Towards dreamed paths. An analysis of Audéeis by Mauricio Sotelo – Third part

Continued from first and second part

HARMONY READ IN WATER

As the composer himself states, although his music draws from the waters of flamenco, it also assigns itself, in the words of Ordoñez Eslava, «though not to an absolute degree, as it does not decisively determine the compositional material, to certain processes of the French spectral school».¹ Sotelo finds the common ground (or point of departure) for blending the waters of flamenco tradition and avant-garde spectralism in the «spectral analysis of the voices of ancient flamenco cantes, particularly in the forms of the Toná and the Martinete»,² which, as he points out, are «two of the most ‘vintage’ and intense forms of cante hondo».³ This work of sonic hybridization, of pairing seemingly distant musical traditions, has played a decisive role in shaping Sotelo’s sonic ocean, whose music has even been referred to as ‘spectral flamenco’. ⁴ Germán Gan Quesada traces the roots of this ‘spectral flamenco’ to the «silent and electroacoustic lineage of Cage and Stockhausen and the IRCAM, in light of Saariaho, Lindberg, or Benjamin», ⁵ emphasizing the Madrid-born composer’s use of various «means in the process of recording and analyzing the sound wave» ⁶ as one of the crucial steps in his compositional process. However, we must consider that Sotelo’s relationship with flamenco and spectralism arises from the «systematic cultivation of impurity»,⁷ an impurity that he openly defends:

“I am not interested in the folklore of purist culture as it has been handed down to us in most of the tradition. From it, I have taken the solid rhythmic rules and the microtonal scales, which can be drawn from flamenco and brought into other specific affective worlds.”⁸

In this way, Sotelo utilizes what he needs, drawing from both flamenco and spectralism without becoming a ‘slave’ to the rules that originated them. Instead, he assimilates and ferments them until he secretes the material that constitutes his own music.
In the case at hand, although the harmony of Audéeis flows through different waters or ‘states’—even reaching the point of evaporating (or, as Sotelo would say, petrifying⁹) in the central rhythmic section before emanating once again later—it is possible to observe the predominance of the ‘D’ spectrum along with that of its dominant ‘A,’ a factor that provides the work with a certain harmonic coherence.¹⁰
Towards the end, however, the harmonic center appears to shift, stabilizing on a more or less continuous ‘B♭’ pedal,¹¹ which could be justified as a possible mediant relationship with ‘D’ (acting as its VI degree). Nonetheless, the sonority of the fifth interval—whether perfect, diminished, or inverted as a fourth—seems to permeate the entire waters of Audéeis, contributing to the aforementioned coherence.
At the “formless” beginning, where the quartet’s breath sound (without defined pitches) takes center stage—“the marine rustle”—Sotelo already hints at some subtle harmonics from the ‘D’ and ‘A’ spectrum, alongside a cello multiphonic (on the second string) that enriches the fragile spectral context of ‘D.’ Subsequently, when the “long wave” (Wellenartig) of ascending microtonal scales begins,¹² thirty-second-note scales juxtaposed and layered, presenting different levels of saturation, the initial note used is ‘D’ (violins/viola: p. 2, b. 14). However, these fluid successions of rapidly filtered microtonal notes start to polarize their beginnings and, consequently, their areas of action. Thus, other ‘starting pitches’ are conquered alongside the central ‘D’—pitches in this case closer to flamenco rather than spectral needs: ‘D,’ ‘E♭,’ ‘F#,’ and ‘A.’ The relationship between the augmented second (E♭–F#) and the semitone (D–E♭) employed by Sotelo—here and on many occasions—with the flamenco tradition is highlighted by Ordoñez Eslava, who notes that both recognizable and distinctive intervals are “characteristic of the Andalusian Phrygian mode scale.”¹³
Throughout the entire “long wave” microtonal section, three harmonic levels can be distinguished. The initial stage, barely suggested, with the central ‘D’ (p. 2, b. 14) leading to the conquest of polarized pitches: ‘E♭,’ ‘F#,’ and ‘A’ (p. 3, b. 20); an unstable passage where each of the quartet’s instruments employs different initial notes: ‘E,’ ‘B,’ ‘G,’ ‘D,’ ‘A,’ ‘C,’ ‘F,’ ‘G,’ etc. (pp. 3-5, bb. 22-33); and finally, a stabilization¹⁴ of the polarized pitches that seemed to have been forgotten (pp. 5-8, bb. 38-57). Despite the extreme precision of microtonal pitches in the writing, it is also essential to consider the timbral and dynamic work Sotelo applies to these very pitches—work that, on a global level, ultimately causes them to fade.¹⁵
On the other hand, although this “long wave” microtonal section derives from a more or less free reworking of a passage from Chalan, ¹⁶ it is noteworthy that it presents some variations at the harmonic-spectral level. A concrete example is found toward the end of the section in the cello multiphonic, which changes from one piece to the other (in both cases on the fourth string): the resulting ‘G–B♭–A♭’ from Chalan¹⁷ become ‘E–G–F#’ in Audéeis,¹⁸ coinciding ¹⁹ with the ‘F#’ conquered by the first violin as a new starting point for its microtonal scales.
Later, throughout the entire heterophonic section that comprises much of the piece—“the imagined flamenco voice” materializing in the voice of the cantaor—harmony functions as a “veil” or “shadow” of the melody sung by Arcángel, or “imagined” by the quartet when he does not intervene. As previously mentioned,²⁰ starting from the melodic line, reflections are projected—primarily—at a low octave distance, double high octave, and fifth in the super-high register. Nevertheless, similarly to what happened earlier with the microtonal scales, Sotelo’s applied timbral and dynamic work once again blurs the pitches, transforming the reflections into mirages, into lights and shadows.²¹
On a harmonic-horizontal level, in addition to the microtonal scales where pitches succeed one another, clustering almost like articulated glissandi, Sotelo also employs passages constructed from fifths (or fourths when the intervals appear in inversion).²² This interval, as mentioned earlier, colors the waters of the piece—even at a vertical level—being the undisputed protagonist of the penultimate section. Although this sonority of fifths, unfolded in ascending and descending arpeggios—and partially spatialized through hochetus—recalls Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto,²³ it perhaps reveals even greater similarities—as a tribute—to the last piece written by Nono: “Hay que caminar” soñando, composed in 1989 for two violins.²⁴ In Figure 3, we observe Nono’s use of perfect fifths relative to the violin’s natural tuning, the presence of harmonics in the super-high register, and the exhaustive use of timbral and dynamic indications that, as Sotelo himself pointed out, allow one to perceive “—beyond the different zones of the harmonic spectrum more strongly illuminated than the fundamental itself, which in many cases disappears—tiny micro-intervallic variations or oscillations.”²⁵ Furthermore, the small “motif”²⁶ that dissolves into ppppp closely resembles those used by Sotelo toward the end of Audéeis.

The notes highlighted in Figure 4 allow us to “trace,” albeit at a certain distance, what could be the fragmented resonance of Nono’s “motif.” However, on a more specific level, each of the cells presented in the quartet’s instruments consists of fifths, just as these instruments follow one another in hochetus, respecting—except for a few exceptions—the intervals of a fifth (even if sometimes a step is “skipped”).²⁷ The descending arrow that highlights the “spatialized” entrances in the quartet reveals the sequence of fifths produced between the second violin and the cello: ‘F#’ ‘B’ ‘E’. This sonority of fifths is a recurring feature of Sotelo’s music. In Audéeis, we also find it vertically in the chords that recreate the “resonance of what was once a vibrant voice,” that is, in the final Seguiriya.
The chord that sustains this resonance-pedal consists of the pitches: ‘Bb’, ‘F’, ‘C’, ‘F#’, ‘C#’, ‘G#’ (p. 50, b. 486). However, it sometimes appears with slight variations or is interrupted by the interjection of other chords that seem to be “transpositions” of it, where the pitches shift in parallel motion. This is an important chord for the Madrid-based composer, one he had already referenced in a letter sent to José Ángel Valente regarding the work they were working on at the time: “it leads to what I now call the ‘Solar Chord,’ one of the structural pillars of the work.”²⁸ The handwritten chord he sent to the poet in the aforementioned letter consisted of the notes (from low to high): ‘E’ ‘B’ ‘F#’ ‘C’ ‘G’ ‘A’ (the latter two octaves higher). As can be observed, this chord is almost identical, except for a transposition by a diminished fifth downward, to the one used in Audéeis, apart from the last note.
Nevertheless, Sotelo has referred on other occasions to what he called the “Solar Chord,” specifying pitch intervals that slightly differ from those illustrated in 1995. For example, when discussing the harmony of a more recent piece completed in 2007, Como llora el agua…,²⁹ the Madrid-based composer revealed:

The compositional process in this work began with the search for a Scordatura (modified tuning) that, distancing itself from conventional sonority, would constitute the harmonic center of the entire composition (C, G, D, G#, B, D#). That is, a sort of gravitational harmonic axis or “Solar Chord” within a system of “infinite suns” (Giordano Bruno).³⁰

Thus, we can see how these “columns” of fifths, although slightly different, share a common significance for Sotelo, being variations of his “Solar Chord.” Regarding the function that harmony plays in the Madrid-based composer’s musical production, it could be said that it is primarily a matter of color, although in some instances—when it becomes saturated—³¹ it also contributes to the creation of tension.
This coloristic conception of harmony is reinforced by his own words:

I have had a synesthetic relationship with music since I was very young, and in the end, I created an artificial system of colors. This helps me in what Luigi Nono pointed out: to forget writing in the act of composition and to have a freer mental trajectory.³²

The relationship between sound and color does not act only on the pitches he works with but extends to include silence itself. Regarding this, Sotelo claims to hear/see, referring to Valente’s poetry, the following:

Silence sounds sky blue—G, or the silent coloration of the note ‘G’. A slight vibration, of apparent infinite stillness, full of serene intensity, pointing towards the possible, open to the possible and to possibilities, in the verses of J. A. Valente.³³

