Jesús TORRES (b.1965)
Manantial de luz (2007) [22:15]
Poética (2007) [12:49] *
Trio (2001) [11:59]
Presencias (2002) [15:29]
Decem (2006) [3:05]
Trio Arbós: Juan Carlos Garvayo (piano), Miguel Borrego (violin), José
Miguel Gómez (cello); Cécile Daroux (flute); José Luis
Estellés (clarinet), Paul Cortese (viola), Juanjo Guillem (percussion)
rec. 7-9 July 2008, Teatro Auditorio de San Lorenzo en El Escorial, Madrid;
* 28-29 July, 2008, Sala de Cámara, Centro Cultural ‘Miguel Delibes’,
Auditorio de Valladolid
KAIROS 0013012KA [66:18]
A look through the catalogue of compositions by Jesús Torres offers
the immediate possibility of an insight into his work. Alongside the compositions
which bear the names of forms and genres - like ‘Trio’ here, the
Oboe Quartet of 2009 or the Variations for Cello and Piano from 2004 - there
are many works with poetic titles. I do not use that adjective loosely, given
Torres’ well-documented interest in poetry. Amongst such titles, images
of light and water abound, in works like ‘Aurora’ (2002) and ‘Wasserfall’
(2005), both for solo piano; chamber music such as ‘Crepuscular’
(2000), ‘Splendens’ (2002) and ‘El misterio del agua’
(2007); and songs like the ‘Dos canciones del mar’ (2007, setting
texts by Rubén Darío) and ‘Noche oscura’ (2006,
a setting of a famous poem by St. John of the Cross). On the present disc
it is light which is the more prominent, but for Torres the two (light and
water) are inextricably interconnected - as in ‘Manantial de luz’
(which might be translated as ‘the spring - or source - of light’),
the third section of which carries the direction ‘Torrencial, inundado
de luz’. Light, water, music - all have their wave-forms; In ‘El
cántaro roto’ (The Broken Waterjar) Octavio Paz writes of a moment
when ‘la luz canta con un rumor de agua’ (‘the light is
singing with a sound of water’). In Torres’ music one has, time
and again, a sense of the rising and falling/setting of water/light, of the
figurative interconnections between sound, light and water.
‘Manantial de luz’ is scored for solo piano, flute, clarinet,
violin, viola, cello and percussion though its closing passage holds a surprise
for the listener in this regard. The writing alternates isolated sounds of
great purity and altogether ‘dirtier’ sequences. The result is
hypnotic, especially in the opening section (marked ‘Onirico’)
and the sixth and last section (‘Intensamente dramático’).
It is here that the composer springs an instrumental surprise, which is evidently
- according to the booklet essay by Álvaro Guibert - also a visual,
theatrical surprise: ‘For this CD’s listeners it may be of interest
to know that the performance of this work requires … a semicircle of
gongs and tam-tams, which are only heard at the end when the six instrumentalists
rise in an orderly fashion, each going to his or her gong. The typical characteristics
of the individual instruments recede into the background and are replaced
by a single, all-encompassing sound. As soon as the music begins to fade away,
the musicians likewise retreat into themselves and bow their heads’.
That sense of the theatrical, even quasi-liturgical (the first piece in ‘Prsencias’
is called ‘Liturgia’) is inherent in some of the ways Torres’
music works, with its constant cross-referencing of other artistic media and
forms.
Thus ‘Poética’ takes the form of five pieces, each ‘after’
a German poem - a number of them soaked in the imagery of light or its absence
- these being poems by Novalis, Hölderlin, Rilke, Trakl and Celan. These
are not settings - there is no vocalist, the work is scored for clarinet and
piano trio. Nor are they merely programme music ‘illustrating’
their source poems; one might think of them as translations, or rather imitations,
in another ‘language’, that of music. The texts are not provided,
though the booklet notes identify the relevant poems and it is worth taking
the trouble to find them as knowledge of them certainly enhances appreciation
of Torres’ work.
The musical language is, broadly speaking, in line of descent from Messiaen,
though far from being merely derivative. Torres produces some ravishing and
fascinating instrumental juxtapositions and dialogues, the writing for clarinet
being particularly inventive and the playing of José Luis Estellés
very impressive. When we reach, at the end of the sequence, in the darkness
of Celan’s ‘Todesfuge’ (Death Fugue) with its reiterated
image of the ‘Schwarze Milch der Frühe’ (‘Black milk
of daybreak’ as Michael Hamburger translates it), the effect is profound,
harrowing and beautiful.
The four pieces for solo piano which make up ‘Presencias’ I find
rather less absorbing than either ‘Manantial de luz’ or ‘Poética’.
Without the range of colours available to him in the group pieces, Torres’
ideas are not so consistently interesting and the pieces feel somewhat less
substantial as well as being rather less fully individual, although ‘Yakarta’
written for the pianist Ananda Sukarlan, the Indonesian-born pianist who has
a well-deserved reputation as an interpreter of Spanish music, is quite striking.
‘Trio’, written for and played by the excellent Trío Arbós,
is a fine work, growing from some relatively brief phrases, exchanged between
the instruments, though the piano is initially dominant, through an intricate
middle section in which instrumental interplay and rhythmic patterns set up
a changing texture full both of insistent energy and the occasional surprise.
This then gradually falls away to a relatively unimpassioned, retrospective
conclusion which remembers some of the phrases and gestures from the work’s
beginning. The subtlety of ‘Trio’ becomes more apparent with repeated
hearings. ‘Decem’ was apparently written for Trío Arbós
as an encore piece, and is fittingly lively and engaging, not least in its
fierce rhythms.
All in all, this is a thoroughly rewarding album of contemporary chamber music
for all with even mildly adventurous tastes.
Glyn Pursglove
Inventive chamber music full of fascinating tone colours and resonant with
more than purely musical ideas.