António Chagas Rosa
CD2 – Selected works by antónio chagas rosa
MOH // 1998
Live recording from the Wiener Konzerthaus, Wien Modern
Klangforum Wien
Pascal Rophè, conductor
Moh is the representation of the moment when the Creator inspires life into Adam, blowing on his nose as if it were a wind instrument. It might not be easy to draw a parallel between this image and a musical composition for a classically taylored chamber orchestra. However, one feels the presence of an irrational universe hiding behind the geometry of the musical text, a realm that one can only trespass through the use of riddles and pass-words. This is the true significance of Moh: an entry code into the 'other side' of forms that one's ear and eyes perceive… Never before I felt such tension between the two shaping forces of the same work. The facade of Moh is almost Helenic in its lines, proportions and hierarchies. However, it can't conceal the flaws of the building that ultimately shall cause its collapse, unveiling a disturbing flock of ghosts. The instrumentation contains only few special effects and the overall writing avoids naturalism. The imagination of the listener must fill in the many spaces left open by exactitude.
Sept Épigrammes de Platon // 1997
Ana Barros, soprano
António Oliveira, piano
Sept Épigrammes de Platon is the result of a commission by the ACARTE Performing Arts Center of the Gulbenkian Foundation. When I was asked to join this project – a number of composers would write a vocal work without exceeding 5 minutes! – I thought of a way of creating an illusion of time extent. So, this cycle represent an effort of achieving a continuous and transformative musical discourse. The result of this program is a small construction that fights for exceeding its own limits. The vocal and instrumental writing is unifying, whereas I avoided (as always) to make ‘melody’ with ‘accompaniment’… The true motor of the development in the works lays in rhythm, which I used in a subtractive way, from song to song, so that an overall idea of an acellerando prevails. The atmosphere of the work might be described as being cold or even deserted; this is the consequence of using poems that, in spite of their genuine pain, were addressed from the living to the dead or from the dead to the living ones.
cicuta // 2005
Ana Barros, soprano
António Oliveira, piano
I´m always concerned when I put verses of great poets into music, since these verses suffice on their own. This applies to the poetry of Maria Teresa Horta, which in itself emits scents of musicality, and requires the composer to repeatedly ask himself about the benefits of his sonorous contribution. However, the challenge it has set - a song cycle of erotic inclination (commissioned by the Casa da Música, Porto, 2005) - eventually weighs heavily on the choice of the poet, as it has always been the strength of “A Educação Sentimental“, which has charmed and delighted me.
The 15 poems I have taken, are spread over 11 songs and some have even formed small thematic cycles. I tried to meet the imagery of the poems without forcing a musical dictatorship on the words, letting them jingle in my fantasy and letting them guide me on a tour, as if I were a voyeur, through the inner world of Maria Teresa Horta. I also allowed for the unexpected and for the imagination to take hold of me, feeling for the first time, that I was writing music for a would-be film - but a film much more of a feeling than mere images.
Therefore, musical tears which floated all around me, were integrated into the score and perhaps, also because of recurring water transformations that permeate these poems of love, like the sea, the 'sweat of the caves' – and even without finding Wagner´s exact quotes, some of Isolde´s visitations appear in the songs. And Isolde (and love) one does not bar the entrance....
A Boca // 2006
Roberto Erculiani, solo bassoon
This piece of music for the bassoon called A Boca (2006) was commissioned by Casa da Música (Oporto) to include a series of instrumental solos (Consequenze), which pays tribute to Luciano Berios’s Sequenze. This work, which contains remnants of West African polyrhythms, explores virtuosity by means of this instrument, and includes the bassoonist´s voice, which sings parts of the poem "A boca" by Maria Teresa Horta. This work was premiered by Roberto Erculiani, bassoonist of the Remix Ensemble at the Strasbourg Musica Festival in 2006.
tombau de marie stuart // 2008
Live recording from Casa da Música, Oporto (30.11.07)
Remix Ensemble
Peter Rundel, conductor
Tombeau de Marie Stuart (2008), co-commissioned by Remix Ensemble (Casa da Música, Oporto) and Klangforum Wien, premiered in Casa da Música by both orchestras. This composition could be described as the result of three personal journeys:
1st journey: towards Lully, Marin Marais and the universe of the dance suites from the French Baroque era. This period displayed an extraordinary capacity for transforming war into dance, suffering into timbre, and politics into choreography. Dance as an allegory preparing for death, goes back to the Stone Age, some 30, 000 years ago and probably to the very origins of music.
2nd journey: towards Friedrich Schiller’s drama “Maria Stuart”, which premiered in 1800. The prosodic rhythm of the two pages prior to Marie’s execution provided the rhythmic matrix for the whole musical composition. Furthermore, the poetic itinerary of the Queen’s last moments was decisive for the composition’s structure: the crucifix in her hands, the flight of memories, the presence of a body still full of life and, finally, the farewell.
3rd journey: towards the “Crucification” (around 1460) by the Italian painter Paolo di Dono, better known as Paolo Uccello. The formalism of the scene has always fascinated me. It enhances the movements that four ‘actors’ seem to perform around the hanging Christ, almost as if they were part of a symbolic dance. In spite of the clothes, one can observe that Uccello was deeply acquainted with the human anatomy. Nevertheless, Paolo di Dono is more famous for his study of perspective. The nickname uccello (bird) was imposed on him because of his obsession with the drawing of birds and other natural elements - a task that he could carry on doing throughout the whole night. For me, the study of animal anatomy is equivalent to the study of instruments and orchestration.
Moh (1998)
Sept Épigrammes de Platon (1997)
Cicuta (2005)
A Boca (2006)
Tombeau de Marie Stuart (2008)
