THREE SPEECHES AND A TECHNIQUE

“No less protean and multiform was (…) ‘Three Speeches and a Technique’, a score for voice and ensemble by the composer in residence at Casa da Música in 2024 (…) This union of echoes of Le Grand Macabre (…) with American imprints, and instrumental glissandi with vocal portamenti, gives ‘The Choice’ a polymorphic vivacity that ‘Three Speeches’ retains throughout its development. ‘The Future’, with its progressive political discourse, is a powerful cosmopolitan outlook (…) with constant changes of style and reorganisation of materials, combining with the ensemble a solo voice whose parts are of supreme difficulty due to the continuous succession of new registers, techniques and diversified attacks (…)

Meanwhile, ‘The Recount’ introduces us to an initially delicate and nocturnal atmosphere, with a voice that takes us back to the expressionist beginnings of the 20th century, both for its lyricism and for its harmonic relationship with the ensemble (of Germanic descent). This parenthesis is broken in ‘The Power Fist’, with an opening in which the musicians stamp their feet furiously on the floor, exposing new forms of violence: initially, disjointed; later, amalgamating the discursive organisation of the ensemble around this dialectic of blows and hatred, with greater rhythmic cohesion (…) As in the third Speech, the voice in ‘The Power Fist’ presents parts of harmonisation with strings and woodwinds: a sensitive and poetic elegy that leads the score to a finale of great contrast with the more parodic first movements, so colourful and polyhedral. (…)”
Paco Yañez | Scherzo, 24.01.24