Crossroads of Traditions Concert
| Responsorio | Mario Lavista (born 1943, México) |
Singing Woods
|
Brent Michael Davids (born 1959, USA) |
| Etude Fantasy Kaleidoscope String Quartet |
John Corigliano (born 1938, USA) |
Presented by The Latin American Music Center with the support of the School of Music and the Office of Creative Arts Exchange Program of the United States Information Agency. | |
| ******************************************** | |
| Auer Hall Sunday Afternoon July 14 Four O'clock | |
Program Notes
Chica Aruma (1994)
Nicolás Suárez-Eyzaguirre
Chica Aruma, for digital tape, is based in the exploration of the Aymara language. Text editing and sound manipulation in time and pitch are the main sources to build the composition. This piece was made using Farallon's Mac Recorder software and a percussion sound module.
La feria fantástica (1995)
Igor de Gandarias
The search to understand the common identity and cultural ties within the Latin-American diversity has been my main concern during the past 20 years as a composer. In this direction, popular culture from the past and the present has played a key role. Popular has been the source from which I have taken motifs, themes, atmospheres, sonorities, and motivations for important works. Besides a daily and informal contact with the oral culture of Guatemala, especially that of the indigenous populations, I have studied systematically its manifestations in different contexts with a marked interest for the musical aspect.
La feria fantastica (The Fantastic Fair) was realized at the University of Maryland Electronic Studio using a fairlight Series III station. The editing processes of the sound includes only basic procedures such as loop, filter and envelope design. The main composition techniques used are grouping, fragmentation, superposition and mobile transposition. The sound sources came mainly from live recordings made in 1991 during the celebration of the most important feast in Guatemala City. The feast takes place in August every year and lasts the whole month. It includes not only religious ceremonies and processions with their particular musical environment (choirs, processional bands) but also folk dances, food games and entertainment.
The composition does not only evoke the fair environment but exposes its social and psychological content. The contrasting relation between religion and entertainment, tradition and consumer society is expressed at the first climatic point of the piece with the voices of the children's choir singing "que ha venido a América a traer la paz" (she has come to America to bring the peace). In the middle of the piece, the second climatic point brings another reference to a similar relationship, with the sounds of rattles coming from a low pitched region, the heterophonic texture of marimba sounds in the background, and the prior choir's phrase now sung by the congregation. A cadential-like passage a due, between the zumbador and the forlón introduces the last crest of the work, exposing traditional musical clichés on the snare drum and the processional band. The end of the piece brings back a quick remembrance of the children's voices and the bell's glissando from the beginning. (Note by the composer)
Icnocuicatl (1996)
(Song of Bereavement)
César Potes
I distinguish two ways in which this piece draws from the Mesoamerican calendar: one having to do with the musical material and the other with the metaphorical content of the work. In terms of musical material the basic parameters of time and pitch are related to the numerical structure of the calendar. Thus the 20 sections in which the piece is divided correspond to the 20 calendrical days. Also the collection of pitches used is a compound pentatonic scale of 13 pitches, which relates to the 13 numbers traditionally assigned to the 20 days of the calendar. In terms of the metaphorical content the piece borrows its title from a poem taken from the Cantares Mexicanos, a Sixteenth Century collection of Nahuatl poetry. According to John Bierhorst, this song appears to have been performed by a singer in the guise of a Chalcan (warrior), who gives his life in battle and thereby summons other Chalcan forebears. The idea of the poem is the exchange of mortals for revenants. In the fragment used in this piece the exchange is resisted. The singer rejects the supposed bliss of revenant production because others share his fear of mortality.
The text read by a narrator in the tape is taken from a Spanish rendition of the main cosmogonical myth of the ancient Mexicans: The 4 Cosmogonic Suns: Legends of the Bone and the Corn. This text, also from the Sixteenth Century, blends cryptic numerical references to cycles in the calendar with the traditional symbols assigned to the different days. The Spanish translation by D. Francisco del Paso y Troncoso adds in parentheses some complementary expressions in order to facilitate the reading. The reader is encouraged to leave these expressions out to gain a clearer sense of the archaic, poetic content of this document. In my use of the text, numbers and symbols are presented separately.
Icnocuicatl is a work in progress and in this concert you will hear approximately two thirds of the total intended length.
