In focus

"To be great, be whole: nothing that's you / Should you exaggerate or exclude. / In each thing, be all. Give all you are / In the least you ever do."

Ricardo Reis (English translation by Edouard Roditi)

Born in Lisbon in 1972, Pedro Amaral is one of the most active musicians of his generation. In 1986 he began his composition studies as Fernando Lopes-Graça’s private pupil, at the same time proceeding with his musical education at the Instituto Gregoriano. Then, he joined the Superior School of Music in Lisbon (1991/94), where he graduated in composition under Christopher Bochmann’s supervision, whose teaching influenced essentially the development and consolidation of his compositional technique. After that Pedro Amaral settled in Paris, where he studied with Emmanuel Nunes at the Superior Conservatory (CNSM). Four years later he graduated from the above-mentioned school receiving the “First Prize in Composition” by unanimity of the jury. He also studied orchestra conducting with Peter Eötvös (Eötvös Institute) and Emilio Pomarico (Scuola Civica in Milan). “In my education one should refer, above all, my contact with Emmanuel Nunes – with everything that, for me, represents his work and his personal pedagogical approach. «Personal» (…) as he is the only one to put it in practice: a system connected directly to a determined platonic concept, which is defined by «awakening» in the pupil of what he already has inside («evoking» what he has already known in a subconscious state…?), and «illuminating» what is still embryonic in one’s work and also in one’s intimate existence, encouraging a lucidity on oneself (like in front of a mirror) which, by itself, opens space for a fertile development of one’s being as a composer.”^[1] Simultaneously to his practical musical education, Pedro Amaral proceeded with theoretical studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, obtaining Master’s Degree in contemporary musicology with a thesis on Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “Gruppen” (1998) and a PhD with a thesis on “Momente” and the problem of form in serial music (2003). Regarding this vast analysis Karlheinz Stockhausen declared to Le Monde de la Musique in September 2003: “It is an excellent work with which I have learnt immensely.” This led him to invite Pedro Amaral to be his assistant in various projects. At present Pedro Amaral develops a permanent activity in the field of musicology, writing articles, giving and participating in conferences, giving workshops and master-classes. Since the academic year 2007/2008 he is Assistant Professor at the University of Évora. On the one hand the analysis of “Gruppen”, one of the works which takes further the idea of system in the context of serial language, marked him as musician and scholar, but not particularly from the technical point of view: “…it helped me, in my historical reflection, to frame my own language, yet I did not adopt any concrete solutions that Stockhausen puts forward. Influence, when it is profound, goes further than the mere formal or circumstantial context of the works.”^[2] On the other hand the thesis on “Momente”, which implied a profound investigation of the piece, allowed him to identify and reinforce some of his own reflections in the domain of form. According to Pedro Amaral “Momente”, with its unrepeatable technique and formal construction, contributed in a significant way to the inversion of the serial language phenomenon, which dominated in the contemporary music since the 1950s, inducing also the appearance of a new formal typology. “The conquest of this new formal typology will annihilate the musical linguistic universe which gave it its origin. This small observation fascinated me, and the analysis of «Momente» became so extensive that it ended up being the only subject of my thesis.”^[3] During his first stay at the IRCAM in 1998/99 Pedro Amaral composed “Transmutations” for piano and live electronics, premiered in Paris in 1999. The work was then selected to represent Portugal at the UNESCO International Tribune of Composers and as a result was transmitted in radio stations all over the world. At the end of 2001 the same work represented Portugal at the World New Music Days Festival in Japan. Apart from that the Porto 2001 European Capital of Culture commissioned his “Organa” for ensemble and live electronics ad libitum, having developed its electroacoustic part at the IRCAM studios. Between 2003 and 2004 Pedro Amaral came back for the third time to the IRCAM as compositeur en recherché to compose his long work “Script” for percussion and live electronics. “I always think of form in itself”, emphasises Pedro Amaral. “In this sense, my ideas differ fundamentally from those of Emmanuel Nunes. The form in his music is a direct and practical result of the relationship between the various parts of the musical content, as they are being developed, and not a structural dimension in itself.”