This description is illustrated, for example, at the end of Chalan, where the final orchestral climax dissolves into the ethereal section that concludes the work. At the threshold of silence, Sotelo employs the indication “pizz. ‘celeste’” in the cello and double bass parts, as well as “celeste” in the ad libitum part of the percussion soloist (cymbal and bell tree).³⁴

Sunday, August 27, 2006
“A cantaor is characterized by singing, within a very limited range, with a rougher voice, full of micro-intervals, rich in florid arabesques—like those seen on one of those walls of the Alhambra. And it is in the apparent ‘dirtiness’ of the voice, in the infinite richness of nuances, of degrees of intensity, that, for me, the expressive power of those ‘broken’ lines resides.”³⁵

MELODIES READ IN THE WATER

The waters of Audéeis frequently pass along the voice of the cantaor, surrounding, cradling, or mirroring³⁶ the melodies with which he brings to life the popular flamenco texts and the poems of Valente, which are contrapuntally intertwined. This idea of “bringing to life,” of how the vibration of vowels and the melismatic richness of cante help to reveal the “soul of the word” latent in writing, “freeing it from the stone consonants,”³⁷ finds its roots in the singing of the Jewish tradition—a tradition that interested Nono and, consequently, also influenced Sotelo:³⁸

The Venetian philosopher [Massimo Cacciari] reminds us that an in-depth knowledge of the Torah can only be achieved by singing it. The vowel, the soul of the word, elevates the word in song above the body of the consonant, freeing it. It would not be possible to read the Torah without pronouncing this soul of the word, and this soul demands to be sung. In singing, the soul of writing is revealed. […] And it would be through this vocal-musical dimension that human language might gain a reflection or shadow of the divine language (Cacciari, 1985). This vocal space would be, for Nono, the space of listening and silence, a possible space or domain of infinite possibilities.³⁹

The flamenco melodies that Sotelo employs in Audéeis, and that form part of his sonic ocean, are characterized by long vocalizations—vocalic spaces—shaped through numerous or infinite possible melismas. Belén Pérez Castillo highlights the existing link between cante flamenco and memory in the Madrid-based composer’s music, emphasizing the plastic quality that envelops these melodies, “sculpted” in the air:⁴⁰

Sotelo proposes a reflection on listening and memory. […] In the voice of the cantaor, a note is like an open abyss, and thus, like a sculptor, he seeks to penetrate the memory of the cantaor and shape his voice.⁴¹

Nevertheless, in order to understand the tradition that now permeates the waters of his musical output, in order to shape the cantaor’s “abyssal” voice, Sotelo worked and studied closely with cante flamenco, particularly that of Enrique Morente, whose voice has been—and still is—decisive in the artistic maturation of the Madrid-based composer. Through spectral analyses of this voice, he was able to learn and incorporate into his own music the “apparent ‘dirtiness’ of the voice, the infinite richness of nuances, of degrees of intensity,” in which Sotelo finds “the expressive power of those ‘broken’ lines.”⁴²

As early as 1995, while working on his opera with José Ángel Valente, Sotelo highlighted the importance of Morente in his music:

An inner voice that takes shape in that of the cantaor Enrique Morente and that embodies the link between the purest oral tradition, the myth of the appearance of writing, and the magical arts of memory. Morente’s voice—previously recorded—weaves a sonic continuum, processed through electronic treatment, that extends in the space of the theater like a micro-intervallic sea in constant transformation; but not as an extended harmonic process, rather as an opening of sonic quality into infinite degrees of intensity, weight, and luminosity.⁴³

In Audéeis, Morente’s cante plays a fundamental role. The cantaor’s first intervention presents a faithful transcription of Morente’s voice, a transcription to which the string quartet adheres with the heterophony previously mentioned.⁴⁴ This is the Toná, an “antique” cante whose version sung by Morente⁴⁵ has been used by Sotelo on numerous occasions.⁴⁶ Below is the first verse of the Toná from the cantaor’s part, followed by a “simplification” of the melismatic microtonality to facilitate the study of the notes on which it is based.

As can be observed—in the chosen excerpt, but also in the rest of the Toná cited in Audéeis—, the voice of the cantaor rests on ‘D’, the fundamental note of the piece, as previously mentioned in the section on harmony.⁴⁷ The composer himself notes that the voice of the cantaor is “characterized by singing within a very limited range.”⁴⁸ In this case, the numerous melismas are shaped mainly around ‘D’ and ‘F/F#’, forming a richly detailed (infinitely possible) microtonal space within the small range of a major third.
However, the voice also imbues the pitches ‘C# ascending’ (as the leading tone of ‘D’) and, in the higher register, ‘G flattening’ (the subdominant). Thus, the narrow range of a third can extend slightly to include the diminished fifth (the tritone, specifically that of the dominant sonority of ‘D’: C#-G). Exceptionally, the pitches ‘low A’ (p. 12, b. 83) and ‘B’ (p. 17, b. 108) appear, with the latter being the highest note sung by the cantaor throughout the piece. This ‘B’ is sung at the climax of the Toná, in the long melisma that concludes the word «viñas» (vines).
Notably, the rhetorical indication accompanying this dynamic—reinforced by the rest of the quartet—is ff valiente.⁴⁹ I cannot help but find a certain reference to the surname of his esteemed poet Valente, especially considering that some scholars of Sotelo’s music have already pointed out, on other occasions, the composer’s rhetorical use of the surname “Morente.”⁵⁰
On the other hand, it is important to highlight the ambiguity that the use of a very limited range generates in the melody. The scale that Sotelo seems to employ in the Toná consists of the pitches: D E(Eb) F(F#) G A ? C#. It is not until the previously mentioned point, with the appearance of the high ‘B’, that we can glimpse the Dorian scale on ‘D’ upon which the Toná is built.⁵¹
Nevertheless, Sotelo also occasionally emphasizes ‘Eb’ and ‘F#’, recalling the augmented second and semitone (D-Eb) characteristic of the Andalusian Phrygian scale.⁵² It is interesting how Sotelo decides to work with a heterophonic (spectral) structure on the Toná melody because, as Ordoñez Eslava points out, «the Toná [is] a palo with free tempo in which, traditionally, the voice of the cantaor is the only thing that should be heard.»⁵³ In this way, Arcángel’s voice is, in part, “the only thing” that is heard, but it is surrounded by the lights and shadows projected in the heterophony of the string quartet.
At the beginning of Estremecido por el viento,⁵⁴ the solo violin piece that Sotelo wrote a year earlier, the same transcription of the Toná used in Audéeis can be observed. In the case of the violin piece, in addition to preserving the monodic character of the Toná, a “mental rhythm” (alla mente) is specified, which the violinist must internalize and imprint during their performance. This is yet another influence from Luigi Nono—an influence that, as Kropfinger has observed, was already present in earlier works by Sotelo, such as De Magia, written in 1995:

Material and atmosphere [of the second movement of De Magia⁵⁵] recall both the Andalusian cante ‘por Bulerías’ and Nono’s piece Contrappunto dialettico alla mente. It also evokes an important theme regarding the meaning and musicality of ‘walking’ as a means of advancing or transcending, […] an allusion both to the sculpture of Alberto Giacometti and to Luigi Nono in his piece for two violins “Hay que caminar” soñando.⁵⁶

Therefore, even though the Toná is «a palo with free tempo», it contains an implicit rhythm that becomes perceptible through accents and melodic contour—whether through the alla mente rhythm suggested to the violinist or through the cantaor’s flamenco memory.
The Bulería in Audéeis differs from the Toná by presenting a more syllabic melody. While some melismas are shaped in the cantaor’s voice, they are closer to the concept of neuma. As can be observed (p. 40, b. 365 and following), the text appears in a more intelligible way, adopting more melodic profiles where the use of stepwise (microtonal) motion predominates. The high ‘B’ that appeared in the Toná is replaced by a ‘Bb’, which, combined with the increased emphasis on the augmented second—resulting from the increased use of ‘Eb’ and ‘F#’ relative to ‘E’ and ‘F’—tinges the Bulería with an Andalusian Phrygian sonority, which, though hinted at in the Toná, appears here in a more explicit manner.
Nonetheless, a reduced vocal range is still used, limited to the interval of a minor sixth (D-Bb).
In the final Seguiriya, a more ornamented writing style is adopted, featuring numerous grace notes (either single or composed of several microtonal notes). Notably, the melody alternates between a higher register centered on ‘G#’ and ‘A’ (sometimes also ‘F#’), and another centered on ‘C#’ and ‘D’. From this, a dominant-tonic relationship can be deduced: leading tone of ‘A’ (‘G#’) and ‘A’, and leading tone of ‘D’ (‘C#’) and ‘D’.
At measure 496 (p. 52), we find the lowest note sung by the cantaor throughout the piece: a ‘G#’. Moreover, although the melodies remain relatively stable once they are centered—whether on the high ‘G#’ or the central ‘C#’—in transitional moments, the vocal range expands considerably, extending to the interval of a minor ninth between the low ‘G#’ and the ascending ‘A’ in the following measure.
One final consideration: while the Toná and the first part of the Seguiriya⁵⁷ are fairly faithful transcriptions of Enrique Morente’s cante, the Bulería seems to belong to what Sotelo designates in some scores as an ‘independent part’. Nevertheless, in this case, it appears to be written (or sketched) in its entirety, albeit with less precision.⁵⁸
As Ordoñez Eslava points out, in these ‘independent parts’, «the cantaor interprets the text as if it were a traditional flamenco text»,⁵⁹ and in some cases, they are not even written in the score. Consequently, the number of «instances in which the cantaor or vocal performer must execute what is written is minimal».⁶⁰ In the recording of Audéeis from the Salzburg Biennale,⁶¹ it can be observed how the “suggested” line in the Bulería section does not always match what Arcángel ultimately sings—giving priority to the cantaor’s freedom and memory rather than the accuracy of an invariant reproduction.
In cases where Valente’s poems are used, Sotelo does not resort to transcription or quotation; rather, he composes a new melody. As he has explained on other occasions: «It is a new line, a musical line that recreates and reinvents the dramatic quality of a traditional song—with an infinite palette of micro-qualities in the sound.»⁶²

