la memoria incendiada ("the burning memory")
ISMN : 979-0-2325-8138-5
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This work is an exploration of my love/trauma relationship with the piano through the last three pieces that I ever formally played on the piano. The pieces are:
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- An Allemande (Suite in D minor HWV 428) by Georg Friedrich Händel.
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- The first movement of Sonata No.5, Op.10 No.1 by Ludwig van Beethoven
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- Toccata by Aram Khachaturian
Without going into details on how or why these works lie at the heart of my traumatic relationship with this instrument, it’s important to mention that, at the moment I write this program note (2024), I have thought of and mentally played fragments of these works every day for the last 11 years. This plays into my tendency for obsessive thoughts that repeat ceaselessly musical fragments, slowly transforming them by varying aspects such as tempo or pitch, and connecting them with unrelated fragments of music.
Inspired by Fernando Del Paso’s beautiful portrayal of Charlotte of Belgium’s famous “madness letters”, I explore this difficult relationship with the piano through using the obsessive nature of my thoughts on these pieces as the source material for a new work. Thus, this piece stands as an attempt at reconciliation with the ever-burning memory of these piano pieces in my brain and my muscle memory.
Fixed electronics
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