infotext:
The music of Camilo Méndez is a melting pot in which an apparent mix of disparate influences fuses into harmonious, cohesive works of monumental proportions. She draws her inspiration from literature and the visual arts, from geography and philosophy, and from experiences gained on several continents. While Méndez's sonic world has an undeniable affinity with that of European composers such as Helmut Lachenmann and his mentors Pierluigi Billone and Rebecca Saunders, the conceptual basis of his works is filled with allusions to composers, writers and visual artists from his native Latin America, and with subtle references to his own professional endeavors and artistic collaborations in North America and Southeast Asia.
Just as the works fuse countless influences, they also combine tonal instruments in surprising ways. In doing so, Méndez alienates them through "preparations" and unconventional playing techniques, blurring their boundaries and combining their sounds in startling and enchanting ways. In Méndez's music, the unexpected is the norm: cellos produce sounds indistinguishable from flutes, pianos are treated as percussion instruments, accordions and saxophones produce interchangeable timbres. Through these unlikely transformations and blendings of instrumental sounds, Méndez transforms chamber ensembles into fantastical machines, creating otherworldly soundscapes and rhythmically whirring with the precision of finely tuned mechanisms.
Méndez's works are conceived as large cycles that explore a compositional idea across multiple pieces, each written for a different combination of instruments. The macrostructure of each cycle is carefully thought out, with intricate (often symmetrical) arrangements of pieces according to their instrumentation and sometimes using ingenious devices such as pieces that can be played simultaneously. Each cycle can be presented as a full concerto, but the individual pieces are also works in their own right that can be performed on their own. This album contains six excerpts from two cycles - BURSZTYN and Spatio-Temporal Cartographies - in the characteristic macro-structural form favored by Méndez.
program:
Camilo Mendez (*1981)
[01] BURSZTYN II: Minimaquina I 10:24
for prepared flute, saxophone, violin and cello
[02] Cartography of Peripheral Spaces (Interior: II-IV-I-III) 10:55
for prepared saxophones, percussion, piano and violin
[03] BURSZTYN VI: Minimáquina IIIa 06:37
for prepared saxophones and accordion
[04] Cartography of Liminal Spaces (IV-III-I-II) 08:47
for prepared violin solo and prepared flute, saxophone, percussion and piano
[05] BURSZTYN VII: Flexidra IV (Collide, Splinter, Splatter) 07:58
for prepared saxophones, trumpet, drums, electric guitar, piano and accordion
[06] Cartography of Peripheral Spaces (Periphery: III-II-IV-I) 11:08
for prepared flute, saxophone, contrabassoon, percussion, piano, violin and cello
Total playing time: 56:04
first recordings
Roberto Alonso, prepared violin solo [04]
Vertixe Sonoran Ensemble
Keiko Murakami, flutes [01, 04, 06]
Pablo Coello, saxophones [01-06]
Jesús Coello, contrabassoon [06]
Carlos Cortes, trumpet [05]
Diego Ventoso, drums & objects [02, 04–06]
Nuno Pinto, electric guitar [05]
David Durán, piano & objects [02, 04–06]
María Mogas, accordion [03, 05]
Roberto Alonso, violin [01, 02, 06]
Hugo Paiva, cello [01, 06]