Retruécanos (Estudio para cuerdas) / Calembours (Study for strings)

For String Orchestra


Commentary
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Commentary


As in previous works that are the result of my interest in language and the musical translation of some rhetorical figures -such as the hyperbats in Musica ex lingua (1989) and Three Sonnets (1992), or Six Metaplasms (1990)-, Calembours (Retruécanos in Spanish) returns to this parallelism in an attempt to musically apply the game of inversion of the terms of one proposition or clause in the next, so that the meaning of the latter forms a contrast or antithesis with that of the first (the most cited example is that of the two famous verses of the Satirical and Censoria Epistle against the present customs of the Castilians written to the Count-Duke of Olivares, written by Francisco de Quevedo in 1625:

¿Siempre se ha de sentir lo que se dice? ¿Nunca se ha de decir lo que se siente? (Do you always have to feel what is said? Do you never have to say what you feel?)

Searching for this game, Calembours is structured into two sections of similar proportions, in which the material from the first, distributed in a very differentiated way between a group of solo instruments and another with a ripieno character, as if from a "concerto grosso" treated, is inverted in the second section, thus causing a kind of musical "calembour".
To carry out this idea, I proposed Calembours as a study for a group of 32 string instruments (10 violins I, 8 violins II, 6 violas, 5 cellos and 3 double basses), generally divided into two groups: the figure-group and the background-group. In the first section, the figure-group- adopts the form of a choral, based on a homophonic tonal sequence of quatriad chords that is interpreted in the form of a "ripieno" by the bulk of the orchestra. The background-group, for its part, is characterized by atonal sequences played by the rest of the string instruments treated as soloists, whose elements grow progressively until they totalize the complete sequence. As the different verses of the choral in which the figure-group is articulated end, the instrumentalists of each orchestral section join the background-group, expanding the number of soloists and gradually progressing from high to low. In this way, the section ends without a group-figure, with solo treatment of the 32 string instruments.
The second section inverts the terms, as if it were a calembour, as the group-background assumes the tonal harmonies, which are adapted to the growing melodic turns of the soloists, while the figure-group, maintaining its homophonic choral character, continuously held in a clearly atonal quatriad chord sequence. Following the same constructive procedure as in the first section, the second ends with a divisi of the 32 string instruments treated as soloists.

Due to its special physiognomy, and also taking into account that each of the 32 instrumentalists must play with their own part, not sharing music stands, the interpretation of Calembours allows different arrangements of the orchestra:

1) On a conventional theater or auditorium stage, with a music stand for each musician, and the orchestra arranged in any of the conventional string orchestra arrangements (eg., from left to right: violins I, violins II, violas, cellos and, after them, the double basses; or: violins I, violas, cellos, violins II and behind the double basses; or any other of similar characteristics), with the conductor in his or her usual place.

2) On the stage of a conventional theater or auditorium, with a stand for each musician, but with the instrumentalists freely mixed -randomly or at the discretion of the director (placed in his or her usual place)-.

3) In an open and spacious space (without distinction between the stage area and the audience area, and without seats for the latter), which allows each instrumentalist to have their own stand and to be located at a distance from the closest one that allows the audience can move freely between them during the performance. The placement will be determined randomly or at the discretion of the director, but in any case, he or she must occupy a place that is clearly visible to the entire orchestra.

The basic idea of Calembours was born -like that of other recent works- in a work day at the Domus Municipalis de Bragança that took place on May 2, 2013, although its realization was postponed until February 2014, the score being finished. in August of that same year. Dedicated to Pilar Sanz, alembour has not yet been premiered at the time of writing these lines (March 2021).

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(Score and parts without watermarks available at www.asesores-musicales.com )