Scoring: fl, ob*, asax*, 2perc (I: crot.,glock.,vibes. II:
vibes.,wblk), elorg (or acc.), 2pf, 2va, 2vc *(ob. doubles
3 triangles, asax doubles bell tree)
Duration: 12 minutes
Premiere:
10 May 2002
Oberlin, Ohio
Steve Brewer - conductor
Program Notes: The scoring of Adelina was
originally for flute, cello and piano, written in the winter
of 1999 for the Elan trio (now the International Contemporary Ensemble) just a few days after I finished
the performance of my epic-legnth ambient opera, Advent
days. Like Advent days, the music I was writing
at that time relied heavily on dense polyphonic webs of
pan-harmony, repitition, a strong sense of pulse and half
improvised /half composed charts (of what has been coined
as “rocketmusic”) to create what John Adams calls
“great prairies of non-event.” Since then, I have
moved away from the translucid and transient sounds of minimalism
and have begun working with more complex rhythmic textures;
this had a profound effect on the way in which I decided
to re-work this piece. Adelina is a process piece
made up of constantly expanding and contracting 12 note
additive patterns in the pianos. While on the surface, the
music seems to be only shimmering ripples of arpeggios,
the process sets up the entire rhythmic and pitch structure
of the piece, where the other instruments are, in a sense,
constrained by the implied structure. When I eventually
got around to rescoring the piece, I found that the original
work was hastily put together, though the ideas of a complete
work were lying there undeveloped. The possiblity of simply
re-orchestrating what I had was not going to work. Here, Adelina takes on a new life: to borrow a term from
electronic music, it is a realization of the original, possibly
even a completely new piece.
The title of this work is taken from the poem Adelina de
paseo from Federico Garcia Lorca’s Canciones.
The english translation is as follows:
The sea has no oranges
nor Seville any love.
Dark girl, such firey light!
Lend me your parasol.
It will turn my face green
- juice of lemon and lime.
Your words little fish-
will swim about.
The sea has no oranges.
Oh the pity, love.
Nor Seville any love!
Vin
Calianno
May 2002
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