The unique voice of Joan Magrané Figuera, one of the most promising talents of the school of contemporary Spanish composition – which has already given us great masters-in-the-making such as Alberto Posadas and Hèctor Parra – will be heard again in his three favourite countries. In May this year, his new work for small instrumental ensemble, Faula, will be premiered in Madrid, Paris and Rome by seven musicians of the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain under the direction of Daniel Kawka.
«Faula is based on the homonymous novel by the Mallorcan poet Jaume C. Pons Alorda. I have been inspired by Pons Alorda’s work before, when I wrote my saxophone quartet Estris de llum in 2017, after reading the first volume of the trilogy Tots els sepulcres.
Far from wanting to elucidate the narrative, the piece seeks first and foremost to use Pons Alorda’s ideas and aesthetic world to conceive of its structure, texture and sound. Always excessive, his writing is sometimes hectic and sometimes contemplative. It is manifold, unpredictable and rich. It is this richness that I have sought to translate into a play of contrasts, at times abrupt, by alternating sections of great passion and animal energy with fragments that are utterly arid, raw and excessive in their lyricism, intensity and concentration.
These sections are four in number: the first (Mosso, con foco), which opens the piece, is an ascending line that is impassioned, trembling and variable. The second (Poco più mosso) always appears after a total silence and has the same ascending line, which explodes with ferocious momentum. The third section (Sospeso) is a bare and desolate song at the extremes of the instruments’ registers. Finally, the fourth (Poco danzado) is the shortest and most concentrated, and it is presided over by a subtle and undulating homophony of wind instruments.
Each of these sections appears throughout the piece in the way that the chapters of a novel are organised, developing on their own whilst also mutually borrowing elements that transform and metamorphose. We were told that it was as if the “fable” had materialised, transformed into song, sound and vibration.»
Joan Magrané Figuera
Joan Magrané Figuera - Faula
for seven instruments
World premiere: May 7, 2018 - Casa de Velazquez, Madrid
French premiere: May 14, 2018 - Auditorium, CRR de Paris
Italian premiere: May 17, 2018 - Villa Médicic, Rome
Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain
Daniel Kawka, conductor
English premiere:
November 22, 2021 - St. Paul's Hall, Huddersfield
December 1st, 2021 - Southbank Centre's Queen Elisabeth Hall, London
London Sinfonietta
Edmon Colomer, conductor
Consult the score on ISSUU :
