An invitation to the OSESP String Quartet premiere at Sala São Paulo on 28 November 2021, followed by my programme note.
The original announcement — November 2021
It is with great joy that I invite you, dear friends, to the premiere of O lugar de todas as coisas, in concert with the OSESP String Quartet on Sunday 28 November 2021, at 6 p.m., at Sala São Paulo.
This will be a very special concert, also featuring Pärt’s Fratres and Saint-Saëns’s Piano Quartet in B-flat major. This is the second work I have written for the quartet this season, during which I have had the immense honour of working as Visiting Composer with this wonderful ensemble.
For anyone who would like to hear the first piece from this collaboration, Goldberg: Diálogos entre Duas Eras, here is the recording. I hope to see you all on Sunday!
Programme note
The forms of this piece are numerous. Sound worlds are created at every instant. In listening, by holding attention on appearances, the listener may lose their way among countless sonorities. And yet this is a work about silence. There is a vast gulf between appearance and essence. The flow of sound is eternal…
At the beginning, a choice must be made. We may choose to hear the sounds, or to hear through the sounds. In the act of listening without naming, there is no conflict. There is only freedom…
In a dream, in an instant, an entire world is created. The dreamer simply watches, with no control over the characters or events. The dreamer then wakes and, in an instant, a new world is created… The world is a theatre, performed for you as you watch from the front row.
“Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.”
— Prospero, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act IV, Scene I. The quotation is given in Shakespeare’s original English.
Here becomes everywhere… O lugar de todas as coisas.
Performance details
OSESP String Quartet: Emmanuele Baldini and Davi Graton, violins; Peter Pas, viola; Rodrigo Andrade, cello. Premiere: 28 November 2021, Sala São Paulo. The recording above is included as a later listening reference; the invitation remains a dated announcement.
Sources and further reading
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Explore O lugar de todas as coisas.
