Sueños

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Sueños [ 'sŭeɲos ] (German: dreams ) is a cantata by the Mexican composer Arturo Márquez .

Work data

The cantata is occupied by a speaker, baritone, mezzo-soprano, four-part mixed choir and orchestra. It has four movements, takes about 40 minutes and was published by Peermusic in 2017. All texts are in Spanish.

The orchestra is large: flute piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, clarinet in Eb, 2 clarinets in Bb, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, 4 percussion instruments, harp, piano, String instruments

History of origin

The cantata was originally premiered in Mexico in 2005 under the title “Sueños: todavía” (“Dreams: Still”). In this original version it has eight movements, lasts more than an hour and includes acting and dancing parts. Márquez therefore called the cantata "cantata escenica" - "scenic cantata". In 2017, Márquez published a purely concertante version compressed to four movements under the shorter title “Sueños”. Although it still contains a reference to scenic elements in the title, the notes no longer contain any directing or stage instructions. Otherwise it has the same cast as "Sueños: todavía". This version was premiered in March 2017 by the choirs and orchestra of the Miami University under the direction of Eduardo García Barrios in Miami / Ohio (USA) and in January 2018 by the orchestra & choir of the University of Bremen under the direction of Susanne Gläß in Bremen for the European version Premiered.

Structure and analysis

The Mexican writer, screenwriter and translator Eduardo Langagne translated and compiled the texts for the entire work into Spanish. All four sentences are about dreams and visions of an ideal world, in each sentence with a different perspective and embodied by a different personality: Guillermo Velázquez , Chief Seattle , Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King . In the eight-movement version “Sueños: todavía” Tonantzin Guadalupe , Silvestre Revueltas , Emiliano Zapata and Christovam Buarque were also embodied.

1st movement: "Es un Sueño Todavía"

The sung text of the first movement uses a poem by the Mexican musician and poet Guillermo Velázquez (* 1948), a representative of the Central Mexican folk music style Son huapango arribeño . Not only the improvisation of music plays an important role here, but also the spontaneous inventing of rhythmically spoken texts and verses, often in competition. So there are similarities to rap and poetry slam.

The climax of Velázquez's poem is the last line. The title of Marquez's composition of this movement is derived from this:

"El sueño de mi país, es un sueño todavía."
"The dream of my country is still a dream."

This sentence addresses a key issue in the Mexican way of life. At first glance, he addresses the fact that everyday life in Mexico is often difficult and still imperfect due to social injustice and violence. On the other hand, from a German perspective it is striking how passionately Mexicans love their country and how strong their vision of a perfect Mexico is. It could be that it is this dream, this vision of their country that carries them, even if they also suffer from the fact that this dream is not yet a reality.

Musically, this movement ties in with the numerous manifestations of the Mexican Son: A fast dance with stamped steps with changing accentuations over throbbing eighth notes, often in 6/8 time.

2nd movement: "Sin lamento"

Chief Seattle ("Chief Seattle") went down in history by the speech he gave in January 1854 at a hearing before the governor of the Washington Territory. He used his mother tongue, the speech was probably translated into the more common Chinook language and from there into English and edited several times. The versions known today come only to a small extent from Chief Seattle himself, but from the pen of European-born translators and revisers. For the libretto of Márquez's cantata “Sueños”, Eduardo Langagne translated into Spanish excerpts from Chief Seattle's speech, which Arturo Márquez set to music in the second movement of his cantata.

Márquez establishes the reference to the culture of the indigenous peoples musically at the slow beginning and at the equally slow end through the instruments he uses: he lays a virtuoso solo for piccolo made up of just three different tones over the solo singing of the baritone voice and thus describes bird voices in a tonal manner the tropical rainforest. At the same time, small, high flutes with a few different tones are traditionally part of the indigenous musical culture. The same applies to the percussion instruments that Márquez has played in this movement: the Tambor indio and Sartales (rattles from fruit peel or goat hooves). They are also typical of indigenous music.

One of the most famous passages from Chief Seattle's speech plays a central role in the lively middle section of the composition:

1st verse
”¿Cómo comprar el cielo? ¿Cómo comprar la lluvia? ¿Cómo comprar el viento que susurra? "
“How can you buy heaven? How can you buy the rain? How can you buy the wind that whispers? "
2nd stanza
”¿Cómo comprar los bosques? ¿Cómo comprar las flores? ¿Cómo comprar la tierra y sus aromas? "
“How can you buy the trees? How can you buy the flowers? How can you buy the earth and its scents? "
3rd stanza
”¿Cómo comprar los ríos? ¿Cómo comprar arroyos? ¿Cómo comprar el cielo y la tierra? "
“How can you buy the rivers? How can you buy streams? How can you buy heaven and earth? "
4th stanza
"Cielo y tierra no son cosas que se compran, ni collares que se cambian por objetos. No comprendo que concedan más valor y confianza a una máquina de humo, no comprendo para qué serviría a la vida si no puedo oír el canto de los pájaros. "
“Heaven and earth don't get things that you buy or necklaces that you exchange for objects. I do not understand that a steam engine is valued and trusted, I do not understand what it should be good for in life if I cannot hear the birds singing. "

In terms of content, the first three stanzas of this section are like a big, amazed and stunned shake of the head: "How can those who come to our country from Europe be so stupid as to want to buy heaven?" The music flows accordingly quietly in wide-ranging quiet stanzas. Just like the text, the musical stanzas are structurally similar as sequences. In the text of the 4th stanza, Chief Seattle takes the reins in hand and teaches his students from Europe: "Heaven and earth are not things that you buy". Just as the text here changes from shaking the head to actively teaching, the music changes its character exactly at this point. It becomes more rhythmic and intense, gradually more and more instruments are added and it reaches a climax in both pitch and volume. Although this text comes from North America, it also stands for criticism of the consumer society in Latin America.

