On 23 January in Porto, then on 26 January in Paris, Hèctor Parra will present his latest work that brings together the Intercontemporain and Remix ensembles in a burst of energy inspired by the atavistic figures found in the books of Mercè Rodoreda, the great lady of Catalan literature.
It is my hope, with this work for two ensembles and two conductors, to allow the listener to experience the very same experiences detailed by the protagonist-narrator in Mercè Rodoreda’s posthumous work, "Death in Spring". Unfinished but not incomplete, it is a novel full of beauty and poetry, but at the same time full of violence, sadness and despair. It is the story of a fourteen year old boy who lives with his father and his stepmother and tells us about his daily life in the village - an absolutely cruel society that tries to destroy all forms of desire, that pours cement into the mouths of the dying, and allows human sacrifice by virtue of certain legends and founding myths. With a very pure style of prose, Rodoreda creates a powerful and suffocating text like few others. Endless poetry, full of incredible imagery that give us the incredible sensation of being the first inhabitant of a pure world, one that we discover through the eyes of this teenager for whom everything is new: from the most beautiful things found in nature (water gushing from a natural source or the birth of a butterfly) to the worst atrocities of which man is capable - both in his sexual and social relations, always guided by founding myths that turn into absolutely cruel, absurd and arbitrary laws - but which, paradoxically, everyone respects. Desire is the greatest danger, the worst enemy for the people of the village. Its inhabitants do everything to destroy it, from early childhood to adulthood. Thus, from the teenager’s fascinating and terrible relationship with his young mother-in-law springs a beautiful eroticism but also a treacherous cruelty. Both draw from this interaction a strength and a desire for freedom which leads them quite naturally to violate, one after the other, all of the established rules. With their incessant associations, defying the laws of the village, they degrade all of the established ritual acts. Like two rebels unknowingly driven by their erotic desire, their revolt is not an ideological revolt but is rather motivated by sexual desire. But at the same time, sexuality leads them to extreme loneliness - a tragic expression of the human condition.
What can you do with two orchestras that you could not do with one?
It’s a musical fresco. I've planned fourteen one- to three-minute tableaux, six to be conducted by two conductors and eight by one conductor. It’s like an imaginary ballet inspired by a beautiful and poetic story, but at the same time very dark, violent and full of despair. I started from the posthumous work of Mercè Rodoreda, Death in Spring. It is the story of a fourteen year old boy who lives with his father and his stepmother and about his daily life in the village - an absolutely cruel society that tries to destroy all forms of desire and allows human sacrifice by virtue of certain legends and founding myths: every spring, a young villager is thrown into the river to ensure that the village, which is built on water, holds and will not be swept away by the current. If the villager is lucky enough not to die, the razor-sharp rocks on which the village was built will scar their face for life...
And how do the two ensembles share the burden of the story?
Everything that is going to happen will take place in the movements of sound in space, the musical responses, the echoes. Like the river in this village, there is a permanent flow of energy flowing from the right to the left of the audience, from the harp to the piano, from the percussion of the EIC to those of Remix. Above all, the strings and the woodwinds are fixed to the forefront with a disruptive and individual discourse. I work with the idea of sedition. These instruments are seditious in the sense that they will try to interrupt and to reverse this permanent and oppressive flow...
But is this flow of energy what threatens the extinction of desire or rather what makes it possible for desire to resist the threat?
It is a threat, but it is also a representation of the very flow of existence. It’s very Heraclitean. The river represents life, tragic life. Death in Spring is a novel that reflects on the fact that humans are the animals most inclined to turn life into hell, to torture their own existence beyond imagination. The young protagonists will be portrayed by specific woodwind instruments, which will develop asymmetrical musical structures, completely free, with an exacerbated lyricism. My music is completely Mediterranean, and even if it is often very structured, it remains songful.
How do you plan to succeed in doing what you have not yet achieved in your previous works?
My goal is to suggest to the public a sense movement, an imaginary dance of bodies. Bodies wandering within an enclosed space, almost like a concentration camp. That’s why I chose Mercè Rodoreda. She became, with her tale Nit i boira, the first Spaniard to write about the Nazi concentration camp system, in 1946, it was very early! She lived through the Spanish Civil War, but also the Second World War, during her exile in France. In Death in Spring, the teenager finds out that his father is going to kill himself because he wants to avoid being killed. In this village, all the dying are locked in a tree, their mouths filled with pink cement to the point of suffocation. Sometime after the death of his father, the teenager marries his young stepmother. By embarking upon this incestuous game, they challenge all the rituals of the village, they destroy together the cemetery of trees, the pink paintbrushes with which the villagers paint all the houses each spring... Shortly after, the village enters a kind of civil war and the young protagonist is finally condemned to sacrifice himself in the river. At that point, the two conductors will create a terrible polyphony. But, at the same time, there is a tremendous description of the beauty of nature, of its colours and the smells of the flowers, the trees, the butterflies...
You seem to have chosen the perfect story to write music that is both dark and colourful.
Yes, both tragic and lyrical at the same time. I'm trying to find a shape, like a tree trunk with its branches. This is the tragedy of life, but the tragic beauty of life. When we think of wild animals, we imagine a falcon that flies and hunts admirably and which, in turn when it dies, will not lie quietly in a bed surrounded by its family, but rather will be devoured by other animals. The death of wild animals is excruciating, much like more primitive human societies. It is the humanisation and development of an advanced culture that tenderises existence.
Does this mean that you are looking for a language in music that is not entirely your own?
Yes exactly. I try to find a musical language close to Rodoreda’s own voice, but I can't imagine a voice in this work. Rather, they are voiceless bodies living a tragic experience of an existence not yet corrupted by language. In that sense, it's very “Pasolinian”: the body’s language as opposed to the language of words. Bodies without a language… I often think of polyphony as muscles rather than lines. These are muscles/gestures made up of several tissues/textures, which activate and propel the musical discourse.
And do these two muscles flex at the same time or do they alternate their efforts?
They are interdependent, but they will have different tempos. I try to create accentuated frictions at the same time as textural frictions. The two conductors will have an intertwined discourse, which flexes these two muscles. The bones and tendons that bind the muscles will be the work in itself. The man of Rodoreda is very close to these Paleolithic and nomadic beings who lived an integrated life with nature. It is this atavistic beauty that I wish to transport to the hall of the Cité de la Musique.
Hèctor Parra - La mort i la primavera
Fourteen tableaux for a ballet inspired by the unfinished eponymous novel by Mercè Rodoreda
For two ensembles and two conductors
World premiere: January 23, 2022 - Casa da Música (Porto)
French premiere: January 26, 2022 - Philharmonie de Paris
Ensemble intercontemporain
Remix ensemble
Peter Rundel, conductor
Lucie Leguay, conductor