Colom: Reminiscencias baéticas

Description

The music I listened to, played and enjoyed throughout my childhood and teenage years was fundamentally that of the great classical music composers of the past. I still enjoy listening to them now but no longer exclusively. Those early musical preferences as well as my being from north-eastern Spain, meant that I did not come into contact with the musical culture of my beloved Andalusia until relatively late on, although there were great Catalan-Andalusian artists like Carmen Amaya and Peret living in my native Barcelona.

Having said that, I felt the need to write this piece. Its title shows a debt to the Andalusian composer Manuel de Falla, and more specifically his Fantasia Baetica composition which I have played, recorded and studied intensely throughout my life. It is precisely down to its inevitable influence on my composition, that I have tried to find my own solutions to develop the perfect fourth harmonies which appear intuitively from the guitar tuning and also to simulate the microtonality of the cante (flamenco singing style).

Although the piece has a thought-out and elaborated discourse, it aims to evoke the spontaneity of improvisation, especially in the second part (tiento y cante). for this reason, I have not indicated metronome markings and the musician should bear in mind that any indications I do offer on playing the piece are merely an attempt to reflect the performance I imagined when composing it. I premiered the work myself on the piano on November 26, 2023 at the Barcelona Auditorium during a piano marathon in memory of the great Alicia de Larrocha and a few months later I am already playing it differently.

With all this in mind, I encourage anyone wishing to play the piece to lengthen or shorten chords or sequences, and to change and adapt phrases or accents as they play if they feel like it, or, for those who are skilful at improvising, I suggest you extend or modify the melismatic features of the cante or improvise interpolations. The only limit lies in producing a balanced discourse and this is very subjective.

My greatest thanks to all those who choose to play this piece for your interest and collaboration.

Josep Colom