Un Sol Negro (2017)
For large ensemble: Piccolo, Piccolo, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Trombone, Trombone, Drum Set, Percussion Set, Alto, Tenor, Violin and Viola
Download and see the score
here
The present work is based in two contrasting ideas; in the one hand, the formal unity of the oeuvre is based in a mathematical concept related to old Mexican calendars that explain how space and time come to be. In the other hand the words for the singers are taken from the poem “Mi tema es la matanza” (My topic is the slaughter) by Osvaldo Lamborghini; an Argentinian socialist writer that experienced the worst episodes of the military dictatorship of his country, a period known as the “Process of National Reorganization”. The juxtaposed and contrasting ideas that originate the work are enmeshed in certain aspects, but overall fail to properly integrate. They rather seem to be antagonistic prescriptions of reality and it is only possible to understand them as one predating over the other.
Both notions revolve around the numbers 13 and 7; 13 is the number of ‘circles in heaven’ in Mexicah cosmogony and 7 represents the human body as 4 is the symbol of the flesh and 3 is the symbol of the blood (4 + 3 = 7). Seven times thirteen derives in another sacred number, 91. Four juxtaposed sections of 91 represent the four directions of the universe as well as the four seasons of the year. In this case 91 is the outcome of a process of recursion that closely resembles a pyramid; if a count is made from 13 to 1 (13,12,11..1) and you add up all the resulting numbers you will get 91. The two mathematical notions will be used as structural and formal constrains in the two sections respectively.
The words were taken from a poem that formally tends to emphasises the numbers 7, 13 and 14 in the number of syllables per verse; formally the work by Lamborghini coincides with the cosmological vision of the Mexicah. Nevertheless is not the convergence but the divergence points that I consider most relevant. The sections in which the voices predominate are presented as mirroring images of the instrumental ones at the beginning of the piece; gradually the vocal parts penetrate the space created by the instrumental force.
[This work has never being performed publicly or otherwise :(]
