During last spring (2018), George Hadow, Nanna Ikonen, Daniel Chagnon, and myself were working for a while in my last musical ideas. A piece where I mix my most personal interests: poetry, improvisation, rhythmic techniques from Carnatic South Indian music, and a very collaborative way of working.
The name of the piece (The true sphinx is the clock) comes from a poem by the Spanish poet Gabriel García Lorca called “ÉL”.
ÉL
La verdadera esfinge
es el reloj
Edipo nacerá de una pupila.
Limita al Norte con el espejo
y al Sur con el gato.
Doña Luna es una Venus.
(Esfera sin sabor.)
Los relojes nos traen los inviernos.
(Golondrinas hieráticas
emigran el verano.)
La madrugada tiene
un pleamar de relojes.
A lot of the musical written material comes from the VI movement of the “Quatuor pour la fin du temps” by Olivier Messiaen. I use different fragments of the melody throughout all the piece.
The piece uses a Shadanga Tala as a metric cycle, as well as many different techniques derived from the Carnatic tradition.