^[4] As it was mentioned above the Karlheinz Stockhausen’s lesson allowed Pedro Amaral to identify some of the ideas related to the problems of musical form, however there are also other authors and works, which influenced him in a not less profound manner, namely Marcel Proust, who constructed phrases, sometimes very long, obliging the readers to an approach in various stages. “This type of thinking influenced me strongly not only in my own construction of phrase, in musical terms, but also in the induction of a global form coherent with it. This, moreover, follows very closely the Porust example, in which the «phrase», the «part» and the «whole» of the novel follow exactly the same labyrinthine principles of construction.”^[5] In the final of “Script” there is a part, “Post Scriptum”, which is a study on phrase and form in this sense, through a series of parentheses in various formats. “The musician starts to read the score, from the beginning, performing only what is not inside the brackets – he reads the score, comes to a moment of the parentheses and skips it, ignores it, moves forward until he reaches the end of the score. When he comes to the end he restarts and integrates the first level of the parentheses.”^[6] Pedro Amaral’s musical language is being developed through permanent expansion of the elements of the melodic and harmonic space – the form evolves by means of these zones of expansion, while the material is being submitted to transformations in time. This is the idea behind “Spirales”: “I begin with a tiny nucleus of chords, which is reinterpreted each time, transformed, enlarged and multiplied. Each new stage of the transformation corresponds to a new section in the form, in which I try out a new and different musical incarnation of the same abstract material. It is paraphrasing, of course, but at a genetic and fundamental level. It is not a commentary on existing material; if you like you could think of it as an elementary DNA being progressively transformed via transformations, which entail a concrete type of expansion and formal development.”^[7] In 2007 the Gulbenkian/UK Editions released Pedro Amaral’s first monographic CD with four of his works – “Textos”, “Spirales”, “Organa”, “Paraphrase” – performed by the London Sinfoniertta under his direction. The string quartet with live electronics, “Pagina Postica”, recorded and released by the Miso Records, was performed by the Smith Quartet as a result of a series of concerts within the “Circuits” project. The recordings of Pedro Amaral as conductor include works of Portuguese authors performed by the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble (Miso Records), as well as a monographic CD dedicated to a German-born American composer, Usrula Mamlok, with the musikFabrik ensemble. On April 25th 2010 Pedro Amaral premiered in London (at the Robin Howard Dance Theatre, widely known as The Place) his first opera “O Sonho” (“The Dream”), based on an unfinished drama by Fernando Pessoa and staged by Fernanda Lapa. A prestigious cast of Portuguese singers, accompanied by the London Sinfonietta under the composer himself, performed the work, which was then presented in Lisbon (the Portuguese premiere took place on May 3rd 2010 at the Grand Auditorium of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation). “In 1913 Fernando Pessoa transformed Salome into a character, which creates reality by means of a dream. In his first opera Pedro Amaral turns the mythical and biblical figure into a mirror of the poet’s heteronyms”^[8], wrote Cristina Fernandes on the pages of the Público journal. “O Sonho” constitutes the composer’s first step in a project to create a work on Fernando Pessoa as character. “In a way I created my own libretto, but I did not add any word [to those of the poet]. I wanted to maintain possibly most clear the dramaturgical idea, which Fernando Pessoa follows in composing his piece. There is only one point, in which I move away from this clarification, which is when Salome stops being the story as Pessoa tells it to us and becomes, in his short manuscript (which we do not know if he wanted to join or not to his piece) the Salome as she appears in the New Testament.”