Prelúdio da Montanha Mágica / Prelude to The Magic Mountain

Description

Instrumentation

Piano

Program Notes

ISWC: T-041.574.847-8
ISMN: 979-0-9007529-5-6
Première: 19-IX-2004. Museu de Belas Artes, Corunha(Galiza). Piano: Genaro Fernández.

This work is a tribute to Thomas Mann, who published The Magic Mountain in 1924 and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929.
According to the author’s own words, the novel “is a journey into decay” which is lived in a mountain sanatorium dedicated to the cure of tuberculosis. But it is also “the search for the idea of man, the concept of a future humanity” through the prism of death.
The uneven rhythmic pattern of the score (6+5+5/16 and 9+7/16) sifts the hope and generates restlessness. The generating complex {6,5,5,9,7} conforms the DNA of the whole work and is present in both formal structure and harmony or melody. The funerary sequence of the Gregorian, ‘Dies irae, dies illa’ (On the day of the wrath, that day), hangs throughout the piece until it becomes evident and dominates the spirit. The death precedes to a new life.