- Fabián Panisello
Mariposas (2025)
(for orchestra)- Henry Litolff’s Verlag GmbH & Co. KG (World)
Programme Note
The work Mariposas (Butterflies) was created after I saw a video in which my mother told her caregiver a story a few days before her death. The story was about butterflies of different colors that eventually form a rainbow.
As I explored the different symbolic meanings of butterflies in various cultures, I was deeply moved by my mother's intuition –especially at a moment that was part of her farewell.
Butterflies represent freedom and lightness. They also symbolize spring, peace, and love. For the Aztecs, they embodied women who died in childbirth. In Christianity, they are considered a symbol of resurrection. Their transformation from caterpillar to butterfly resembles the transition of the soul after physical death and represents the hope for a new, spiritual life.
As a tribute to this oral tradition, at the very last moment I composed music, based on harmonic complexes reminiscent of bell sounds. These enable me, on the one hand, to represent a kind of iridescence analogous to the colorful butterfly wings –through highly differentiated dynamics. The transparency of the wings, through which the colors become visible in changing light, is “translated” here into complex harmonies of 23 tones, each of which is given its own dynamic development and a specific instrumental timbre. The movement results from the fleeting nature of the harmonic components within a framework of irregular (macro) pulsations – with the aim of creating a floating, ephemeral harmony.
The polysystemic harmony draws on various sources: the beginning of the piece contains fragmentary quotations from the madrigal "Moro, lasso, al mio duolo" by the Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo, combined with bonshō bell sounds from my research for my latest opera Judith von Shimoda. In addition, I work with a polarization on the note B, which sounds in various microtonal and spectral gradations, opening up a new space for the “evaporation” of the partial tones. Finally, the aforementioned 23-tone complexes with specific filtering techniques form the final section of the work.
More Info
- Fabián Panisello’s Mariposas receives world premiere in Grafenegg
- 19th August 2025
- On August 24, Mariposas by Fabián Panisello will be premiered at this year’s Grafenegg Festival, Austria.