine, sonorous voice, evenly produced, and exemplifying the traditional graces of the best Italian school. (P. Padoan: ‘Francesco Navarrini’, Record Collector, xl, 1995, 53–69)

J.B. STEANE

Navarro, Fats [Theodore; Fat Girl]

(b Key West, FL, 24 Sept 1923; d New York, 7 July 1950). American jazz trumpeter. As a youth he played the piano and the tenor saxophone, but by the age of 17 he was touring with black American dance bands as a trumpeter. Three years later, in 1943, he joined Andy Kirk’s nationally known jazz band, which then included Howard McGhee. In January 1945 Navarro replaced Dizzy Gillespie in Billy Eckstine’s band; as the principal trumpet soloist in this important group he was among the foremost players in the new bop idiom. In autumn 1946, however, physically unequal to the heavy touring schedule and restricted musically by the big-band format, he left Eckstine. He spent the remainder of his brief career working mostly with small bop groups in New York led by Kenny Clarke, Tadd Dameron, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker and Bud Powell. He died of tuberculosis exacerbated by heroin addiction.

Navarro’s recordings, especially those with Tadd Dameron (e.g. Our Delight, 1947, BN), reveal him to be the rival of Gillespie as the leading bop trumpeter of the 1940s. Gillespie was clearly one of his models, for Navarro used many of the older player’s favourite phrases. Compared with that of Gillespie, however, Navarro’s tone was sweeter and his style was also less dramatic, employing fewer passages of fast notes and fewer notes played in the upper register of the instrument. At times Navarro seemed to be more heavily influenced by the acknowledged leader of the bop school, Charlie Parker. Certain motifs in Wail (1949, BN; ex.1, marked s–z) were frequently used by Parker as building blocks for solo improvisations; the nearly continuous flow of quavers with an unpredictable sprinkling of accents between the beats was also typical of Parker. The effective recurrence of the motif ‘s’, however, which connects by chromatic descent the 13th and raised 11th of each chord, is a characteristic Navarro touch, as is the scale passage that ends the phrase. Navarro’s recordings are of a consistently high quality. The Street Beat and Ornithology (on Charlie Parker in Historical Recordings, Le Jazz Cool), made with Parker in 1950, are particularly intriguing: if discographers have dated these pieces accurately, Navarro, emaciated and gravely ill, made these fine recordings just weeks before he died.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

G. Hoefer: ‘The Significance of Fats Navarro’, Down Beat, xxxiii/2 (1966), 16–17, 39 only

J. Burns: ‘Theodore “Fats” Navarro’, Jazz Journal, xxi/5 (1968), 12–15

R. Russell: ‘Fat Girl: the Legacy of Fats Navarro’, Down Beat, xxxvii/4 (1970), 14–16, 33 only

W. Balliett: ‘Jazz: Fat Girl’, New Yorker (12 June 1978)

M. Ruppli: ‘Fats Navaro Discography’, Discographical Forum, no.42 (1979), 4; no.43 (1980), 7; no.44 (1981), 3; no.45 (1981), 11

D. Baker: The Jazz Style of Fats Navarro: A Musical and Historical Perspective (Hialeah, FL, 1982)

Oral history material in TxU

THOMAS OWENS

Navarro, (Luis-Antonio) García

(b Chiva, 30 April 1941). Spanish conductor. He studied the oboe at the conservatory in Valencia and at the Escuela Nacional de Música y Declamación in Madrid. He then moved to Vienna, where he studied conducting with Oesterreicher, Schmid and Swarowsky, and composition with Uhl. In 1966 he entered the conducting class of Franco Ferrara, and the following year won first prize at the Besançon Conducting Competition, leading to appointment as music director of the Valencia SO from 1970 to 1974, associate conductor at the Haarlem PO from 1974 to 1978, and from 1976 to 1978 music director of the Portuguese RSO in Lisbon. Navarro made his Covent Garden début in 1979 and served as director of the Teatro de S Carlos, Lisbon, from 1980 to 1982. In 1987 he became Generalmusikdirektor at the Württembergisches Staatstheater, Stuttgart, and in 1997 accepted a five-year appointment as music director of the restored Teatro Real in Madrid. He has appeared frequently as a guest conductor at the Teatro Colón and with orchestras including the Buenos Aires PO and the Orquesta Ciutat de Barcelona. Navarro’s recordings include vibrant performances of Falla’s La vide breve, El amor brujo and Noches en los jardines de España.

CHARLES BARBER