AIR IN LIGHT OF DARKNESS (2020)
(Aria en tiempos oscuros)
Symphony Orchestra & Chorus
2.2.2.2 – 4.3.3.1 – perc (1) - harp- – strings - Chorus SATB (18 min.)
Scheduled premiere: Feb. 8th., 2024
Orquesta y Coro RTVE, & Guillermo García Calvo, conductor
Teatro Monumental (Madrid)
Notes by the composer:
“Air in Light of Darkness” is a piece written as a tribute to the victims of COVID-19. It is a solemn work, somber in nature, that ultimately reveals a glimmer of hope.
It incorporates texts from Lacrimosa, as well as the poem “Light in the Darkness” by the English writer George Heath (1844-1869).
The piece emerges from the air, from the choir's breaths, emanating from the air, just as the tragedy that befell the world arose from the air. From this springs a thematic cell of three descending notes that repeats obsessively throughout the work, like a mantra (breath once more) and also as an indelible tribute in our memory. Instead of being presented as a melodic line, each of these three notes is played by a different instrument, drawing an analogy between the smallest living unit that exists, the virus, and the smallest or most basic unit of music, a note.
Towards the end of the piece, there is a turning point where a light appears, a glimmer of hope. Even so, a bitonality in charge of the thematic cell leaves us with a bitter feeling, a shadow in that incipient light, and that hope that appears in a theme of the flute and is contagious to the rest of the orchestra, always does so with the constant reminder of what we have lived through and gives it a lightness not without resignation in the final part where the piece moves towards the luminous and merges with the breathing of the choir, dispersing in the air.