Icnocuicatl
Selection From Cantares MexicanosNichoca yehua nicnotlamati
zan nic elnamiqui tic cauhtehuazque
yectli ya in xochitl yectli ya in cuicatl
in maoc tonahuiacan maoc toncuicacan
centiyahui tipolihui ye ichan.Ach tleon aiuh quimati in tochnihuan
y cocoya yiollo qualani
ayoppa tlacatihua
ayoppa piltihua
y yece ye quixihua tlalticpac.Maoc achitzincay tetloc ye nica tenahuac
aic yez o aic nahuiaz aic nihuelamatiz.Yn canon nemian noyollo
ca huel ye nocha
ca huel nocalamaniz
ca ninotolinian tlalticpac.Timotolinia noyollo
maca xinentlamatin tlalticpac ye nican,
O anca iuhqui notonal
quimatia ohuiyahue huixahue
cano nicmacehuia
in mach iuhcan nitlacat in tlalticpac
yxama yhui yeehuaya
ic yectli ya huel ihui ahcampa nemoa
zan quittoa noyol a.Quen quitoa in Dios
nellon tinemi
nellon tiyahuecahuaco tlalticpac
oo yiao yiao ayia a ayo ohuaya.
I cry, I grieve, knowing
we are to go away and leave
these good flowers, these good songs.
Let's be pleasured, let's sing.
We are off to our destruction.Our friends are ill at ease?
Sick, His hearts are vexed!
We are not born twice,
we are not engendered twice.
Rather we must leave this earth.
Near and in the presence of this company a moment! It can never be, I can never be pleasured, never be content.Where does my heart live?
Where is my home?
Where does my mansion lie?
True, I am poor on earth.Poor as you are, my heart,
do not grieve here on earth.
This seems to be my lot,
and my heart knows it.
Where do I assign it?
Is this my fate on earth?
It is known to be so.
And so it is good, very much so.
My heart says there is no place to go.
What does God say?
"We do not live,
do not come to stay, on earth".
oo yiao yiao ayia a ayo ohuaya.
The 4 Cosmogonic Suns: Legends of the Bone and the Corn
First Sun
4 tigres; 400 años + 10 * 20 (=) 200 años, + 3 * 20 (=) 60 años, + 15 + 1.
Estos (hombres) la primera vez, por todas 1partes, (de los) tigres fueron comidos en el Sol 4 tigres; y desde que de las fieras fueron comidos (pasaron) 10 años, más 3 años hasta que perecieron del todo.
4 tigers; 400 years, + 10 * 20 (=) 200 years, + 3 * 20 (=) 60 years, + 15 years + 1.
These (men) the first time, everywhere, (by the) tigers were eaten in the Sun of 4 tigers; and after being eaten by the beasts 10 years, plus 3 years (passed) until they completely perished.
Second Sun
4 vientos; 15 * 20 (=) 300 años, + 3 * 20 (=) 60 años, + 4 años.
Estos (hombres) la segunda vez, (ya) que estaban asentados, del viento fueron perseguidos: en el día de 4 vientos fue; y cuando perecieron, del viento fueron llevados, monas volviéronse.
4 winds; 15 * 20 (=) 300 years, + 3 * 20 (=) 60 years, + 4 years.
These (men) the second time, once they were settled, by the wind were pursued: in the day of 4 winds it was; and when they died, by the wind they were carried, they became monkeys.
Third Sun
4 lluvias; 15 * 20 (=) 300 años, + 10 años + 2.
Este Sol, (fue) el tercero; de manera que (de) 3 modos habían vivido hasta el Sol de 4 lluvias; y cuando perecieron les llovió fuego, aves volviéronse y tambien ardió el Sol.
4 rains; 15 * 20 (=) 300 years, + 10 years + 2.
This Sun, 4 rains, (was) the third; in such a way that (in) 3 modes had lived until the Sun of 4 rains; and when they died fire fell on them, they became birds and the Sun also burned.
Fourth Sun
4 agua; 2 * 20 (=) 40 años, + 10, + 2.
Este (fue) el cuarto (de) los modos como habían vivido, en el Sol (que) fue 4 agua; y cuando perecieron del todo, anegáronse, se volvieron peces: haciacá se hundió el cielo.
4 water; 2 * 20 (=) 40 years, + 10, + 2.
This (was) the fourth (of) the modes (how) they had lived, in the Sun (that) was 4 water; and when they completely perished, they were drowned, they became fish: here the heaven sank.
