Piano and Violin. Commissioned by Sheldon Concert Hall, St. Louis, MO. (2016)
And once again, my hero Julio Cortázar (El Cronopio Mayor [The Ultimate Cronopio]) helped me write music. This group of four pieces are inspired by the chapter with the same name from his book “Historias de Cronopios y Famas” [Stories of Cronopios and Famas]. In these short stories, Cortázar wrote instructions on how to do multiple absurd and daily tasks, among the titles you can find Instructions for looking at a Famous Panting, Instructions for Going Upstairs, and Instructions for Killing Ants in Rome. For my piece, I decided to use two of them that seem to have good expressive potential for music and those were Instructions for Crying and Instructions for Singing. Particularly, I was surprised by the detailed description of many aspects that we take for granted when we execute these regular tasks. I found myself closely following Cortazar’s writing and performing the tasks along. The two other movements and tasks are my own invention, and can be thought as abstract music accompaniment for their execution.
Similar to other cases, when creators use external references, this is nothing but a reinterpretation of concepts, a new frame for existing ideas, perhaps, a simple excuse for being creative. And now that I think about it, in spite of Cortázar’s favorite music being jazz, he refers to multiple modern music pieces in his books. So perhaps, Julio might be into my piece. We’ll never know.
Cortázar image by Sara Fratini
The premiere was given by David Halen (St. Louis Orchestra concertino) and the talented New York- based pianist, Adria Ye.
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