Thursday, June 22, 2017
R.P.- What should be considered when interpreting Sotelo’s music?
Cañizares.- Rhythm. Like all rhythmic music—and Sotelo’s music is exactly that—if it is not performed with rhythm, it loses all its grace and character. To interpret his music, I believe this must be kept in mind above all else.»⁶³

THE RHYTHMS READ IN THE WATER

In the rhythm of Audéeis, the waters of the two traditions already mentioned throughout these pages converge, in particular the compases⁶⁴ of flamenco and the bols of traditional Indian music.⁶⁵ Assimilated by the Madrid-born composer, they have been fermented throughout his musical production until they became part of his fruitful ocean of sound. Sotelo himself expresses the relationship between both traditions when he reminds us that “a certain vocation [in Chalan and Night⁶⁶] to recover a precise rhythmic structure […] is inspired by the musical tradition of southern India,” emphasizing that “tradition situates here [in southern India] the origin of our flamenco.”⁶⁷
Iluminada Pérez Frutos has conducted a study on the rhythms and palos of flamenco used in Audéeis.⁶⁸ Before discussing the rhythmic structures of the three flamenco palos—Toná, Bulería, and Seguiriya—which cradle the waters of the examined work, it is necessary to clarify—taking as a reference the explanation proposed by Miguel Ángel Berlanga—the three types of rhythmic patterns on which flamenco is based:

Compás of tango (binary), Compás of fandango (ternary), Compás of 12-beat amalgama, the flamenco compás with the most distinctive personality. The compás of 12-beat amalgama has three ways of being performed: Compás of petenera/guajira, Compás of soleá, Compás of seguiriya.⁶⁹

Pérez Frutos illustrates the compás of 12-beat amalgama from the soleá group,⁷⁰ particularly the one corresponding to bulerías, presenting the two possible rhythmic groupings shown in Figure 7.

Moreover, we must take into account the flexibility that is sometimes adopted in relation to compases in flamenco, where something akin to rubato in European classical music is employed—a flexibility subordinated to the expressive and diction-related needs of cante. Berlanga sheds some light on this topic in the chapter on compás and flamenco sonority in his book El Flamenco: Arte Musical y de la Danza:

“The measurement of rhythm in flamenco does not function as a rigid grid in which cante, toque [playing], and baile [dance] must fit with metronomic precision: one does not sing (or play or dance) in function of the compás, but rather, it is at the service of musical expression. […] In flamenco musical expression, a particular tension emerges between rhythmic flexibility—especially in cante—and the exactness of the compás. When singing, the cantaor focuses on delivering the tercios [verses] or phrases of the cante effectively. If the structure of cantes is articulated primarily through melody, then the compás functions in service of musical phrasing, not the other way around. This is compatible with the fact that when singing for baile, the compás is as important as melodic phrasing. […]
With the guitar, the same occurs: it plays a key role in marking the compás, but not in an absolutely isochronous, rigid manner.”⁷¹

In Audéeis, three palos from the flamenco tradition are employed. Sotelo respects their character, thus preserving the essence that defines them. As Ordoñez Eslava describes, they include “palos with free rhythm such as Toná, slow-paced ones like Seguiriya, or festive ones like Bulería.”⁷² Referring to the latter, Sotelo emphasizes the necessity of preserving flamenco’s freshness:

“A bulería or a soleá is measured in twelve beats. We place the hendecasyllables in their proper place. We have worked extensively on this aspect with the text. We all move within the flamenco clave, to maintain freshness. Here, we are all flamencos.” ⁷³

The free—or mentally guided—rhythm that permeates Toná has already been discussed previously,⁷⁴ yet it is followed by what could be considered a Martinete,⁷⁵ whose melodic line is assigned to the first violin and the cello, both ‘singing’ in strict parallel motion two octaves apart. Arcángel does not intervene in this section, but the rhythm ‘percussed’ by the second violin and the viola through an accented articulation is noteworthy. ‘Percussed’—because it evokes the sound of the forge to which Martinete is traditionally linked, as Ordoñez Eslava previously observed in relation to Wall of Light, another work by the Madrid composer:

“This instrumental usage [Sotelo employs the anvil in the percussion of Wall of Light] inevitably alludes to the Martinete, a ‘work song associated with the forge,’ thus represented on stage ‘through the striking of tools’; hence, this object associated with the blacksmith’s trade is adopted as percussion, as rhythmic usage, because the singing submits to its compás.”⁷⁶

From measure 149 onwards (pp. 22-24), the cante of an “imagined flamenco voice” can be observed, recreated by the first violin and the cello, both ‘subjected’ to the forge-like rhythm struck by the second violin and the viola. Regarding this rhythmic structure, imprinted in the accents of the reiterated rising D, Pérez Frutos notes that it corresponds to a soleá por bulería, where “a hemiola of a 6/8 compás within a 3/4 compás” is employed.⁷⁷
Below, the reconstructed reduction of the quartet’s ‘resonance’—created by Pérez Frutos—is presented, illustrating the harmonic rhythm Sotelo applies in the final Seguiriya of Audéeis:⁷⁸

The influence of traditional Indian music began to form part of Sotelo’s sonic ocean starting “from the long journey of work undertaken together with the Indian tabla master Trilok Gurtu,”⁷⁹ who left a significant mark on the composition of Chalan—a mark that would later reappear in subsequent pieces of his musical production.⁸⁰ The Madrid composer assimilates not only certain Indian rhythmic patterns but also the use of the syllables—onomatopoeic and percussive—characteristic of this tradition, known as bol.⁸¹
These can be observed in the soloist’s part of Chalan (p. 37, mm. 124-125), where they are first presented using only the voice—spoken—and later combined with the percussion of the Indian tabla (which, after the transition, continues without the initial vocalization). In the case of Audéeis—though they had already been employed in Artemis⁸² —Sotelo once again incorporates Indian bol, albeit in a much subtler manner. The pianissimo dynamic, along with the rhetorical indication Geheimnisvoll (secret, mysterious), suggests a veiled presence of this material, as can be observed in measure 413 (p. 45) in the cello part: ta ke to Ton ki Daun…
Noteworthy is the possible connection between the term Geheimnisvoll used in Audéeis and the music of the Venetian master, particularly his string quartet Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima, about which Sotelo himself states:

“These ‘…geheimere Welt…’ or most secret world—as quoted in Hölderlin’s inscription that opens the first page of the quartet [by Luigi Nono]—would represent, for us, an initial testimony of the composer’s work, certifying the consummation of a decisive step in the conquest of a renewed space for listening.” ⁸³

This veiled use of the cellist’s voice, where the ‘secret’ syllables may go unnoticed upon a first—distracted—listening, only to reveal themselves as the listener’s attention increases—drawn by curiosity—partly recalls the aesthetic of José María Sánchez-Verdú, a contemporary composer of Mauricio Sotelo, who explains the relationship between his music and the Arabic ornamentation of the Alhambra:⁸⁴

“The use of whispered fragments, of poetic texts performed by the musicians, in my work serves a function similar to that of epigraphic texts in Nasrid art, to give an example. The texts that appear in almost every room of the Alhambra (verses and passages from the Quran, secular texts, etc.) serve not only an ornamental function but also a semantic one: the Muslim architect endowed each space—a garden, a fountain, a room—with semantic perspectives that may or may not be perceived by the visitor, yet they are part of the intrinsic ‘depth’ of each space, each chamber, each corner.”⁸⁵

Similarly, the Indian syllables used in Sotelo’s work—whether perceived by the listener or not—”are part of the ‘depth’ intrinsic to each sonic space.” To conclude this contemplation of the rhythmic structures that undulate the waters of Audéeis, I once again turn to the words of Cañizares, a flamenco guitarist who has collaborated on numerous occasions with the Madrid composer and whose words opened the ‘diary fragment’ of this section:

“With Sotelo, you always have your feet on the ground and your imagination soaring [dreaming!]. At any moment, you know that what you are hearing is a bulería or tangos, while your imagination is floating in a coherent sonic universe [ocean].”⁸⁶

February 1997
“It is born, as a remnant or sediment of every shipwreck, a new territory.
A territory that defines itself as a sort of internal, fragmentary writing, of which the scant traces in the score would be nothing more than the bare ‘diary of a wanderer’.” ⁸⁷

THE FORMAL CONSTRUCTION READ IN THE WATER

As the composer himself stated, Audéeis presents the listener with a poetic journey ⁸⁸—or at least the “few traces” that confirm said journey. The idea of a “walker’s diary” helps us understand a formal construction that is discovered or created along the path, the compositional process, rather than the—forced—application of preconceived formal structures in which music is sometimes “caged”: subjected to imposed technique instead of being found through Listening. Thus, the score-diary serves to record the footprints after the path has been traveled, acting as “a certain support for memory.”⁸⁹ Once again, we find ourselves before the influence of the Venetian composer: his final period— which permeates the waters of Sotelo’s sound ocean—draws from the poetry of Antonio Machado: “There is no path | the path is made by walking.” ⁹⁰

These well-known verses could be extrapolated, at least in the work in question, to the formal construction of music as: there is no preconceived form | form is discovered in the very process of composition. Following this hypothesis, we could also link the formal construction of Audéeis with the ideas of the French composer Edgard Varèse, who already defended form as a result rather than an imposition:

