Exactly 50 years ago, an astonished Western
world witnessed images of protests in Paris’ streets by groups of students
which soon would join a workers on strike - a furore that would spread across
Europe, making history as May 1968, flow and reflux of several other movements:
against the war in Vietnam and Algeria; the fight for the civil rights of black
Americans; movements in Latin America; cultural revolution in China ...
1968 is
also the year of the creation of Canticum,
an iconic work for guitar by Leo Brouwer, which reflects the experimental
enthusiasm of Western production in the poetics of this incredible Cuban
creator.
Much more than
quantities, the relief of Brouwer in the history of contemporary music and,
fortunately for us, of the guitar, is established by the innovations that he
provides to the instrument’s language, updating its characteristics together
with the avant-garde of the 60's, breaking paradigms and through new values,
mainly the noise and, in great account, the silence.
In a short time Brouwer
reaches an outstanding position with renewed air for the romantic aura that the
guitar still lived. Some of his early works, such as Preludio and Pieza sin Titulo (1956), Fuga y Danza Característica
(1957), comes close to an expanded essence by ambiguous tonalities, extended
harmonies and unusual procedures, such as percussive sounds on strings and
soundboard.
However, the work that
opens a new phase in his production, and consequently to the classical guitar,
is Canticum, going beyond any musical
idea from an instrument then little identified to the avant-garde, which was
dimensioned by festivals such as the of Summer Course at Darmstadt (Germany),
Autumn in Warsaw (Poland), and in the United States, Summer in Tanglewood.
It’s a "watershed" in the repertoire. In Canticum the new is the dominant
element, which Brouwer fills the gaps of the instrument into the musical scene,
creating the impression that the guitar will never again move away from the
historical-stylistic unfolding of artistic-cultural movements.
The work has two parts: Eclosión and Ditirambo.
The choice of the main title - Canticum
- refers to a traditional Latin term of music, as elegy, as rite, not with religious
configuration, having in the Ditirambo
the exacerbation of that idea. The title Eclosión
relates a germination of sounds that "fight" to get out of their
"cocoons" of three chords of identical pitches, at beginning of the
music.
From these chords emerge the basic notes of the work,
in a process of transformation through moments of chromatic addition, chord,
rhythm, timbres, in a kind of enlargement of the reality of the guitar, which
Brouwer achieves masterfully - as well reiterates Hernandez (2000: 113), Canticum is a didactic work, in which it
was sought to synthesize avant-garde’s elements. Thus, Brouwer employs levels
of transformation throughout the piece, which makes it a revolutionary work.
The pitches of the notes are not positioned to do a
main melody or a background, rather a set of sonorities that at certain moments
receives more prominence, as in the initial chords in cluster position from
which minimum generating cells emerge, alternated by approaching with
noise, moreover the treatment given to the pause, to the silence:
 | |
| Opening of Eclosión from Canticum, sounds intensity (fff) and great pause (G.P.) side by side, emphasis on noise-silence plan, typical avant-garde of 60’. |
We can see the treatment of the lengths in seconds (in
the personal, inner sense of the performer) and not in fixed proportions from
musical notation; the sound ideal is to naturalize the uncertainty of the
pulse, since the duration in seconds is not constant either: 6"-4";
6"-3"; 6"-4" – a deliberate non-linearity throughout the
work. This joins to the absence of formula and bars of compass; it means the
musical discourse is understood by staves or lines.
Another uncertainty comes from the idea of whether or
not there is a "Theme" in Eclosión,
because – very different from the traditional means – generating cells, three
notes in general, arise from the initial chords bringing development to the
work, but no more a direct association to memory and keeping a recurring theme;
the memory here is worked in a different way to the traditional one;
fragmented.
 | |||
| Initial fragment of Eclosión from Canticum, with some generated cells making an idea of reiteration, surge from introductory chords. |
The avant-garde of the 60' is also the moment of
Timbre, and Brouwer highlights this in many variations by repetitions of
minimal cells: on bridge, dolce, tambora, percussion sounds (with the
fingers on the guitar's soundboard).
 |
|
Fragment with generated cells positioned on variations
by timbre
|
Other variations occur by addition of notes, giving
sonorous result of cells or notes prolongation by almost minimal expansion; the
variations by the addition of quick, repeated notes or by diatonic intervals,
result sonorously by the notes prolongation in trills or tremolos or
proportional rhythmic pulsation from the longest to the shortest.
A disposition of seconds chords presents dynamics
variation (ff-pp) and alternated rests, some regular some extended, once again
suggesting a character of non-linearity even in rests.
 |
| Chords with pauses deliberately no-linear |
There is a change of pitch (in the 6th string) during
the passage from Eclosión to Ditirambo, altering the referential from
the lower pitch in the work, E for Eb; this change of referential - during the
execution - is a rare procedure even today. In Ditirambo, aspects of
Eclosión are recurrent: minimum generating cells go through repetition
and addition of notes, prolonging more and more the discourse, and the ostinato
execution of the Eb.
In conclusion, a note, coming from the added notes
set, comes close to the noise by repetition with intensities of dynamics and
tempo until extinguished. A last appearance of a generating cell in glissando
closes the work, obtaining an ironic repose.
The transformations in Canticum's writing, the reorganization of the technique to compose
and perform such work, a minimal material, almost unknown sound results,
unexpected or not associated, uncertain means... are adjectives of a musical
work that seems more like a statement of disruption of the tradition, in the
best spirit of the time, by an artist who was 29 years old at this time, just
done. Thus, it seems, in fact, a synchronicity that Canticum by Leo Brouwer has been generated in the same year in
which social and political events of May 68 transformed the vision of Western
society on many values, until then, considered immutable.
Reference:
HERNÁNDEZ, Isabelle. Leo Brouwer. Editora
musical de Cuba. La Habana, 2000.
More:
Gilson Antunes en vivo - Canticum - Leo Brouwer
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