Todo lo que amaron nuestros ojos (1996)
José Halac
Todo lo que amaron nuestros ojos (Everything Our Eyes Ever Loved) explores the multilayered narrative in which more than one semantic develops to create a totalizing discourse. It is an extension of the concept of syncretism I used on other pieces: to merge everything with the morphology of an (articulated) continuity. The idea is applied to pure musical parameters as well as to other more referential material.
Formally it can be seen as variations on materials: the poem, the song and the scream. My own voice was used for all the original recordings. The folk drums and whistles were sampled from a compilation disc of Argentinean bagualas by Leda Valladares.
Organization is linked to sound object concept, pure rhythm and harmonic rhythm, timbre "vocation" and to the meaning of the poetic texts on both the folk song and the poem. The poem, "Seasons of the tree" by Argentinean poet Pablo Anadon and the song, a traditional baguala from Northwest Argentina, range the idea of desire from a pure animal emotion in the song to the idea of "desire of the memory" in the poem. The scream travels through the channels of the different levels of the piece's context metamorphosing itself as though it traded identities.
The narratives are superimposed to make the listener articulate things, in different ways in each audition. One of these things is time-auto referential time embedded in referential sounds.
This work was composed on a Power Macintosh 7100/66 computer with Audiomedia II card - Session software - Sound II - SoundHack - Thonk - Csound (using Granule and grain generators for granular synthesis. Other generators were used as well for filtering) - Synthesizer Oberheim Matrix 12 - Digital reverb Boss SE50. (Note by the composer)
"Todo lo que amaron nuestros ojos"
Seasons of the Tree,
by Pablo Anadon
I
Someone leaves and someone stays shaking under the winter sky like a naked branch:
What should we do with those remains, the leafs that were our flesh and wept on our feet like spectrums?
Should we lift our arms towards the empty air?
Not there, there is no comfort in an immutable sky, or in a cloud illuminated for an instant by the sky that vanishes... All that which was, what you were, the white trace of the poplar over the herb, the shadow that time buried into memory.
II
Past doesn't die it is another tree the one that shed light on ourselves, but past hasn't died. The leaves have fallen one after the other like an endless winter rain, but not one escaped toward nothingness: each flight we observe behind the glass remains. Everything remains, everything our eyes ever loved, everything remains, here, in memory, in this puddle of leafs rotting, and of crying.
Argentinean Folk Song:
"I am Like the Old Tiger" (Excerpt)
I am like the old tiger
I like tender meat
Beginning with the breast
Ending between the legs
Missa Brevis ad consolationis Dominam nostram (1995)
Mario Lavista
For a musician, the word 'Mass' does not connote the entire sacred service but only the unified composition of five portions of the Ordinary. The conception of the Mass as an homogeneous work of art must be credited to Machaut, whose Messe de Notre Dame, first performed in 1364, is the earliest complete polyphonic setting of the Ordinarium missae known to be written by one man.
The five parts which constitute the Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) remain fixed in the sense that they are used with exactly the same words in every Mass. The Proper or Proprium de tempore (including the Introit, Gradual, Offertory, and Communion) is directed mainly towards the altar and the celebrant, while the chants of the Ordinary symbolize the community of all present. They carry the thought and feeling of a general Christian expression without entering into the proper spirit of a specific day.
It is the Ordinary of the Mass which has been responsible for the development of a unified musical structure. In the context of a musical form, the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei express the various types of religious emotions. The framing portions, Kyrie and Agnus Dei correspond to each other by their triple call for mercy. Around the exact central position of the declaration of the Creed, the Gloria and the Sanctus on either side sing the praises of the Lord. Thus the Ordinarium missae emerges in wonderful symmetry.
In my Mass, each part has been built on a specific rhythmic structure which defines the overall form as well as the different parts of it. The beginning of each one of the musical parts is based on the same melodic motive, built around the pitches A-C-C#, which have been sometimes transposed. It goes without saying that I have put into music the original and traditional Latin texts of the Catholic liturgy.
I could write the work thanks to the generosity of Carmen Téllez, the Contemporary Vocal Ensemble and the Indiana University Latin American Music Center. They commissioned the piece through a grant of the United States-Mexico Fund for Culture.
I have written this music to the glorification of God. (Note by the composer)
Notes prepared by Luiz Fernando Lopes
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