“To conceive musical form as a resultant—the result of a process—I was struck by what seemed to me an analogy between the formation of my compositions and the phenomenon of crystallization. […] ‘The form of the crystal is itself a resultant (the particular word I used in relation to musical form) rather than a primary attribute. The form of the crystal is the consequence of an interaction of attractive and repulsive forces and the ordered complexity of the atom.’ This, in my opinion, suggests better than any other explanation I [Varèse] could give the way in which my works are constructed.” ⁹¹

In Sotelo’s case, although the formal construction is outlined as the result of a poetic journey, the idea of crystallization put forth by Varèse requires clarification. The Madrid composer’s score can be considered a “crystallization” of his music, but not its absolute “crystallization.” For Sotelo, the score does not contain the music but rather serves to awaken the memory of the performers, as he states: “I have come to the conviction that music cannot be read from the score. I mean that it must be deciphered, its interiority stripped away, and the score can then be a slight support for memory.” ⁹²
Now, let us look at the different “stages”—recorded in the score-diary—through which the walker’s path in Audéeis passes. To this end, I take as a reference Sotelo’s words regarding Artemis, which can, in part, be applied to the work under examination. In turn, I refer once again to the “signposts”⁹³ that the composer himself offers us along the waters of Audéeis to mark the poetic journey presented here.
The journey begins with the “breath” or the formless—that which is not yet created— (p. 1, bb. 1-13), an opening at the threshold of silence where a delicate pointillism combines with the tonlos technique, which acts as the quartet’s “breath.” Over this initial material, a new one is layered, introducing the “marine resonances: the rustling of air or the ‘breath’ of the waves” (WELLENARTIG: pp. 2-9, bb. 14-62), and sets in motion—through the continuous flow of the strings—⁹⁴ the initial atmosphere, which had been rather static until now. As previously suggested, both “stages” can be considered reworkings of the same fragment from Chalan.⁹⁵
The “marine” section gives way—after a brief pause in this case—to the “tremendous voice or lamenting song, cry, or Quejío” (TONÁ: pp. 9-29, bb. 63-235), which presents the cantaor’s first intervention. However, this section can itself be subdivided into two: the initial Toná (a transcription of Enrique Morente’s singing)⁹⁶ and the subsequent Martinete, which coincides with the indication “appassionato” (in this case, without Arcángel’s presence). Toná and Martinete had already appeared in the solo violin piece Estremecido por el viento,⁹⁷ yet from measure 179 (p. 25) onward in Audéeis, Sotelo seems to take up (rework)—as a transition—one of the final sections of Chalan⁹⁸ before leading into the “remember!” (pp. 28-29, bb. 233-235)⁹⁹ that precedes the “rapid, stony rhythm (un rêve de pierre)” (BULERÍA: pp. 29-49, bb. 235-484). ¹⁰⁰
Notably, at measure 235 (p. 29), the waters of Audéeis blend in an overlapping of materials—the coda of “ricorda!” and the first sounds of the ‘percussive’ (soundless) quartet—thus softening the transition. Moreover, if we trace back the (percussive) material already hinted at in mm. 174-177 (p. 24), a material that had previously been connected to the solo violin piece, we can relate it to the first string quartet, Degli eroici furori, particularly to the section titled Bulería ‘homage to Helmut Lachenmann’.¹⁰¹
Thus, in Audéeis, certain materials that belong to the Bulería are anticipated as a form of preparation in the preceding sections. This “stone-like rhythm”, although in Audéeis it is also presented alongside the voice of the cantaor¹⁰² (after the percussion of the cajón flamenco and palmas), is followed by the “resonance of what was once a vibrant voice” (SEGUIRIYA: pp. 50-59, mm. 485-536). This resonance begins to subtly emerge from measure 400 (p. 44) onward, gradually permeating the material of the quartet until it completely dissolves the previously established ‘percussion.’ In this way, the transition from the percussive Bulería to the resonant (harmonic) Seguirya occurs gradually.
“What was once a vibrant voice” presents in Audéeis, through the technique of palimpsest, the real voice of the cantaor (again, a partial transcription of Morente’s cante),¹⁰³ constituting yet another difference from Artemis. Later, when Arcángel’s voice fades away, enveloped in the delicate resonance of the string quartet, Sotelo concludes the poetic journey “to the impulse, to the breath, to the silence, to the open (ins freie…), to the open and the possible” (NACHDENKLICH: pp. 59-61, mm. 537-567). At this point, without the presence of the cantaor, the quartet ‘dialogues’ in deep reflection,¹⁰⁴ with traces of fifths—recalling Luigi Nono’s piece “Hay que caminar” soñando—¹⁰⁵ until it fades away, leaving space for the initial timbre at the threshold of silence.
Both limits close to silence—the beginning and the end of Audéeis—also share a characteristic rhythmic structure, which is presented latently, as if it were a hint that will later blossom, or the remnants that remain after the journey—following Sotelo’s words—that “are born after each shipwreck.”¹⁰⁶ If we ‘reconstruct’ the rhythm distributed between the string quartet instruments in both cases,¹⁰⁷ (bearing in mind the hochetus technique that the composer employs in other sections of the work), we find the structure that characterizes the palo of the Seguiriya, particularly the rhythmic cells corresponding to the 6/8 meter.¹⁰⁸
To briefly comment on the function of this rhythmic thread running throughout Audéeis, I quote a passage from Chapter 82 of Rayuela, in which Julio Cortázar—through Morelli (his alter ego in the novel)—reflects on writing and its form, linking both to rhythm:

“There are fragments, impulses, blocks, and everything seeks a form, then rhythm [swing] comes into play, and I write within this rhythm, I write for it, moved by it and not by what they call thought, which makes prose, literary or otherwise.”¹⁰⁹

Thus, one could understand the formal construction as the result of a poetic journey which, in the case of Audéeis, is upheld by the coherence of the underlying flamenco rhythm, even in those sections of the piece where the presence of flamenco is not so evident. The traveler’s passage begins with the latent-Seguiriya and culminates in the Seguiriya-sediment of the shipwreck.¹¹⁰
With due distinctions, one might compare the rhythm of swing that comes into play in Cortázar’s writing—when ‘the whole’ seeks a form—to the flamenco rhythm that underpins Audéeis, the underlying rhythm throughout the poetic journey of Sotelo’s composition.
To conclude, let us once again focus, as has already been mentioned in these pages,¹¹¹ on the differences between Audéeis and Artemis, that is, let us turn our gaze to the unique aspects of Audéeis that emerged with the inclusion of the figure of the cantaor flamenco. On one hand, the presence of Arcángel’s voice also entailed the inclusion of various texts selected by Sotelo (traditional flamenco texts and poems by José Ángel Valente).¹¹² These flamenco melodies—added as a palimpsest onto the ‘base’ of Artemis—¹¹³ introduced a new layer, not only in terms of timbre but also in meaning and phonetics.
On the other hand, the layer added by the cantaor also led to some subtle structural variations due to the addition of several measures in Audéeis compared to Artemis. Up until Arcángel’s first entrance at measure 68 (p. 9), both works remain structurally unchanged.¹¹⁴ Then, with the cantaor‘s entrance, the first fermata appears, and the rests in Artemis—on many occasions—become G.P. (grand pause) in Audéeis.
Later, in the Bulería (p. 29, m. 135), the presence of the cajón brings about some changes to the percussive materials of the string quartet. For instance, at the beginning of this section, the triple repetition of two measures in Artemis (p. 25, mm. 235-236) is applied to only one measure in Audéeis (p. 29, m. 236); the percussive measures 303-306 (p. 29) of the first violin in Artemis change in Audéeis (pp. 33-34), where the ‘new’ material serves to prepare the note D, with which the cantaor‘s voice begins at measure 306 (p. 34); or the percussive material of measures 373-377 is reworked in Audéeis (p. 41), slightly increasing the rhythmic density of the quartet.
Nevertheless, no alterations in the measure count occur between the two works until the Seguiriya (m. 485). From this point on, however, several measures begin to be added—up to a total of twelve—where Arcángel’s voice takes on an increasingly prominent role: M. 485 (added measure: 3/4 with fermata), M. 490 (the 6/8 measure is replaced by a 4/4 measure), M. 496 (the resonance of the string quartet extends for the entire measure), MM. 497-498 (added measures: only with the cantaor‘s voice), MM. 529-536 (added measures: final intervention of the cantaor—together with the resonance of the quartet—re-exposing the first verse of the last poem by José Ángel Valente).¹¹⁵
Finally, the last measure of Audéeis, also added, presents a sort of synthesis of the piece’s initial measures, particularly m. 2 (violins) and m. 6 (viola and cello). This reinforces the hinted cyclicality of the journey undertaken throughout the poetic course.

Darmstadt, July 1972
“Sound, in itself, is an ocean of endless vibrations.”¹¹⁶

III. REFLECTIONS ON THE SONIC OCEAN

We reach the end of our journey through the waters of Audéeis. In these navigated pages, we have been able to contemplate the various pillars on which the work under examination is built, as well as approach the fertile poetics of Mauricio Sotelo, where numerous musical and extra-musical references continue to ferment today in the seabed of his compositions. These references remain faithful to the music of his mentor, Nono, to the poetry of his esteemed Valente, or to the voice—”a recreation of memory, an important recollection”—¹¹⁷ of the cantaor Morente. They contribute to the slow formation of Sotelo’s music, which, like a resin, secretes itself, enriching its own sonic ocean. Continuing with Valente’s words: “writing is not making, but settling, being.” As we have seen, the music of Audéeis originates from the previous version for string quartet—Artemis—; it is not, therefore, music that is ‘made’ but rather inhabited, revisited.

