Laura Vega: Luz de tinieblas - Chamber Music

LIGHT DARKNESS

This CD is one of the projects that have given me the greatest pleasure in my professional career. It began with making the selection, which for me meant a re-encounter with my works and also an examination of my path as an artist. Above all, I have chosen works that are milestones for me, in the musical sense, but also in terms of the living conditions under which they were created and the interpreters to whom they are dedicated.

In total, I have put together eight chamber music works that I wrote between 2007 and 2019 for various instrumentations, with the piano forming the starting point in each case, to which the clarinet, percussion and, above all, string instruments are added; The latter correspond to my sensitivity and what I want to express in a special way.

The recordings took place from March to June 2022 at the Auditorio Alfredo Kraus in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and I would like to thank the Taller Lírico de Canarias Cultural Association, the Instituto Canario de Desarrollo Cultural del Gobierno de Canarias, the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria and the Auditorio Alfredo Kraus for the cooperation. And I especially thank the performers who have implemented my musical ideas with so much love and dedication, as well as all those who have given their best to make this project a reality: Antonio Miranda, Gonzalo Angulo, Nicole Martín Medina, Ángel Luis Aldai, Juan Pedro León, Wulf Weinmann and the entire NEOS team.

1. Viaje al silence (journey into silence)
for clarinet, cello, percussion and piano

I wrote the piece in 2012 on the occasion of my admission to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of the Canary Islands. The book gave me inspiration for this work A Book of Silence by British writer Sara Maitland. She doesn't understand silence as absence or emptiness, but as something we find within ourselves. I also lean on what Zen Master and meditation expert Berta Meneses says. For her, silence does not mean passivity or the absence of noise; rather, according to her, it is about learning to experience the space of our consciousness on the path to wisdom. In the quiet reflection with ourselves we find our true self, we come to an inner balance. The music invites the listener to a journey into his inner being, to a journey into silence...

2. Cuatro miradas a un infinitely limitado (Four Gazes at a Finite Infinity)
for clarinet, cello and piano

This piece was created in 2016 on behalf of the Fundación MAPFRE Guanarteme as part of the seminar »The City Belongs«. New compositions should be presented that have the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria as an impulse. The landscape of La Isleta, viewed at four moments (colors) of the day, at dawn, in the afternoon, at night and in the early morning, forms the spatial and temporal framework within which this work was created. In addition to the landscape I also in the poem Los amantes del mar (The Lovers of the Sea) by Selena Millares found inspiration.

3. De un lejano amor (From a distant love)
for cello and piano

I composed this piece in 2013 for the winners of the María Orán Chamber Music Prize of the Fundación CajaCanarias, for Saulo Guerra (clarinet) and José Luis Castillo (piano). The piece is based on the poem of the same name by Tomás Morales (1884-1921), who was born in Villa de Moya on Gran Canaria. The poem is in the volume Poemas de la Gloria, del Amor y del Mar, and Oswaldo Guerra writes: »This volume brings together intimate poems with a clearly romantic character, in which memory appears as a creative force.« The version for cello and piano was written the following year.

The verses of the first stanza create a soaring atmosphere of dark, melancholic sound: »Love, love, love... Where did you go? ... I've lost love! ... I slept comfortably in the stillness of my soul, a juvenile reverie, and I have lost it ..."

The piece is characterized by a great deal of formal freedom, it is made up of layers of sound, with the various registers of the piano being connected via their resonances. The pianissimo and the dark timbre of the clarinet create an intimate atmosphere.

4. Luz de tinieblas (light darkness)
for two cellos, two double basses and piano

This work was first performed in 2012 at the Auditorio de la Fundación Canal as a commission for the Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid. In the words of pianist José Luis Castillo, »this music invites us to search for light in our own darkness.« The human longing for spiritual comfort is expressed at the end of the piece by quoting a fragment from the aria Have mercy by J.S. Bach. The music traverses a path from darkness and chaos to serenity and peace.

5. Paginas de arena (sides of sand)
for cello and piano

Dedicated to my niece Paula Torres Vega, the work was commissioned by the CNDM in 2015 and premiered at Auditorio 400 of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS) in Madrid. It is inspired by two poems by Canarian author Selena Millares entitled Oceano de sombra (ocean of shadows) and Your Name (Your name). The rhapsodic character of the work arises from the use of textures that translate the intangible of a dream-like world into sound. The five sections are: Soliloquio I Preludio, Oceano de sombra (ocean of shadows), Soliloquio II Interludio, Tu nombre de aire (Your name out of air) and Soliloquio III Postludio.

6. Homenajes II (Dedications II)
for viola and piano

The work is conceived as a »work in progress«, different versions have been created depending on the instrumentation: in 2005 I first wrote it for piano, in 2007 for viola and piano as well as for trumpet, cello and piano trio. Like a painting that is repeatedly painted over, an original canvas (piano) is overlaid with "layers of paint" (other instruments), adding other facets to the work and creating new textures, allowing the same idea to be subjected to different points of view.

The piece was created as a homage to various composers; Motifs from works by Albéniz, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Takemitsu are freely interwoven, with melancholy and nostalgia resonating.

7. Ni new (I myself)
for clarinet, violin and piano

Ni new, written in 2018, is dedicated to all the women throughout history who have struggled to survive and dared to express their thoughts and feelings through art, thereby banishing their frustrations and fears. The title comes from the collection of poems Ni new, written by educator Inma Arroyo during her cancer treatment.

It is from an earlier work entitled Alone (2014). This piece for solo violin was conceived as a meditation, intended to bring one into a state of spiritual reflection and to invite one to encounter oneself. It was inspired by Pablo d'Ors' meditation book Biography of Silence (Biography of Silence), in which he writes, among other things, that we are alone in the moment of truth, that in our search for wisdom we should look into emptiness, sink into ourselves and listen to our inner silence. In addition, a musical motif is derived from the work Much prière bouddhique quoted by Lili Boulanger (1893–1918) as a tribute to this great composer on the centenary of her death.

8. Paraísos perdidos III (Paradises Lost III)
for violin, viola, cello and piano

This piece, too, was created as a »work in progress«, in ever new versions. Originally it was from the painting The green ray (The Green Ray) by the painter Antonio Padrón. The work is divided into contrasting sections, in which one can see the different landscapes of Canarian geography (the paradises) longed for by the emigrants who had to leave their land. Musically, the work is characterized by borrowings from Canarian folklore, such as the melodic motif of the Arrorró (lullaby) and percussive elements imitating the sound of the chácaras and the gomero drum, and this gives the piece a strong nostalgic character.

Laura Vega
Translation from Spanish: Stefanie Gerhold