Sinfonia Burocratica ed Amazzònica
Paul Desenne
About this work:
Commissioned by Joel Sachs for the New Juilliard Ensemble
Premiered at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, New York City in Nov., 2004 with the New Juilliard Ensemble, conducted by Joel Sachs
PROGRAM NOTES
Composing music for my friend Joel Sachs on his adventurous musical journey has been a shared enterprise. Since I live on the edges of the world's last great forest, near the coasts of what was once a sea of cannibals, I have no choice but to do as Joel Sachs does - live dangerously. This Sinfonía Burocrática ed Amazzònica is a description of what I see in the peculiar musical world I live in.
"La Leçon" stages the landing point of European minds on South American beaches. The exposed musical ideas, like repetitive lessons, are greeted by indifference; the bureaucratic structures, represented at their paroxysm by an orchestral typewriter, melt into a jungle of unvarying bird and frog calls. Colonization as seen by Ionesco, perhaps.
"Anaconda" is the water-and-land deity of the original Amazon forest dwellers; the waters are like a giant snake, smoothly moving and conquering the land. The anaconda swallows its victims whole, yet moves very slowly. Inside its body, the anaconda has a copy of the universe. To go inside and understand it without being digested by the beast, you must go through sessions of chanting and dancing with the Shamans. Coming back out is the hardest part of the journey. This movement depicts the anaconda's movements, gliding smoothly between land and water.
"Guasarana" is like a saudade, a sad guasa (a Venezuelan songform in 5/8). Guasarana could mean, literally, "frog-guasa." The sadness of the last rainforests on our planet, the sadness of being left only with brainforests.
"Bananera" is like a Colombian cumbia, also full of melancholy. Gabriel García Márquez often recalls the banana plantation killings – the infamous masacre en las bananeras of the 1920s (or was it the 1930s? How many times did it happen, anyway, and in how many tropical South and Central American countries?) This is the banana-picker's blues, part of the real tropical paradise – a rough paradise. (The scientific name for the banana is musa paradisiaca.) Cumbia is a perfect blend of African and Colombian Indian cultures. I have kept most of its distinctive features, within a broader harmonic context. The symphony ends with the "Death of the Automobile." It was a very old car, anyway. How many tons of fossil fuels did it vaporize? I lost track, but the motor sounded like an orchestra!
- Paul Desenne
Version: For symphony orchestra
Year composed: 2004
Duration: 00:18:00
Ensemble type: Orchestra:Standard Orchestra
Instrumentation:
Instrumentation notes: 1.1.3(II=picc,III=bss).2(II=ctrbsn)-1.1.1.1-timp.perc(2):
cwbl(med&lrg)/picc tgl/cyms(+sizzl)/gong (L.)/rim/metl plate/assrtd cans&metl objcts (rattly cwbls) /gongs:A,Eb,Db/güiro/tin torpedo (metallic güiro)/sml maracas/shell shkr or chekre/bngs(stnd)/snr/sml
tom/med wdbl/large wood rimmed tom (tambora)/pedl bss dr-marimba-vibraphone-harp-strings (1.1.1.1.1 to 8.6.4.4.3)