Throughout this analysis, the reflections presented by Luciano Berio in his lecture focused on the “poetics of analysis,” later published posthumously in his book Un ricordo al futuro,¹¹⁸ have been considered. In particular, the necessity of contextualizing the work under analysis—that is, not forgetting the sonic ocean to which it belongs. Berio addresses this necessity by warning us of the following:

“Nowadays, it often happens that, even in the case of penetrating and, so to speak, scientific analyses, the analyst does not concern themselves with placing the work under examination within an evolutionary chronology of the composer: that is, within the perspective of their poetics. It is precisely this tendency towards atemporality that makes analysis an open and creative experience, but it can also become useless when the one conducting it struggles with conceptualizing something that does not exist.”¹¹⁹

Thus, the numerous references made throughout these pages to works from Sotelo’s output preceding Audéeis—Artemis (2004), Estremecido por el viento (2003), Chalan (2003), Degli eroici furori (2001-2002), among others—serve to place the work under examination within the “perspective of the poetics” of the Madrid-born composer.¹²⁰ As we have seen, these works are essential to understanding certain sections of Audéeis, where Sotelo reworks entire sections, revisiting the waters of his own sonic ocean.

We conclude—as if this were another fragment of the ‘diary of a wanderer’—with the words of Mauricio Sotelo in response to a question from Camilo Irizo:

Thursday, January 17, 2008
C.I.: Flamenco is not just interpreted; it is lived, a philosophy of life. In that sense, we classical musicians—where do we stand?
Sotelo: We learn to “walk dreaming,” as Nono would say.¹²¹