^[9] Fernando Pessoa’s version of Salome’s story is a labyrinth of dreams. For his opera Pedro Amaral chose musical means, which project in the instrumental plan the determined key-ideas of the work, creating a kind of “dédoublement”^[10] – three sopranos (Salome divides herself in three characters so the composer decided to include three singers with similar voices), three baritones and a heterodox group of sixteen instruments (three flutes, two horns, three percussionists, a harp, five cellos and a double-bass). “At the instrumental level Salome’s world is a shining universe, underlined by a series of percussion instruments and a harp. When Salome divides herself in three, there are three flutes, which are like her shadow”^[11], revealed Pedro Amaral to the Público journal. The creation of this opera allowed him to “rediscover that there exists a dramaturgical logic, which is more general and which allows greater musical advances than the syntactic logic of music. (…)«O Sonho» is an opera, in which the drama moved to the orchestra.”^[12] As performer Pedro Amaral was principal conductor of the National Conservatory Orchestra (2008/09) and the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble (2007/10). In his repertoire one can find mixed music pieces (instrumental ensemble and electronics), contemporary opera and, in particular, Karlheinz Stockhausen’s music, whose works he has performed with various orchestras in Europe and South America. Pedro Amaral has also participated in various productions as assistant conductor to Peter Eötvös. Since 1989 Pedro Amaral has regularly produced and realized radio programme cycles (Antena 2) on aesthetics, analysis and history of music – “Formas musicais do século XX” (1989; “Musical Forms of the 20th Century”), “Sons e estruturas” (1991; “Sounds and Structures”), “A origem da obra musical” (1993; “The Origin of Musical Work”), “Poética musical” (2004; “Musical Poetics”), "Boulez/Berio: 1925/2005" (2005), "Dualidades" (2006; “Dualities”) and the most recent, “Véu Diáfano”, a thematic history of western music, which in 2012 will include programmes on Oliver Knussen, Cristóbal Halfter, Pascal Dusapin, American music (Leonard Bernstein, John Adams, Elliot Carter) and the work of Peter Eötvös. “I undertake theoretical work because the act, to me, and in particular the act of composition, is always accompanied by thought. I’m a bit of a Pessoa, if you like. I create and I watch myself create at the same time. I have an instinctive tendency to reflect on matters. Quite naturally, when I think of my music I think of it in relation to history, and in relation to my immediate predecessors.”^[13] The world-premiere performances of Pedro Amaral’s work composed in 2007 and commissioned by the City of Matosinhos, “Transmutations pour Orchestre” (Nº 5.3), will take place at the Gulbenkian Foundation on April 19th and 20th. The concerts will be performed by the Gulbenkian Orchestra under the young French conductor Lionel Bringuier. Pedro Amaral's Official Website “O Sonho” (“The Dream”) - April / May 2010 (London) The London Sinfonietta conducted by the composer Staging by Fernanda Lapa The soloists: Carla Caramujo, Ângela Alves, Sara Braga Simões, Jorge Vaz de Carvalho, Mário Redondo, Armando Possante

A commission of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation "O Sonho" - I. Incipit; II. Monólogo de Salomé (beginning) "O Sonho" - II. Monólogo de Salomé (end) "O Sonho" - III. Desdobramento (beginning) "O Sonho" - III. Desdobramento (end) "O Sonho" - IV. O Sonho (beginning) "O Sonho" - IV. O Sonho (end); V. Epifania e morte (beginning) "O Sonho" - V. Epifania e morte (end) "O Sonho" - VI. Largo desolato (beginning) "O Sonho" - VI. Largo desolato (end); VII Analepse (beginning) "O Sonho" - VII. Analepse (end) "O Sonho" - VIII. Epílogo --- 1 Interview to Pedro Amaral in: Sérgio Azevedo, "A Invenção dos Sons. Uma Panorâmica da Composição em Portugal Hoje", Editorial Caminho, Lisbon 1998, p. 537; English translation: Jakub Szczypa 2 Interview to Pedro Amaral conducted by Luisa Prado e Castro at the Miso Music Portugal; mic.pt, June 1st 2005 3 ibidem 4 ibidem 5 ibidem 6 ibidem 7 Interview to Pedro Amaral by Alain Boiteau published in the booklet of his monographic CD, “Pedro Amaral – Works for Ensemble”, with the London Sinfonietta conducted by the composer, edited in 2007 by the Gulbenkian Foundation in London (CGFCD1001) 8 Cristina Fernandes, “Pedro Amaral no labirinto dos sonhos”, Público, May 3rd 2010; English translation: Jakub Szczypa 9 nterview to Pedro Amaral in: Manuela Paraíso, “O sonho dentro do sonho”, Jornal de Letras, April 21st to May 4th 2010; English translation: Jakub Szczypa 10 Anne Ozorio, “O Sonho”, New Music Review Lounge e Classical Iconoclast, April 26th 2010 11 Cristina Fernandes, op. cit. 12 Jorge Calado, “Pedro Amaral”, Expresso #1957, May 1st 2010, p. 10; English translation: Jakub Szczypa 13 Interview to Pedro Amaral by Alain Boiteau, op. cit.