This composer, musician, teacher and electronic music performer would have turned 50 on August 31, 2023; thus, the September In Focus the MIC.PT dedicates to José Luís Ferreira.
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Document title ...textos, paráfrases, perspectivas...
Date of Composition· 1994
Place of Composition / Studio Lisbon
Catalogue Number 1
Dedication
to Miguel Azguime
Revision (date) 1996
Instrumentation
Musical Category Chamber music (+ than 8 instruments)
Instrumentation (general) Ensemble
Premiere
Date 1994/May
Performer(s)
Pedro Amaral (conductor)
Town Lisbon
Country Portugal
Program Notes
Pedro Amaral wrote his first acknowledged work, "...Textos, Paráfrases, Perspectivas..." , in 1994, and, knowingly or not, set out his musical programme.
As its title suggests, the piece develops some initial ideas ('texts') by means of paraphrase and projects them along different perspectives. On the larger scale of a dozen years rather than twenty minutes, this Opus 1 can be recognized as affirming general principles-harmonic, rhythmic, gestural, formal-whose implications and possibilities the composer has gone on discovering.
The work is also characteristic in having the piano at its centre, joined in this case by trios of strings, upper woodwinds and brass - an ensemble just adding a cello to the nine instruments of Webern's Concerto (though Varèse is this music's nearer forefather). As the central or source instrument, the piano begins the piece alone, calling out from an otherwise silent stage, and doing so by means of motifs that will determine what follows: an arpeggio rising like a summons, some crucial intervals, the element of repetition. More than three minutes have gone by before other instruments start to wake up, and then quite soon these other instruments take over as an eruptive tutti, out of which the brass lead emphatic descents.
There are episodes for soloists and groups, including the string trio in a lengthy stretch of entanglement looking forward to Amaral's quartet of 2003. From here the whole wind-string nonet gets going again, often juddering with energy, until, with sustained sounds, the atmosphere becomes conversely lost and bleak. A flute solo is seemingly countered by the rest of the ensemble, with the string trio briefly spotlit. Then everyone is quietened by the reappearance of the piano, leading back to its initial proposals, as if dissatisfied with the outcome it has generated, waiting for further paraphrases and perspectives.
Paul Griffits
Circulation
Work
Type
Date
Organization/Event
Venue
Town
Country
Performers
Notes
Inv Row
...textos, paráfrases, perspectivas...
Performance
2000/Apr/07
Echtzeithalle im Einstein
Munich
Germany
Piano Possibile
Carl Christian Bettendorf (conductor)
Notes
...textos, paráfrases, perspectivas...
Performance
2006/May/01
Court Circuit Season
Cervantes Institut
Paris
France
Jean-Marie Cottet (piano)
Notes
Piano cadences only.
Piano cadences only.
...textos, paráfrases, perspectivas...
Premiere of revised version
1996/Jan/01
Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Dance de Paris
Paris
France
Ensemble Intercontemporain
David Robertson (conductor)
Notes
Reading of the work without audience for academical purposes.
Reading of the work without audience for academical purposes.