1. 1. ORDÓNEZ ESLAVA, ‘La creación musical de Mauricio…’, op. cit., pp. 194-195. «although not in an absolute sense in that it does not decisively define the compositional material, to certain processes of the French spectral school» [Author’s Translation]. The author points out that «this movement [spectralism], born from the experiences of Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail, among other composers, in Paris in the 1970s, proposes the analytical study of the physical-harmonic spectrum of sound and its direct use as a compositional object» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
2. 2. SOTELO, ‘Memoriæ’, op. cit. «spectral analysis of the voices of ancient flamenco cantes, especially in the forms of Toná and Martinete» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
3. 3. Ibid. «two of the most ‘ancient’ and intense forms of cante hondo» [Author’s Translation]. The Toná and the Martinete appear in Audéeis, see the sections of this analysis focused on rhythm and formal construction, pp. 36-41 and pp. 42-46 respectively. ↩︎
4. 4. GERMAN GAN QUESADA, ‘Mauricio Sotelo. Música extremada’, XXIV Festival de Música de Canarias, Las Palmas de Gran Canarias, Festival de Música de Canarias, 2008, pp. 308–347. Quoted in ESCOBAR, ‘Valente en clave…’, op. cit. ↩︎
5. 5. Ibid., p. 36. «the silent and electroacoustic line of Cage and Stockhausen and IRCAM in the light of Saariaho, Lindberg, or Benjamin» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
6. 6. Ibid. «tools in the process of recording and analyzing the sound wave» [Author’s Translation]. For example, «ProTools or Melodyne». ↩︎
7. 7. ANDRÉS IBÁÑEZ, ‘Mauricio Sotelo en siete piezas’. Mauricio Sotelo. De oscura llama, Madrid, INAEM-Anemos, 2009, pp. 18-22, p. 18. «cultivo sistemático de la impureza» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
8. 8. SUSANE STÄHR, ‘El amor se aparta del tiempo. El teatro musical de Mauricio Sotelo en De Amore’, program notes for the premiere in Munich of the opera De Amore, una maschera di cenere (1996-1999) by Mauricio Sotelo, 1999, p. 24. Quoted in ORDÓNEZ ESLAVA, ‘La creación musical de Mauricio…’, op. cit., p. 187. «No me interesa el folclore de cultura purista, como se nos ha transmitido en la mayor parte de la tradición. He tomado de él las firmes normas rítmicas y las escalas de microtonos, que pueden ser extraídas del flamenco y llevadas a otros determinados mundos afectivos.» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
9. 9. In the words of the Madrid composer, «it will become rapid stony rhythm (un rêve de pierre)». ↩︎
10. 10. The case of Audéeis coincides with the hypothetical example proposed by Sotelo: «That is, if I am in ‘D’ […] I will use the spectrum of the tonic and the fifth, the ‘D’ and the ‘A’. At this point, I will start working with spectral filters». See the ‘fragment of a diary’ that opens this part of the analysis, p. 22. ↩︎
11. 11. This pedal appears (almost continuously) extending for about 56 measures, pp. 49-59, bb. 484-540, being uninterrupted from b. 528 to b. 536. ↩︎
12. 12. They recall – although in a lower register – the last partials of the harmonic spectrum in which microtonal intervals ‘pile up’, resembling a glissando, although in this case, this glissando is articulated. On the other hand, considering the influence of Indian music already presented at the rhythmic level by Chalan, one can also find – at the melodic-harmonic level – a certain similarity with Indian microtonal ragas in which intervals are divided into several microtones. On the use of this tradition in a contemporary context, see IVÁN CÉSAR MORALES FLORES, ‘Louis Aguirre: avant-garde del afrocubanismo desde la diaspora musical cubana de finales del siglo XX y principios del XXI’, Espacio Sonoro, no. 41, 2017. In works by Cuban composer Louis Aguirre such as Ochosi (2010), there is a «microtonal pitch organization [that] responds to the invention of a twenty-four-sound scale, conceived by the composer from knowledge of the Raga system of Carnatic music […] and his own foundational Western thought» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
13. 13. ORDÓNEZ ESLAVA, ‘La creación musical de Mauricio…’, op. cit., pp. 127-128. Regarding the statements on which the author relies, see ANTONIO Y DAVID HURTADO TORRES, La llave de la música flamenca, Sevilla, Signatura Ediciones, 2009. «característicos de la escala modal frigia andaluza» [Author’s Translation] ↩︎
14. 14. In this third part, the instruments always start from their own note (p. 5, b. 38 and ff.). Later (p. 7, b. 50 and ff.), the cello’s multifonic, belonging to the ‘D’ spectrum used at the beginning of Audéeis, is also resumed. ↩︎
15. 15. As already indicated by Ordoñez Eslava referring to Chalan: «It is possible to observe on numerous occasions specific pitches that appear clearly written, but whose perception is filtered by the manner and speed of their emission, as is evident in measures 39 and following of Chalan» [Author’s Translation], in ORDÓNEZ ESLAVA, ‘La creación musical de Mauricio…’, op. cit., p. 197. ↩︎
16. 16. See the section of this analysis focused on sonority. ↩︎
17. 17. SOTELO, ‘Chalan’, op. cit., p. 20. ↩︎
18. 18. SOTELO, ‘Audéeis’, op. cit., pp. 8-9. ↩︎
19. 19. Note: The pitch of the multifonic is not tempered. ↩︎
20. 20. See the section of this analysis focused on sonority. ↩︎
21. 21. Sotelo had already observed this timbral-dynamic work in Nono’s music; see the section of this analysis focused on sonority, particularly p. 19. Later, he referred to this type of work in his own music: «It is about, later on, creating (recreating, reinterpreting, and reinventing) lines with the dramatic quality of those cantes […] whose ‘spectrum’-spirit (harmonic structure) is also composed or created through the elaboration of shadows and lights» [Author’s Translation], in SOTELO, ‘Memoriæ’, op. cit. ↩︎
22. 22. As a prelude to this material, one of these features appears first in the second violin (p. 47, bb. 451-454), although in this case the interval used is the seventh. ↩︎
23. 23. «María Zambrano is right, in her wise understanding of music, […] when she refers to the ‘notes of the instrument’s tuning’, as the starting point of the harmonic organization of Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto» [Author’s Translation], in SOTELO, ‘Memoriæ’, op. cit. This last work by Berg is among some of the examples collected by the Madrid composer when reflecting on naturalness in music, both the «natural voice» of the cantaor and «the notes of the tuning» of the violin. For the essay by the philosopher to which Sotelo refers, see MARÍA ZAMBRANO, ‘La condenación aristotélica de los pitagóricos’, El hombre y lo divino, México DF, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1955. ↩︎
24. 24. LUIGI NONO, “Hay que caminar” soñando, Italy, Casa Ricordi, 1989. ↩︎
25. 25. SOTELO, ‘Luigi Nono o el…’, op. cit., p. 25. «–además de distintas zonas del espectro armónico más fuertemente iluminadas que la propia nota fundamental, que en muchos casos desaparece– incluso pequeñas variaciones u oscilaciones microinterválicas» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
26. 26. Throughout the second movement of “Hay que caminar” soñando, various variations of this motif appear – ascending variations, but also descending ones. ↩︎
27. 27. In Figure 4, it can be observed how the ‘B♭’ of the cello passes directly to a ‘C’ in the second violin, “skipping” the intermediate ‘F’ that would imply a passage through fifths. ↩︎
28. 28. ESCOBAR, ‘Valente en clave…’, op. cit., p. 29. «conduce a lo que yo ya denomino ‘Acorde solar’, una de las columnas estructurales de la obra» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
29. 29. MAURICIO SOTELO, Como llora el agua…, UE 33 969, Vienna, Universal Edition, 2007. ↩︎
30. 30. SOTELO, ‘Entrevista Mauricio Sotelo – Sean Scully’, op. cit., p. 5. «El proceso compositivo en la presente obra comienza con la búsqueda de una Scordatura (afinación modificada) que, alejada de la sonoridad convencional, conforma el centro armónico de toda la composición (Do, Sol, re, sol#, si, re#). Esto es, una suerte de eje armónico gravitatorio o ‘Acorde Solar’ dentro de un sistema de ‘infinitos soles’ (Giordano Bruno)» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
31. 31. SOTELO, ‘Audéeis’, op. cit., p. 47, b. 443 or p. 49, b. 484, to cite just two examples. ↩︎
32. 32. ROJO DÍAZ, ‘Entrevista a Mauricio…’, op. cit. «Yo tengo una relación sinestésica con la música desde que era muy pequeño, y finalmente he creado un sistema artificial de colores. Eso me ayuda a lo que me indicó Luigi Nono, a olvidarme de la escritura en el acto de la composición y a tener una trayectoria mental más libre» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
33. 33. PRIETO, ‘Entrevista con Mauricio…’, op. cit. «Suena azul celeste [el silencio] –G, o silente coloración de la nota ‘sol’–. Una leve vibración, de aparente quietud infinita, plena de serena intensidad, apuntando a lo posible, abierto a lo posible y los posibles, en verso de J. A. Valente.» [Author’s Translation]. In response to the question: «What does silence sound like?» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
34. 34. SOTELO, ‘Chalan’, op. cit., p. 55. ↩︎
35. 35. SOTELO, ‘Entrevista Mauricio Sotelo – Sean Scully’, op. cit., pp. 8-9. «Un cantaor sin embargo se caracteriza por cantar, en un ámbito muy limitado, con una voz más áspera, llena de micro-intervalos, rica en floridos arabescos, –como los que se ven en uno de esos muros de la Alhambra–. Y es en la aparente ‘suciedad’ de la voz, en la riqueza infinita de matices, de grados de intensidad, en donde radica, para mí, la potencia expresiva de esas líneas ‘rotas’» [Author’s Translation]. (*) The date corresponds to the release of the CD in which the interview between both artists appears in the program notes. ↩︎
36. 36. See the section of this analysis focused on sonority, pp. 14-21. ‘Heterophony’, ‘Cante (accompanied melody)’, and ‘«Resonance of what was once a vibrating voice»’ respectively. ↩︎
37. 37. In Iluminada Perez Frutos’s article, the following reference to the consonant as stone is collected: «According to the Jews, the Torah (or the five books of Moses) was originally composed of a succession of consonants without vocalization or division into chapters. It is the Mute Word, unspoken, enclosed within the letter, like a dry stone. It is the ‘closed book’» [Author’s Translation], in ILUMINADA PÉREZ FRUTOS, “Tratamiento de la voz. Tradición oral en la obra de Mauricio Sotelo, Papeles del Festival de Música Española de Cádiz, no. 3, 2007, pp. 139-160, p. 141. This stony reference can be connected with Sotelo’s words when he refers to the rhythmic section of Artemis (and therefore, partly to that of Audéeis), in which the ‘vocalic space’ is suspended, being succeeded by a «rapid stony rhythm (un rêve de pierre)». Cit. in SOTELO, ‘Memoriæ’, op. cit. ↩︎
38. 38. PÉREZ FRUTOS, ‘Tratamiento de la voz…’, op. cit. ↩︎
39. 39. SOTELO, ‘Memoria, signo y canto…’, op. cit., p. 141. «Nos recuerda el filósofo veneciano que un conocimiento profundo de la Torah sólo puede ser alcanzado cantándola. La vocal, alma de la palabra, eleva a la palabra en el canto por encima del cuerpo de la consonante, la libera. No sería posible leer la Torah sin pronunciar esta alma de la palabra, y esta alma exige ser cantada. En el canto se revela el alma de la escritura. […] Y sería a través de esta dimensión vocálico-musical por la que el lenguaje humano podría acceder a poseer un reflejo o sombra de la lengua divina (Cacciari, 1985). Ese espacio vocálico sería para Nono el espacio de la escucha y del silencio, espacio posible o dominio de los infiniti possibili» [Author’s Translation]. Note: The suggestion «through which human language could access and possess a reflection or shadow of the divine language» summarizes the meaning of the title Audéeis. See the section of this analysis focused on texts, pp. 9-13. ↩︎
40. 40. ‘Roots of the air’, as Sotelo would say. ↩︎
41. 41. BELÉN PÉREZ CASTILLO, ‘Sotelo Cancino, Mauricio’, Emilio Casares (dir.), Diccionario de la Música Española e Hispanoamericana, Madrid, Sociedad General de Autores y Editores, vol. 7, 1999-2001, pp. 36-39, p. 37. Cit. in ORDÓNEZ ESLAVA, ‘La creación musical de Mauricio…’, op. cit., p. 112. «Sotelo propone una reflexión sobre la escucha y la memoria. […] en la voz del cantaor, una nota es como un abismo abierto, y por ello, a la manera de un escultor, trata de penetrar en la memoria del cantaor y moldear su voz» [Author’s Translation]. The idea of an ‘open abyss’ certainly draws from Valente’s poetics: ‘abysmal writing’. ↩︎
