Vocalise de la guitarra (con algunas consonantes) / Vocalise of the guitar (with some consonants)

For Voice (Soprano) and Piano



Commentary


After many meetings, held for the most part in the " Pecera " of the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid and in the nearby cafeteria of the old Suecia Hotel, in 1998 the Madrid Association of Composers (AMCC) was legalized and registered, of which I was a founding member and later a member in the first directive board, chaired by Marisa Manchado, and vicepresident in the second, by Pilar Jurado, and therefore promoter and coordinator, along with other partners, of the "COMA" Festival, whose first edition took place in the fall of 1999.
For its public presentation, the AMCC organized a concert that took place in the Sala de Columnas of the Círculo de Bellas Artes on November 4, 1998, within the framework of the Autumn Festival of the Community of Madrid, and in which soprano Pilar Jurado and pianist Sebastián Mariné starred in the premiere of 36 works of just over a minute composed for the occasion by the members of the newly created Association.

Pilar Jurado

Sebastián Mariné

For that concert I composed the Vocalise of the guitar, to whose title I added the specification with some consonants, whose use in the piece meant that the term “vocalise” could not be taken rigorously in its traditional sense, although the absence of a text could suggest it. The piece begins with a double vocal arpeggio with the notes of the open strings of the guitar, the first time in the middle register and the second ascending to the high E. That double arpeggio is repeated in the central zone, and finally the piano ends with a chord formed by those six notes.
In the short course of the piece there are passages of great technical difficulty for the voice, while the piano alternates the conventional treatment with knuckle and palms strikes of both hands on the top and on the side wall of the instrument.

The Vocalise of the guitar (with some consonants) was included in the commemorative edition, of which a print run of 200 copies was made, and published in 2007 by the Editorial Pygmalion within the "Contemporary Series" of the "Siglo XXI" collection, along with works by Sergio Blardony, Carlos Duque and Jesús Legido that were part of the presentation concert of the Madrid Association of Composers.