UN OLLO DE VIDRO
Year of composition: 2020-21
[In memoriam of Castelao]
Commissioned and dedicated to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia and its conductor, Paul Daniel.
Length: 13 minutes
Scored for: orchestra
Opus 26 - AA262021
Movements:
i. Dramatic opening of an uncertain story
ii. Life - Afterlife
iii. Dance between skulls, bones and a glass eye
Premiere:
First performance was given by Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia, conducted by Paul Daniel at Galicia Concert Hall, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, March 25, 2021.
Please note:
Study score is purchased, fulfilled in hard copy, and yours to keep. Full set is only available for rental. Please, send us the completed form to sales@aalcaldemusic.com.
Full set is licensed per performance. Additional parts are delivered in PDF, and the fixed electronics (when necessary) is free downloaded through a QR code printed on the full score.
Study score (11.7 x 16.5)
Price:
80.00€
Rental (8.3 x 11.7)
Price:
400.00€
Brief notes:
Commissioned and dedicated to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia and its conductor, Paul Daniel. First performance was given by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia, conducted by Paul Daniel at Galicia Concert Hall, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, March 25, 2021. In memoriam of Castelao.
Un ollo de vidro (A glass eye) takes its title from the homonymous short story by Alfonso Daniel Manuel Rodríguez Castelao, published on 1922 by 'Editorial Céltiga'. Castelao describes, from a first-person perspective, a macabre, humorous and ironic story with the afterlife as background. Characters in the story depict members of every category of human society of the time, filtered critically and satirically. The social status defines their preponderance by the money, which is the element that 'gives' and 'takes' away power, although in the afterlife it ends to become completely pointless, as death ends by equaled the maid and the tyrant, the wealthy businessman and the poor girl who died by love.
This work does not pretend to set the texts programmatically. The conception of the musical gesture is not that presumptuous, but metaphorical, approaching to the texts from a personal synthetized perspective. Each movement is (re)elaborate with preexistent materials, linked to afterlife and/or to the death. These materials are: the first-four sounds of the solo-violin part from the second movement of Mahler’s “Fourth Symphony” (1901), the Medieval Latin hymn “Dies Irae” (thirteen-century), the “Unanswered Question” by Ives (1908) and the three-first sounds of the first theme in “Danse Macabre” by Saint-Saëns (1874); altogether with ‘Die Trauer-Gondel’ by Liszt (1882) and the first-four sounds on ‘Die Toteninsel’ by Rachmaninoff (1908). All these materials are fragmented, regurgitated and reassembled under the shadow of Ligeti’s “Le Grand Macabre” (1977) and “Totentanz” by Adès (2013), obtaining a new completely volatile material, in the manner of a mortuary décollage.
download it in PDF: Español - English.