42. 42. SOTELO, ‘Entrevista Mauricio Sotelo – Sean Scully’, op. cit., pp. 8-9. «aparente ‘suciedad’ de la voz, la riqueza infinita de matices, de grados de intensidad» [Author’s Translation], «la potencia expresiva de esas líneas ‘rotas’» [Author’s Translation]. See the ‘diary fragment’ that opens this section of the analysis. ↩︎
43. 43. MAURICIO SOTELO, s/t, Sibila, no. 3, 1995, p. 5. Cit. in ORDÓNEZ ESLAVA, ‘La creación musical de Mauricio…’, op. cit., p. 220. «Voz interior que se hace cuerpo en la del cantaor Enrique Morente, y que personifica el vínculo entre la más pura tradición oral, el mito de la aparición de la escritura y las artes mágicas de la memoria. La voz de Morente –previamente grabada– va tejiendo un continuum sonoro –elaborado por medio de tratamiento informático– que se extiende, en el espacio del Teatro, como un mar micro-interválico en continua mutación; pero no como proceso armónico extendido sino como despliegue de la calidad sonora en infinitos grados de intensidad, peso y luminosidad» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
44. 44. See the section of this analysis focused on sonority. ↩︎
45. 45. ENRIQUE MORENTE, Soy un pozo de fatigas (Martinete y toná), Original Sound Recording, EMI Music Spain, S.A. Madrid (Spain), 1969, (2015 Remastered), see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFaRCdb8z94 [last accessed: January 15, 2025]. ↩︎
46. 46. Estremecido por el viento (2003), Audéeis (2004), Wall of light red (2004), De oscura llama (2008), to mention just a few. ↩︎
47. 47. See the section of this analysis focused on harmony. ↩︎
48. 48. See the ‘diary fragment’ that opens this section of the analysis, p. 29. «caracteriza por cantar en un ámbito muy limitado» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
49. 49. Note: Throughout the piece, rhetorical indications appear in Italian (e.g., appassionato) or in German (e.g., nachdentlich), while in this case, it is a Spanish indication. ↩︎
50. 50. See ESCOBAR, ‘Valente en clave…’, op. cit., p. 33. «[…] so much so that Morente would be an essential reference in Sotelo’s musical writing, mainly during the 1990s when they worked together. This is concretized in works such as Su un oceano di scampanelli for solo piano (1994-1995), with resonances of Ungaretti and the indication ‘lento, intenso, Morente’» [Author’s Translation] and PEDRO ORDÓÑEZ ESLAVA, ‘Elogio de la apropiación. Prácticas impuras, flamenco y creación contemporánea’, Cuadernos de música iberoamericana, vol. 32, January-December, Universidad de Granada, 2019, pp. 95-114, p. 108. Referring to the work El Publico: «From a conceptual point of view, Sotelo’s use of the surname Morente is striking. Throughout the score, he inserts this word as an indication of character and, at the same time, as a musical offering to the figure of the cantaor, in a sort of intertextuality veiled to the listener, even if necessarily ‘interpreted’ by the orchestra. This happens with ‘Morente-Lorca’ […] or with ‘morente agonizante’ and ‘morente intenso’» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
51. 51. Agustín Gómez cites Hipólito Rossy, «la Toná passa per il modo dorico con scappate transitorie ma evidenti verso note di distinta tonalità per fare cadenze sulla fondamentale del modo dorico che la regge. Si canta con ritmo libero, o più accuratamente, senza sottomissione di compás» [Author’s Translation] in ÁGUSTÍN GÓMEZ, Cantes y estilos del flamenco, Córdoba, Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Córdoba, 2004, pp. 91-91. Cit. in ORDÓNEZ ESLAVA, ‘La creación musical de Mauricio…’, op. cit., p. 168. ↩︎
52. 52. See the section of this analysis focused on harmony. ↩︎
53. 53. ORDÓNEZ ESLAVA, ‘La creación musical de Mauricio…’, op. cit., p. 168. «la toná [es] un palo de compás libre en el que, tradicionalmente, es la voz del cantaor lo único que debe oírse» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
54. 54. Note: The measures shown in Figure 5 correspond to measures 9-15 of the piece for solo violin. In reality, the complete section of Audéeis in which the transcription of the Toná appears comes from a reworking of the same – through a heterophonic process – which already constituted the first part of Estremecido por el viento. ↩︎
55. 55. The movement bears the subtitle «El Paseante (l’homme qui marche), por bulería ‘alla mente’», see MAURICIO SOTELO, De Magia, UE 30 254, Vienna, Universal Edition, 1995. ↩︎
56. 56. KLAUS KROPFINGER, ‘Infinita siembra’, Sibila, no. 5, Seville, 1996, pp. 36-37, p. 36. Cit. in ORDÓNEZ ESLAVA, ‘La creación musical de Mauricio…’, op. cit., p. 187. «Material y atmósfera [del segundo movimiento de De Magia] traen a la memoria tanto el cante andaluz por ‘Bulerías’ como la obra de Nono Contrappunto dialettico alla mente. Se evoca también un importante motivo en cuanto al significado y a lo musical de ‘el caminar’ como avanzar o trascender, […] una alusión tanto a la plástica de Alberto Giacometti como a Luigi Nono en su obra para dos violines Hay que caminar soñando» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
57. 57. ENRIQUE MORENTE, Pago con la vida (Seguiriyas de Jerez), Original Sound Recording, EMI Music Spain, S.A. Madrid (Spain), 1969, (2015 Remastered), see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW4fhd817Vg [last accessed: January 15, 2025]. ↩︎
58. 58. Note: The vocal part of Arcángel, unlike what happens in the rest of the piece, does not present any dynamic indications throughout the Bulería. ↩︎
59. 59. ORDÓNEZ ESLAVA, ‘La creación musical de Mauricio…’, op. cit., p. 221. «el cantaor interpreta el texto como una letra flamenca más» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
60. 60. Ibid., p. 222. «casos en que el cantaor o el intérprete vocal debe ejecutar lo que está escrito es menor» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
61. 61. MAURICIO SOTELO, ‘Audéeis’, Salzburg Biennale: Festival for New Music 2009, NEOS Music, 2013, see https://youtu.be/9X3yml9wf-8 [last accessed: January 15, 2025]. ↩︎
62. 62. MAURICIO SOTELO, Muros de dolor… V: José Ángel Valente – memoria sonora, Mauricio Sotelo. Universal Edition [online]. «se trata de una nueva, una línea musical que recrea y reinventa la cualidad dramática del cante tradicional –con una paleta infinita de micro-cualidades en el sonido» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
63. 63. PRIETO, ‘Entrevista con Cañizares’, op. cit. «R. P.- ¿Qué es importante tener en cuenta cuando se interpreta la música de Sotelo? | Cañizares.- El ritmo. Como toda la música rítmica y la de Sotelo lo es, si no se interpreta con ritmo pierde toda la gracia y el carácter. Para interpretar su música esto creo que hay que tenerlo muy en cuenta» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
64. 64. Berlanga notes that «the word compás [tempo, rhythm] has different (although related) meanings in flamenco and in Western music of written tradition. Simplifying, we can identify the compás […] in the flamenco sense as a rhythmic cycle. […] In flamenco, a distinction is made between cantes a compás [measured songs] and cantes libres [free songs]. Cantes a compás are those whose rhythm is clearly marked (more or less, depending on the cases). Cantes libres are those performed without a defined rhythm; they are free, declamatory, or ad libitum» [Author’s Translation], in MIGUEL A. BERLANGA, El Flamenco, un Arte Musical y de la Danza, Universidad de Granada, 2017. ↩︎
65. 65. For a brief explanation of the term ‘bol’. ↩︎
66. 66. MAURICIO SOTELO, Night, UE 33 987, Vienna, Universal Edition, 2007. ↩︎
67. 67. SOTELO, ‘Muros…’, op. cit., pp. 3-4, in ORDÓNEZ ESLAVA, ‘La creación musical de Mauricio…’, op. cit., p. 125. «una cierta vocación [en Chalan y Night] por recuperar una textura rítmica precisa […] se inspira en la tradición musical del sur de la India», «la tradición sitúa aquí [en el sur de la India] el origen de nuestro flamenco» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
68. 68. See PÉREZ FRUTOS, ‘Tratamiento de la voz…’, op. cit., particularly the final section, pp. 18-20. ↩︎
69. 69. BERLANGA, ‘El Flamenco, un Arte…’, op. cit. «compás de tango (binario), compás de fandango (ternario) y compás de amalgama de 12, el compás flamenco con más personalidad distintiva. El compás de amalgama de 12 tiempos, tiene a su vez tres modos de hacerse: compás de petenera/guajira, compás de soleá y compás de seguiriya» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
70. 70. PÉREZ FRUTOS, ‘Tratamiento de la voz…’, op. cit., p. 18. ↩︎
71. 71. BERLANGA, ‘El Flamenco, un Arte…’, op. cit. «La medición del ritmo en el flamenco no funciona como un marco cuadriculado en el que cante, toque y baile tengan que enmarcarse con la precisión de un metrónomo: no se canta (o toca o baila) en función del compás, sino que éste está al servicio de la expresión musical. […] En la expresión musical flamenca se hace presente una particular tensión entre flexibilidad rítmica – especialmente en el cante – y la exactitud del compás. Cuando canta, el cantaor tiene en mente decir bien los tercios o frases del cante. Si la estructura de los cantes se articula principalmente a través de la melodía, entonces el compás está en función del fraseo musical, y no al revés. Esto es compatible con el hecho de que cuando se canta para el baile, el compás es tan importante como el fraseo melódico. […] Con la guitarra sucede otro tanto: juega un papel clave para marcar el compás, pero no lo marca de manera absolutamente isócrona, cuadriculada» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
72. 72. ORDÓNEZ ESLAVA, ‘La creación musical de Mauricio…’, op. cit., p. 221. «palos de ritmo libre como la toná, de tempo lento como la seguiriya o tan ‘festeros’ como la bulería» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
73. 73. SOTELO, ‘Soy compositor…’, op. cit. «[…] una bulería o una solea se cuentan en doce tiempos. Los endecasílabos los metemos en su sitio. Este tipo de cosas las hemos trabajado mucho con el texto. Nos movemos todos en clave flamenca, para mantener la frescura. Aquí somos todos flamencos» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
74. 74. See the section of this analysis focused on melody. ↩︎
75. 75. Pérez Frutos already indicates decisively: «Toná, poi viene trasformata in Martinete» [Author’s Translation], in PEREZ FRUTOS, ‘Tratamiento de la voz…’, op. cit., p. 16, as well as this popular text chosen by Sotelo for Audéeis which opens with the indication «Toná y Martinete». On the other hand, in De Oscura llama, a piece composed for ensemble and completed in 2008, this same passage is used again – Toná y Martinete – presenting on this occasion the title «Martinete de medianoche» (Midnight Martinete), see MAURICIO SOTELO, De oscura llama, UE 34 642, Vienna, Universal Edition, 2008, p. 142. ↩︎
76. 76. ORDÓNEZ ESLAVA, ‘La creación musical de Mauricio…’, op. cit., p. 173, refers to GÓMEZ, ‘Cantes y estilos…’, op. cit., p. 106. «This instrumental use [Sotelo uses the anvil in percussion] inevitably refers to martinete, a ‘work song associated with the forge,’ so it is proposed on stage ‘with the striking of the tools’; hence, this object associated with the blacksmith’s work is adopted as percussion with rhythmic use, as the singing submits to its rhythm» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
77. 77. PEREZ FRUTOS, ‘Tratamiento de la voz…’, op. cit., p. 20. «Hemiola of a 6/8 rhythm in a 3/4 measure» [Author’s Translation]. Regarding the term ‘hemiola’: «In the modern metric system, it denotes the articulation of two units of triple meter as if they were written as three units of duple meter» [Author’s Translation], according to Julian Rushton, “‘Hemiola,’ in Grove Music Online. ↩︎
78. 78. For the development of figure 8, we have taken as the starting point one of the figures used by Pérez Frutos at the end of his article, see PEREZ FRUTOS, ‘Tratamiento de la voz…’, op. cit. However, the figure shown here presents some variations—compared to Pérez Frutos’ figure—after verifying the information with the score of the work in question, see SOTELO, Audéeis, op. cit. ↩︎
79. 79. SOTELO, ‘Muros…’, op. cit., pp. 3-4, in ORDÓNEZ ESLAVA, ‘La creación musical de Mauricio…’, op. cit., p. 125. «of the long road of work traveled alongside the Indian tabla master Trilok Gurtu» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
