Lume de espelhos

Lume de Espelhos pendulates between various degrees of control of the multitudinous sonorities of a string ensemble. The piece starts with a gradual exploration of oppositions between measured and unmeasured time, moving on to the contrast between pitched and unpitched sounds, and also between a solo string quintet and the full string orchestra. Gradually, these oppositions give place to polyphonic unravelings of the natural frequencies of bowed string instruments, eventually giving birth to a fragmentary melodic line (and also to its multiplications) and finally returning to the dilution of measured time.

The word games in the portuguese title Lume de Espelhos could be approximately translated into English as “Looking glass light”, or into Italian as “Tastiera di luce”. “Lume” means light or flame, but it also signifies the surface of a mirror. The portuguese word for mirror is “espelho”, but the same word is used for the fingerboard (“tastiera”) of bowed string instruments.