Percussionist Juanjo Guillem
Saeta
For MarimbaCommentary
Recordings
Videos
Download partitura
Commentary
Written at the request of Juanjo Guillem, the Saeta was composed during the summer of 2006, without ever losing sight of the magnificent opportunity that was the guarantee that it was intended for a great performer with amazing technical and musical abilities. Perhaps for this reason in the Saeta aspects of great musical simplicity are intended to join hands, but elaborated in an instrumental virtuosity that, far from masking it, should contribute to highlighting it, dressing it with a direct and effective appeal. In few previous works of mine is the intention to combine in a single result antagonistic, ascetic and overloaded musical approaches at the same time as evident as in this one.
In this order of things, the Saeta is structured around the alternation of strongly contrasting sections, the use of disparate and rapidly changing elements being even frequent within them. The sections of a light character alternate with other openly dramatic ones, and the use of different timbre procedures (drum sticks used both in a usual and non-conventional way, use of double bass bows) reaches a climax with the use of the interpreter's voice, who with bocca chiusa intones a succession of turns that, due to their diatonic character, openly modal, evoke, due to their dramatic content, an environment propitious for the appearance of a saeta -hence the title of the piece- that remains only suggested, without it becoming evident at any time.
The Saeta was premiered by Juanjo Guillem at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in November 2006, as part of the 26th BBK Festival.
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Cover and inner page of the program of the 26th BBK Festival (Bilbao, 2006)
First page of the Saeta
Recordings
Recording: Juanjo Guillem (Cuenca, April 4, 2009)
Recording: Carolina Pérez Alcaraz (Granada, Centro Guerrero, November 21, 2011)
YouTube link: Lucía Carro
Videos
Lucía Carro Veiga
Final Master's Recital in Interpretation. Hochschule für Musik Basel (Basel, April 2011)Héctor Marqués Marqués
Final Degree Recital. Aragón Higher Conservatory of Music (Zaragoza, May 14, 2012)David Cano Barranco
Final Degree Recital. Aragón Higher Conservatory of Music (Zaragoza, May 20, 2017)Carolina Pérez Alcaraz
Video for the "First International Cycle of Marimba Online".Recorded at Sala Orive in Córdoba, in March 2021
Carolina Pérez Alcaraz
Video of the concert within the 1st edition of the GALA FEST FestivalRecorded in the cloister of the Antonio Gala Foundation. Córdoba, june 19, 2021
Carolina Pérez Alcaraz
Video of the Youtube channel "Virginia's Marimba Stories" (2021), with interventions by Virginia Alcarria, Carolina Pérez Alcaraz and myself.YouTube link (with english subtitles) |