3rd movement: "Aforismos"

Mahatma Gandhi succeeded in liberating India from English colonial rule through carefully planned nonviolent resistance campaigns. He himself called his political concept "Satyagraha", clinging to the truth. In the course of his long political life he found numerous concise and concise formulations for it. They form the textual basis for this sentence.

In the third movement of Márquez's cantata “Sueños”, “Aforismos”, various of these formulations by Gandhi are placed unconnected and individually in the room. A clear example can be found at the end of the sentence:

"Ojo por ojo y todo el mundo acabará ciego."
"An eye for an eye - and the whole world will go blind."
"No hay camino posible hacia la paz, porque siempre la paz es el camino."
"There is no possible way to peace, because peace is always the way itself."
"Si no existing camino hacia la paz, la paz es el camino."
"If there is no way that leads to peace, peace itself is the way."

For this content, Márquez creates a timeless, strange, almost extraterrestrial-looking musical space in which he places Gandhi's statements like timeless wisdom. He creates the impression of timelessness through numerous changes of time. He creates the alien through the simultaneity of two tonal worlds, namely Lydian scales on the one hand and dissonant excessive triads on the other, as well as very special, fine timbres. Most noticeable are the bell-like sounding crotales.

4th movement: "Tengo un Sueño"

"I have a dream" was the title of the speech that Dr. Martin Luther King held a speech in front of 250,000 people in Washington in 1963 and “Tengo un Sueño” is the translation of “I have a dream” into Spanish. In the fourth movement of his cantata “Sueños”, Márquez took up thoughts and phrases from King's speech and set them to music. King has successfully led the fight of blacks in the United States against racial segregation and for equality between blacks and whites, making consistent use of the means of nonviolent resistance. Márquez musically gave this text the form of a milonga , a form of tango. But where a man's sorrow for love is sung in traditional tango, the narrator tells of the history of slavery. Afterwards, the choir does not tell about the beloved woman, as is usually the case in tango, but about the dream of freedom (“sueño de la libertad”) in order to finally imagine the future - instead of with a woman - with this dream. The music of tango as an expression of the passionate longing for something unattainable is also used by Márquez in this movement.

Recordings

The work has not yet been recorded on CD. The four-movement version from 2017 has been performed by two university ensembles and published as a video by both: in August 2017 by the choirs and orchestra of Miami University under the direction of Eduardo García Barrios and in January 2018 by the university choir and orchestra Bremen under the direction of Susanne Gläß.

reception

The concert version from 2017 is still too young to have a broad reception. In an article by Ángel Vargas in “La Journada” of April 20, 2006, the scenic and dance implementation of the version from 2005 was criticized as too clichéd.

literature

  • José Carlos Esquer: Mar Que Es Arena; Danzones Y Espejos. An acercamiento a la obra del compositor Arturo Marquez . Instituto Sonorense de Cultura, Hermosillo / Sonora (México) 2009, ISBN 978-607-7598-08-4 .

grades

Arturo Márquez: "Sueños (Dreams)". Cantata for mixed chorus, dancers, actors, mezzo-soprano, baritone and symphony orchestra. Cantata for mixed choir, dancer, actor, mezzo-soprano, baritone and symphony orchestra , Score Partitur & Piano / Vocal Score piano reduction , Peermusic Classical, New York / Hamburg 2017

Individual evidence

  1. ^ José Carlos Esquer: Mar Que Es Arena; Danzones Y Espejos. An acercamiento a la obra del compositor Arturo Marquez . Instituto Sonorense de Cultura, Hermosillo / Sonora (México) 2009, ISBN 978-6-07759808-4 , p. 109-114 .
  2. ^ José Carlos Esquer: Mar Que Es Arena; Danzones Y Espejos . Hermosillo / Sonora (México) 2009, p. 111 .
  3. ^ Coming Together. A Night of Hope and Peace. In: www.MiamiOH.edu. Miami University / Ohio, USA, accessed February 26, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Christovam Buarque
  5. ^ José Carlos Esquer: Mar Que Es Arena; Danzones Y Espejos . Hermosillo / Sonora (México) 2009, p. 110 .
  6. ↑ ProMusicArt: Es Un Sueño Todavía (from 0:00:49) on YouTube , April 13, 2008, accessed on February 21, 2018.
  7. ↑ Juan Orozco. Cantata. on YouTube, May 26, 2012, accessed February 21, 2018.
  8. ↑ ProMusicArt: Aforismos (from 0:05:26) on YouTube, April 15, 2008, accessed on February 21, 2018.
  9. ↑ Tengo Un Sueño (from 0:00:30) on YouTube, March 30, 2008, accessed on February 21, 2018.
  10. ↑ Ricardo Averbach: Cantata Sueños Arturo Márquez (from 0:00:43) on YouTube, August 2, 2017, accessed on February 21, 2018.
  11. ↑ Orchestra & Choir of the University of Bremen: Arturo Márquez: Sueños (from 0:00:00) on YouTube, April 30, 2018, accessed on September 17, 2018.
  12. ^ José Carlos Esquer: Mar Que Es Arena; Danzones Y Espejos . Hermosillo / Sonora (Mexico) 2009, p. 112 .