Program notes / Notas de programa4 flutes quartet
Abyssal
Capricho for Clarinet in Bb and Youths Orchestra
Clarinet Quartet N#1
Danzas circulares
Mimic
Nestico
Skizo
Sonic tunnel
Tele-
Walls
For saxophone and piano
4 flutes quartet
The piece is constructed over a simple "funk groove" pattern that is combined with a chromatic descending line
that appears in the piccolo. The register of the ensemble is totally developed, ascending gradually to get its climax point
towards the end of the piece when the three flutes become piccolos to play clusters in the high register.
Skizo
Something wakens, rises, lifts itself (like a mast, an arm a head),
something provokes, irritates.
Something begins moving (not too fast), something stirs without direction, like shifting
branches, like a rustling agitation of the body.
Directed speed, exactitude, precise rhythm (contrary to haste), rapid
strides, surprise, the movement of a serpent through leaves.
You conceive yourself in a limit state, by dint of inwardness,
inside turns around, as if there were an outside of the inside, though this were not, still, the exterior.
It stirs,
it throbs so powerfully that it might even crack - but doesn´t crack.
You take yourself deep inside, you collect
yourself at the limit of this depth, your body is internalized, loses itself inside, toward its own land.
(from "The
Responsibility of forms" by Roland Barthes)
Clarinet
Quartet N#1
A palindrome is a sequence of units that has the property of reading the same in either direction.
The
piece is based on the idea of a palindrome as a cadence. A palindrome
certainly creates the expectation of a return to
a place that is familiar, through an already transited path.
A deceptive palindrome is a form of cadence too, but, through
the same
path, it takes you somewhere else.
Walls
The piece is based on a nine-note block that is always observed from a different perspective. At the beginning it is
seen as a perfect vertical simultaneity, then turning ninety degrees to become a horizontal succession of pitches that appears
on the bass flute.
The unison represents the moment in a three dimensions rotation of the block in which all its components
remain behind the only visible one, represented by a single note.
These procedures continue all through the piece until
the climax point where seven piccolos gradually appear to overlap the horizontal line by the two lower flutes.
Towards
the end the textures become more irrupting to conclude with a
choral texture that emerges from the unison.
Sonic tunnel
The piece is based on the idea of constantly
mutating elements.
Mimic
The piece is the
first of a series of compositions for solo acoustic instruments with an alternative controller.
Conceived as a chamber
music composition, the music is mainly governed by improvisation over general guidelines given to the performers.
The
structure of "mimic" is based on the idea of an illusory transformation in which - throughout the piece - one instrument
becomes the other one and vice versa.
Abyssal
The abyssal realm is very calm, being far removed from storms that agitate the ocean at the air-sea interface. These
low energies are reflected in the general character of the piece.
Nestico
The piece evokes in its very beginning the rhythmic drive of the compositions by the renowned jazz artist
Sammy Nestico. This texture suggests a big band "soli" section that gradually mutates into a more polyrhythmic material.
The overall structure of the composition constantly expands and contracts to get the most intense moment towards the
end when the piccolo and the piano play in the extreme register with the always flowing rhythmical foundation.
At the
end, the solo piccolo makes the last introspection.
Tele-
The piece brings back the origins of telecommunication. This idea severely limits the sonic environment: the rhythm
is reduced to the basic idea of "short" and "long" values, and only a few pitches are utilized throughout
the piece.
Capricho for Clarinet in Bb and Youths
Orchestra
The piece brings back one of the genres of Argentine folk music, the "carnavalito". The rhythm of
this genre is evoked all along the piece and its typical harmonic progression emerges towards the end in its pure form. The
solo clarinet develops an improvised-like line always counter positioned with the orchestra keeping a musical dialogue until
the ending.
Danzas circulares
The piece brings
back in an avant-garde compositional language two expressions of argentine folk music: the "gato" and the "baguala".
The "gato" is a dance rhythmically vivid and picaresque, which gives drive and direction to the overall structure
of the piece.
The "baguala" - with indian origins -is a melancholic chant with a simple melody built on three
notes which opens an endless space for development and experimentation. This fusion with argentine tradition and modernity
reflects the necessity to continue and develop the Latin American legacy.
For saxophone and piano
The piece evokes the musical identity of two artists that only coexist in this work.
Gyorgy Ligeti's style (in particular some of his piano compositions) is captured by the computer algorithm that interacts
live with the alto saxophone that suggests the jazz aesthetic of John Coltrane. The interest of this piece resides on the
fact that technology becomes a necessary tool to establish the connection between two otherwise foreign artists. The improvisational
quality of the work suggests a musical conversation between two personalities that in fact never met. This combination of
meta personalities allows the emergence of unimagined results and new styles. In this particular case, the intrinsic "fire"
contained in Ligeti and Coltrane's identities multiplies exponentially maintaining a level of intensity comparable to
a mix between L'escalier du diable and Giant shapes.
The utilization of electronic media is not self-referential,
the work refers to stylistic elements from outside the realm of electronic music, which are reinvented through technology.
