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- Nicolas Bacri
Melodías de la melancolía, Op. 119b (2010)
- Alphonse Leduc (World)
- 1(pic).0+ca.1.2/2100/2perc/hp/str(14.12.10.8.6)
- Soprano; 1(pic).0+ca.1.2/2100/2perc/hp/str(6.6.4.4.2)
- Soprano
- 15 min
- Alvaro Escobar-Molina
- Spanish
Programme Note
Melodías de la melancolía, to texts by Alvaro Escobar Molina, were written in summer 2010 at the request of Patricia Petibon, for inclusion in an album largely devoted to Spain.
Like the Three Love Songs, written five years earlier and which Patricia Petibon took all over the world (both versions, with piano and with orchestra), these ‘Songs of Melancholy’ take the form of expressive sketches with a discreetly Hispanic colouring.
In the first one, a long lament unfolds over a moto perpetuo from the orchestra, representing the motion of the waves. The second one is meditative, a sort of operatic piece, recalling Puccini in its mood, and full of tenderness, while the third one is marked by forceful revolt. The fourth and final piece returns to the same climate as the second one by means of fugal writing, with the thematic elements recapitulating tunes previously heard and leading to a brief reminder of the first song, thus making the work as a whole cyclical in character, with the idea of gentle melancholy running through it as the main unifying element.
Nicolas Bacri