80. 80. After Sotelo’s collaboration with Trilok Gurtu during the composition of Chalan (2003), we can observe traces of Indian music in some passages of Artemis and Audéeis (both from 2004) or in more recent pieces such as Luz sobre lienzo, for violin, flamenco dancer, percussion, and electronics, dedicated to violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, see MAURICIO SOTELO, Luz sobre lienzo, Vienna, Universal Edition, 2008. ↩︎
81. 81. GÜNTHER, ‘Chalan (Work introduction)’, op. cit. For a more specific treatment of the term, see CHANDRA COURTNEY & DAVID COURTNEY, Bol (The Syllables), CHANDRAKANTHA.COM [online]. https://chandrakantha.com/music-and-dance/i-class-music/tala-tal/#bol [last accessed: January 15, 2025]. «The mnemonic syllable is known as bol. This derives from the Hindi word ‘bolna’ which means ‘to speak’. The concept of bol presents numerous different characteristics. They depend on how the bol is connected to the tabla technique» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
82. 82. Note: Even though both scores present these syllables, they are not perceived in the recording of Audéeis from the Salzburg Biennale (MAURICIO SOTELO, ‘Audéeis’, Salzburg Biennale: Festival for New Music 2009, NEOS Music, 2013, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X3yml9wf-8 [last accessed: January 15, 2025]); however, they are perceptible in the recent recording of Artemis (MAURICIO SOTELO, ‘String Quartet No. 2 «Artemis»’, Quatuor Diotima, Naïve Classique, 2021, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmfV6t4uS4Y [last accessed: January 15, 2025]). ↩︎
83. 83. SOTELO, ‘Luigi Nono o el…’, op. cit., p. 27. «This ‘…geheimere Welt…’, or most secret world—as the quote from Hölderlin that heads the first page of Nono’s quartet says—would constitute, for us, a first working document of the composer, certifying the completion of a definitive step in the conquest of a renewed space of listening» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
84. 84. Note: Sotelo refers to Arab ornamentation regarding the voice of the cantaor, «rich with arabesque flourishes, like those seen on one of the walls of the Alhambra» [Author’s Translation]. See the ‘diary fragment’ that opens the section of this analysis focused on melody. ↩︎
85. 85. JOSEMARÍA SÁNCHEZ-VERDÚ, Maqbara. Epitafio para voz y gran orquesta, (2000), Madrid, Editorial de Música Española Contemporánea, 2004. Quoted in ORDÓNEZ ESLAVA, ‘La creación musical de Mauricio…’, op. cit., p. 304. «The use of whispered, poetic fragments by the musicians in my work serves a function similar to that of the epigraphic texts in Nazarene art, to cite an example. The texts that appear in almost all the rooms of the Alhambra (verses and texts from the Qur’an, secular ones, etc.) have a function not only ornamental but also semantic: the Muslim architect has endowed each space—a garden, a fountain, a room—with semantic perspectives that may or may not be perceived by the visitor, but that form part of the ‘depth’ intrinsic to each space, each chamber, each corner» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
86. 86. PRIETO, ‘Entrevista con Cañizares’, op. cit. «With Sotelo, you always have your feet on the ground and your imagination flying [dreaming!]. At all times, you know whether what you hear is a bulería or some tangos, while your imagination floats in a coherent sonic universe» [Author’s Translation]. The clarifications in square brackets were added later in this analysis to connect the chosen quote to some of the ideas explored in these pages, so they do not belong to Cañizares’ words. ↩︎
87. 87. SOTELO, ‘Luigi Nono o el…’, op. cit., p. 26. «From the remains or sediment of each shipwreck, a new territory is born. A territory defined as a kind of internal, fragmentary writing, of which the meager traces in the score would be just the minimum ‘diary of a wanderer’» [Author’s Translation]. (*) The date corresponds to the publication of the journal in which Sotelo’s article dedicated to Luigi Nono appears. ↩︎
88. 88. SOTELO, Memoriæ, op. cit. ↩︎
89. 89. SOTELO, ‘Luigi Nono o el…’, op. cit., p. 26. «A certain support of memory» [Author’s Translation]. Sotelo emphasizes the importance of collaboration with performers: «These signs are ‘sung’ only what the performers’ memory already knows or has known. They are therefore not the true writing, but the testimony of that other inner writing, rich, powerful, vibrating, and painful. These experiences of work, apparently ‘chaotic’ and not easy to understand by any new collaborator, are based on a thought that escapes any ‘mechanistic’, unidirectional, or ‘ordered’ methodology» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
90. 90. ANTONIO MACHADO, Campos de Castilla, Madrid, Renacimiento, 1912. «There is no path | one makes the path by walking» [Author’s Translation]. ↩︎
91. 91. VARÈSE & WEN-CHUNG. ‘The Liberation…’, op. cit., p. 16. «To conceive musical form as a resultant – the result of a process – I was surprised by what seemed to me an analogy between the formation of my compositions and the phenomenon of crystallization. […] ‘The form of the crystal is itself a resultant [the exact word I used to refer to musical form] rather than a primary attribute. The form of the crystal is the consequence of an interaction of attractive and repulsive forces and the orderly complex of the atom.’ This, I believe, better suggests the way in which my works are constructed than any other explanation I [Varèse] could give on the matter» [TdA].pere vengono costruite rispetto a qualsiasi altra spiegazione che io [Varèse] potrei dare a riguardo» [TdA]. ↩︎
92. 92. IRIZO, ‘Entrevista a Mauricio…’, op. cit., p. 5 [from the PDF]. «I have come to the conviction that music cannot be read from the score. I mean, it must be deciphered, stripped of its interiority, and the score can then become a slight support for memory» [TdA]. ↩︎
93. 93. The words appear in small caps. ↩︎
94. 94. Except for “l’oasis marino” – La Mer – at bar 37, p. 5, see SOTELO, ‘Audéeis’, op. cit. ↩︎
95. 95. See the section of this analysis focused on sonority. ↩︎
96. 96. See the section of this analysis focused on melody. ↩︎
97. 97. Compare bars 63-177 of Audéeis with bars 1-61 of Estremecido por el viento. NB.: at bar 34 of the piece for solo violin, the indication «appassionato» did not yet appear. ↩︎
98. 98. Compare bars 179-235 of Audéeis with the final bars of Chalan, bb. 176-195. ↩︎
99. 99. See the section of this analysis focused on sonority. ↩︎
100. 100. Corresponds to the percussive section of Audéeis where the flamenco percussion of the cantaor – the cajón – takes the spotlight along with the ‘soundless’ string quartet. ↩︎
101. 101. Compare bars 174-177 of Audéeis with bars 90-94 of Degli eroici furori (2001-2002). NB.: In Degli eroici furori, the Bulería is indicated earlier, starting from bar 86. On the other hand, the similarity between this material used in Audéeis and bars 59-61 of the already mentioned Estremecido por el viento (2003) can be noted. ↩︎
102. 102. Voice added as a sort of palimpsest over the exclusively percussive section of Artemis. See the section of this analysis focused on sonority. ↩︎
103. 103. See the section of this analysis focused on melody. ↩︎
104. 104. The German indication nachdenklich can be translated as ‘thoughtful or absorbed’. Sotelo refers to the term when discussing the music of his mentor Nono: «A writing-thought, a writing-space, a writing-architecture of sound and listening. And this writing must necessarily be stripped of all ‘narrative’ elements, all progressive rhythm, all figurative appearance, all the ‘entertainment’ of its own trace, to allow, this indeed, an ensimismamiento [‘daydreaming’] of sound. Thus emerges a radically austere writing, but open to the infinite» [TdA], in SOTELO, ‘Luigi Nono o el…’, op. cit., p. 25. NB.: the correlation between this ‘open to the infinite’ and the poetics of Valente or Rilke’s ins freie commented on throughout these pages. ↩︎
105. 105. See the section of this analysis focused on harmony. ↩︎
106. 106. SOTELO, ‘Luigi Nono o el…’, op. cit., p. 26. «nacen después de cada naufragio» [TdA]. ↩︎
107. 107. At the beginning (p. 1, bb. 7-9): second violin together with the viola, and first violin together with the cello, whereas at the end (p. 61, bb. 555-558): viola and second violin. See SOTELO, ‘Audéeis’, op. cit. ↩︎
108. 108. See b. 488, in SOTELO, ‘Audéeis’, op. cit., p. 50. [This bar can be consulted in figure 8, p. 39]. ↩︎
109. 109. CORTÁZAR, Rayuela, op. cit., p. 564 [chapter 82]. «There are shreds, impulses, blocks, and everything seeks a form, then the rhythm [of swing] comes into play and I write within that rhythm, I write because of it, moved by it, and not by what they call thought, which makes prose, literary or otherwise» [TdA]. In the footnotes of Andrés Amorós’s edition, the following clarification appears: «Cortázar declared to Evelyn Picon something very similar to what he expresses in this chapter: ‘Jazz taught me a certain sensitivity to swing, to rhythm, in my writing style. For me, sentences have a swing just like the endings of my stories, a rhythm that is absolutely necessary to understand the meaning of the story’» [TdA]. ↩︎
110. 110. Both terms follow some of Sotelo’s ideas presented throughout these pages. ↩︎
111. 111. See the sections of this analysis focused on sonority and melody. ↩︎
112. 112. They can be consulted in this analysis. ↩︎
113. 113. See the section of this analysis focused on sonority. ↩︎
114. 114. In this first part of Audéeis, only a few indications of ‘gran pausa’ (G.P.), some very subtle changes in dynamics (e.g., p instead of pp), and the rhetorical indication La Mer are added. ↩︎
115. 115. «Cima del canto» in VALENTE, ‘Antología…’, op. cit. ↩︎
116. 116. HORATIU RADULESCU, Sound Plasma – Music of the Future Sign or My D High Opus 19∞, Munich, Edition Modern, 1975. Quoted in PEDRO ORDOÑEZ ESLAVA, Postespectralismo(s) musical(es) en la creación contemporánea española. (Su)pervivencias del último relato compositivo, Revista de Musicología, vol. 40, no. 1, Sociedad Española de Musicología (SEDEM), 2017, pp. 195-220, p. 166. «Sound, in itself, is an ocean of endless vibrations» [TdA]. (*) The phrase appeared in Radulescu’s lectures held at the Darmstadt courses in 1972, later published in 1975. ↩︎
117. 117. ROJO DÍAZ, Entrevista a Mauricio…, op. cit. «recreation of memory, important recollection» [TdA]. Sotelo explains: «There are others [references to Morente] for which I don’t even seek the score; instead, I have the sound environment in my head, and a sort of recreation of memory occurs, a recollection that seems important to me» [TdA]. ↩︎
118. 118. LUCIANO BERIO, Un ricordo al futuro. Lezione americane, Torino, Giulio Einaudi editore, 2006. ↩︎
119. 119. Ibid., p. 102. ↩︎
120. 120. To limit the scope of this analysis, apart from the appropriate references to the music of Luigi Nono and Helmut Lachenmann’s instrumental techniques, no further exploration of the antecedents of Audéeis found in the musical productions of other composers has been made. However, two pieces that might be of interest to the reader when putting the work under examination into perspective are briefly discussed here.
     Firstly, the last two movements of Arnold Schönberg’s Second String Quartet (1909)—in which the Austrian composer introduces the voice of a soprano alongside the quartet—could be considered a classical antecedent to Sotelo’s quartet featuring flamenco cantaor.
     Secondly, the work of mimesis presented by the strings in Audéeis to ‘imitate’ the voice of the cantaor reveals some similarity to the work elaborated by Salvatore Sciarrino in pieces such as Infinito Nero (1998) or Il Giardino di Sara (2008). The glissandi and articulations employed on the strings (as well as on the winds), combined with the meticulous timbral and dynamic indications, achieve results very similar to those of the sung voice.
     It is worth noting Sciarrino’s words opening the program notes of Il Giardino di Sara (even though this is a work composed after Audéeis): «Living inside a disintegrating dream», cf. SALVATORE SCIARRINO, Il Giardino di Sara, Rome, Milan, Edizioni Musicali Rai Trade, 2009. If we were to understand living as walking, wouldn’t we find ourselves before Luigi Nono’s ‘dreamed paths’? ↩︎
121. 121. IRIZO, Entrevista a Mauricio…, op. cit., pp. 8-9 [of the pdf]. «C.I.- Flamenco is not only performed; it is lived, it is a philosophy of life. In this sense, how are we classical musicians? | Sotelo.- Learning to ‘walk dreaming,’ as Nono would say» [TdA]. ↩︎

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