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Lux et umbra
Materiales de orquesta de cuerda en alquiler
String orchestra
CERVELLÓ, JordiReg.: B.3292o
- Ensemble: String orchestra: .
- Genres: Classical / contemporary: Chamber.
- Product format: Partitura + particellas
- Difficulty level: Advanced-superior
- Period: 2nd half S. XX - XXI
- Publishing house: Editorial Boileau
- Collection: Siglo XXI
- No. of pages: 84
- Measure: 29,70 x 21,00 cm
- Lenght: 17'35"
- ISMN: 979-0-3503-0181-0
- Available in digital: No
- Available for rent: Yes
0 0 0 0 — 0 0 0 0 — str
Strings: 6,5,4,3,2
This is the definitive version of Biogénesis, a piece that Cervelló had written in 1976, together with his friend Jorge Wagensberg, and which was awarded the First Prize at the Spanish Ministry for Education and Science’s Permanent Composition and Musical Research Competition. The new version was made at 1984-85.
Lux et umbra is written for a string group consisting of four first and four second violins, three violas, three cellos and a double bass. The conceptual battle between darkness and light is represented by the instability between the notes B and C, and by the compartmentation of the group of fifteen string instruments into divisi that provide an independent arrangement for each instrument, thus bestowing great substance upon the texture of the music. A cello cadence emerges from a slow and straightforward beginning. A process of contrasts then begins, culminating in a molto vivace passage of a scherzando nature, which alludes to the Baroque concerti grossi. The music once again plays with chiaroscuro until reaching its climax, from which point the conclusion slowly begins, establishing itself in the high register until fading away.
The work was first performed at Barcelona’s Palau de la Música by the English Chamber Orchestra, directed by Enrique García Asensio, in 1987. That same year, in the newspaper El País, the observations of the composer and critic Francesc Taverna-Bech paid tribute to the work’s «intelligence as regards the use of and search for instrumental resources (in this case, string instruments, about which Cervelló knows a great deal), the skill involved in endowing the lyrical line with tension, and a singular touch that confers formal essence upon the musical discourse».
In La Vanguardia, Jordi Llovet wrote that this is a work in which, «as is the case with most of Cervelló’s compositions, the listener finds something covertly religious, a mysterious secret, a transcendence linked to the origins of communication requiring more than a single being, which provides excitement». In 1990, when the Orchestra of Granada performed the work at Barcelona’s Grec festival, the critic Cèsar Calmell opined, in the same newspaper, that «inch by inch, surely and imperturbably, Cervelló built up a perfect world that reflects the image of the craftsman who, so astonished at the delights of his trade, is unable to do anything but turn the very backdrop of tragedy into something pleasant».
“Lux et umbra” was recorded by the Orchestra Estatal of the Hermitage, conducted by Alexis Soriano (CD SA01210 Fundación Autor).
Xavier Casanoves Danés
