Patrick Cohën-Akenine commissioned me to set to music four sonnets attributed to composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). These are the same sonnets, which he used as the basis for his series of violin concertos entitled The Four Seasons (1725). The idea of the commission was to perform these new pieces as preludes to each of The Four Seasons, thus creating a concert program which mixed baroque and contemporary music, thematically unified by the sonnets. I composed the song cycle Paesaggi Corporei (Body Landscapes), with the same instrumentation used by the Folies françoises to play The Four Seasons: three first violins, three second violins, two violas, two cellos, one double bass, and continuo (Italian harpsichord and archlute). Additionally, all of these instruments are period instruments. In Paesaggi Corporei, the soprano sings and sometimes recites the sonnets.

In this song cycle, the string orchestra often has the function of articulating polyphonic textures that serve as a sonic metaphor to the notions of foliage and nature. The two violas often create the impression of movement in the middle register of the orchestra. Inspired by Vivaldi's masterpieces, I sometimes explored the possibilities of several violins playing as soloists. At moments, the archlute leads ensemble subsections of plucked strings that contribute to the timbral richness of the composition. The use of metal and wood mutes on the strings, as well as the use of prepared harpsichord also create timbral richness.

As to the relationship between text and music, the intention of Paesaggi Corporei was to differentiate each season by setting each sonnet in a different way: sections that explore the phonemes of key words, sections where the text is read, or sections with an intimate and lyrical singing of text. Using the technique of “word painting,” I created sound images of certain words by manipulating their phonetic and rhythmic characteristics.

“The commissioning and dedication of Amanece were fulfilled on September 20th, 2014, when the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra premiered the work by Antonio Juan-Marcos, with countertenor Rodrigo Ferreira and conductor José Areán. Weeks before this premiere, the composer ended an 11-year stay in France and to study at the University of California, Berkeley, where he began studies for a PhD in composition and started teaching music theory.” – Juan Arturo Brennan

“Amanece” is the third and last part of a piece cycle inspired by the poetry of Octavio Paz. I started composing this cycle in 2011, and finished it with the completion of this piece. The full cycle is called “Dos son un Jardín” (Two are a Garden). This title comes from a phrase by Julio Cortázar, “One cronopio is a flower, two [of them] are a garden”— from his book Stories of Cronopios and Famas. I find this quote incredibly sensitive, full of hope and love.

I have chosen three poems by Paz: first piece in the cycle was inspired by a poem called Custodia (Mostrance), from his book Ladera Este (East Slope), and the last two pieces were inspired by Coda and Árbol Adentro, from his book Árbol Adentro. These three poems express sensitive insights and deep reflections about love. Octavio Paz was a man of many reflections and experiences, yet the works that have caused the deepest impact and influence on me thus far are his poems and essays about love. His reflections on love, and the intellectual and aesthetic fashion in which he illuminates them, parallels some of my own experiences and informed my compositional practice while working on this cycle.

In brief, I started building an intimate, secret dialectical relationship with Paz. “Amanece” finds inspiration in the poem Árbol Adentro. For the piece’s title I took one word of significant weight in the poem: leading to the poem’s ending, Paz writes the word “amanece” (daybreak). The word is detached and right-aligned, positioned apart from the rest of the poem, providing visual space and a pause to the poem representing the unhurried time of daybreak. I tried to introduce this same pause at the formal level: leading up to the singer saying the word “amanece,” there is an instrumental orchestral tutti which is progressively built up. In this tutti, two piccolos play melodies based on musical themes from the Papantla Flyer ceremony. Their high tessitura and contour give them an agile and luminous character. I find a symbolic expression in them, as the daybreak’s first rays of sunshine. All the instruments gradually join the tutti until a wide and dense harmonic space is achieved. This gradual tutti as a metaphor of daybreak; a feeling of awakening, from dawn to full sunrise. The Papantla Flyer ceremony is in itself a worship of the Sun, and so I symbolically relate it with “amanece”—a crucial word for both the poem and the piece. The most relevant motives of the Papantla Flyer theme are introduced at the beginning: first in the dark register of the English Horn, and then in a transition passage played by a piccolo and glockenspiel. The melodies from the Papantla Flyers used in the tutti also provide a foundation on which I created the harmonic material that is explored throughout the piece. This tutti section is the only time where the harmony is fully deployed. In spite of the varying mutations and transpositions of the harmonic material, there are two pivotal notes in the low register constantly appearing throughout the piece as one of its several formal unity parameters.

