Four Songs – of Desire and Sadness

for soprano and orchestra (3,3,3,3/4,3,3,1/0/strings)
composed 1995-96; duration 18 minutes
commissioned by Sergio Cárdenas and Filarmónica de Querétaro
world premiere Bydgoszcz (Poland) September 1997
Simona Saturova – soprano
Filharmonia Pomorska; Zigmunt Rychert – conductor

The texts for these songs are love letters between women. This fact has no direct consequence for formal structures of the piece, but the privacy thus shared by the soprano and the audience in the concert performance through the selection of texts of this nature was an important factor in creating the particular mood of these songs.

The intimate dialogue between voice and orchestra is immediately noticeable. The voice is accompanied by an orchestra engaged in developing the timbral possibilities of the word, and a symmetrical distribution of the four songs around an orchestral interlude allows the development of each song in accordance with its dramaturgical necessities. Continuous identification and dramatization in shape of a constantly evolving sound scenario enhances the polarities present in the psychological implications of the texts – yet always with the voice in the foreground of the action.

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