Date 2024/Mar/22
Performer(s)
Ricardo Cardoso (flute)
Camerata Arquipélago
Hélio Soares (conductor)
Organization/Event Jovens Solistas pela Igualdade
Venue Aula Magna, Universidade dos Açores
Town Ponta Delgada
Country Portugal
The title alludes to the novel by Azorean writer Vitorino Nemésio,
Mau Tempo no Canal.
The choice of Bomtempo instead of good weather is due to the fact that João Domingos Bomtempo is a natural patron of what I am and what I do as a composer and teacher at the National Conservatory, which he founded in 1835-36, almost 190 years ago, in the company of other greats in our memory: Almeida Garrett and Passos Manuel. Keep good company.
The piece was commissioned by the Associação Arquipélago Cromático (Chromatic Archipelago Association), which received support as part of the "Creation" competition organised by the Direcção Geral das Artes (Directorate General for the Arts) to mark the day against racial discrimination with a music premiere.
It was composed for two wind quintets with a view to bringing together various young musicians from across the autonomous region of the Azores, with a guest soloist, the flautist Ricardo Cardoso, who was a student of the Orquestra Geração, a project with notable achievements in terms of education and social intervention through art in a school context.
That's why this work in two movements has a celebratory feel to it, full of vital stamina, taking advantage of the essential qualities of what is the most agile instrumental ensemble of all the groups that tradition has bequeathed to us: aerophones full of gusto to stand out, run, discourse, jump, pump in the challenge to the most agile; but also sing in the most mellifluous way, if so requested, as happens at the beginning of the 2nd movement, where the flute solo lulls us into the lap and dream of its timbre.
The 1st movement,
Com brio, is furious in its timing and passes like an arrow, sometimes like a bullet, right in front of our eyes, like someone exclaiming it's going to be so good, isn't it!
The 2nd movement,
Com delicadeza, which begins with that flute solo full of space, flows into easy music, full of gestures that suggest the choreography of an imaginary dance, given its prominent, punctuated and capricious articulation, with brief statuesque silences from which it is reborn again, easy and even more subtle. A good mood, you might say. This natural empathy will give way to the re-exposure of the initial, slow flute theme, now harmonised in the tutti's languorous embrace. Melancholy, it's called. But then the dancing begins again, until a short monosyllable that closes the piece, by way of a short slap, whispers "the end!" in our ears.
Eurico Carrapatoso
