En la fronda del tiempo / In the frond of time (On a poem by Luciano González Sarmiento)

Para Reciter & Flute


Commentary
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Commentary

Like some -already quite a few- previous works in my catalogue, En la fronda del tiempo (In the frond of time) arises from a proposal by Luciano González Sarmiento, who at the end of 2018 suggested to me the possibility of collaborating on an upcoming CD recording project with works of several Spanish composers on his poems, which would be recited by him with the sole accompaniment of a flute.
The poem that he attached to the proposal was so beautiful - like all his poetry - that I did not even hesitate to accept it. It says like this:

Un solo de flauta se filtra en los armónicos del arpa que tañe el viento en la lejana Arcadia. De azul se tiñe la estancia donde mora la melancolía del otoño susurrando vísperas verdinegras de añoranza. En el relente de la tarde el frío cuartea el murmullo del aire, la noche se entumece y el sauce llora la congoja de no ser sombra sino espectro vagando por el bosque. ¡Flauta de Pan, siringa de oro, cañaveral mecido por el céfiro! Estoy contando las horas que restan para que la noche me cobije del frío que atenaza mis sentidos, mientras suena l'après-midi d'un faune en el bosque de las sabinas. Vibrato de terciopelo, trémolo frullato de cenizas esparcidas en la fronda del tiempo sobre los campos de Ceres. Junto a las hespérides el mar, testigo taciturno, se oculta en los arcanos esponjosos donde el agua es cálida, espacio materno de espuma, cuna de seda, amor soñado entre corales.

A flute solo seeps into the harmonics of the harp played by the wind in distant Arcadia. The room where the melancholy of autumn lives is dyed blue whispering green-black eves of longing. In the chill of the afternoon the cold cracks the murmur of the air, the night goes numb and the willow cries the anguish of not boeing a shadow but a spectrum wandering through the forest. Pan's flute, golden syrinx, reed rocked by the zephyr! I'm counting the hours that remain so that the night shelters me of the cold that grips my senses, while l'après-midi d'un faune sounds in the juniper forest. Velvet vibrato, tremolo frullato of scattered ashes in the frond of time over the fields of Ceres. Next to the hesperides the sea, taciturn witness, is hidden in the fluffy arcana where the water is warm foam maternal space, silken cradle, love dreamed among corals.

The music does nothing other than try to highlight the multiple images of the poem, and since it lacked a title and I was not given any clue about it, I went ahead of its author and baptized it with the third verse of the fourth stanza, which I found especially evocative and appropriate for the piece thus created.
In the frond of time was composed at the beginning of 2019, being premiered at the Auditorium of the Botín Center in Santander on June 4, 2022, by the flutist Lara Manzano and with Luciano González Sarmiento as a reciter,
in the tribute concert to this latter on the occasion of the 25 years of his collaboration with the Center.

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