In general, I have a tendency to express my musical personality through a poetry of what is sensitive, fragile, and lyrical. In “Amanece,” I have paid particular attention to achieving a more straightforward expression in both the orchestra gestures and the melody and verbal articulation of the countertenor. Regarding orchestration, I drew on a variety of sonic densities ranging from chamber-like, intimate moments, to passages of intense activity played by the entire orchestra.

As a composer, I am greatly influenced by the music and literature of Mexico that I was immersed in as a child. I remember spending sleepless nights listening to Revueltas’ music, and my hands trembling with emotion while turning the pages of Paz’s “La hija de Rappaccini” (Rappaccini’s Daughter). It is a huge honor and privilege for me to contribute my music to the 100th Anniversary of Octavio Paz, sharing the program with Redes, Silvestre Revueltas, and Ricardo Castro. I owe this privilege to Maestro José Areán and the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra, and I dedicate this piece to them.

———

ÁRBOL ADENTRO
Octavio Paz

Creció en mi frente un árbol.
Creció hacia dentro.
Sus raíces son venas,
nervios sus ramas,
sus confusos follajes pensamientos.
Tus miradas lo encienden
y sus frutos de sombras
son naranjas de sangre,
son granadas de lumbre.
Amaneceen la noche del cuerpo,
allá adentro, en mi frente,
el árbol habla.
Acércate, ¿lo oyes?

———

A TREE WITHIN
Octavio Paz

A tree has grown in my forehead.
It grew outside-in.
Its roots are veins,
nerves [are] its branches,
Its confusing foliage [is] my thoughts.
Your glances kindle it
and its fruits of shadows
are oranges of blood,
are pomegranates of fire.
Day breaks
in the body’s night,
there, within, in my forehead,
the tree speaks.
Come closer, can you hear it?

The title "Sin Nombres" (Nameless) is comprised of the last two words of Octavio Paz's poem "Custodia" (Monstrance) from his book "Ladera Este" (East Slope).

The poem’s visual arrangement, in the shape of a monstrance, opens up the possibility for many different readings: a cyclic reading, in which he end leads up to the beginning; a slow or fast prosody; a secular mantra, etc. Such a musical interpretation leads to this work as one of the poem’s different understandings.

“Custodia” is a love poem that begins by opposing masculine and feminine nouns, for fusing them together later on in such a way that we can no longer tell each from its opposite: men and women reunite without any division or distinction into one single genderless being. Could it allude to the primeval androgynous beings Aristophanes tells about in Plato’s “The Symposium”? Could it refer to an (in)voluntary loss of a part of the Ego, leaving us in some frail situation? Austere and diaphanous sounds advocate this feeling. The inclination to composing for countertenor voice supports this process:an adult male voice sometimes singing in both mezzo-soprano and baritone. In different interventions by the electro-acoustics, the countertenor’s high register is illuminated, and the underlying prosodic character of the poem is emphasized as the voice multiplies.

The Tibetan prayer stones are identifiable from the beginning, among the selected percussion instruments. Chosen on account of their ritualistic meaning and unique sound, these stones commence a rhythm motif which later unfolds in varying ratios in the piece’s middle section.

Together with the masculine-feminine dichotomy, the poem’s monstrance-shaped lines brought a particular idea of symmetry to my mind, which inspired some of the harmonic colors I used in the piece.