Callara II

The title means in Spanish “he / she will be silent”. This piece is part of the Callara cycle which interrogates the silence through ancient Mayan prophetic texts, previously used by the Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera in his Cantata para América Mâgica.

It is the end of the world that is announced and it is done in the burial. This prophecy resonates strangely in our ears, for us,  brothers will come from (another) orient …

If in Callara I, silence was born from the crash, here, on the other hand, the voices are muted under the outside noise and the tumult. When the poem says “When will the days come without name, / When will the sign of Kauil appear / (…) When will the brothers of the east come  / (…) At dawn the earth will burn; / The fans of the sky will fall / (…) under the green rain of Yaxalchac / (…) The arrival of the Katum will transform everything / The singing men will be overwhelmed (…) / Then the sistrum will be silent, will silence the drum! / All will be silent …! “, The voices will be literally covered and will dive into the inaudible. The rich instrumental apparatus allowing the composer to connect the chtonien world to the unleashed skies, the “singing” men, in between, disappear in the sonorous chaos. For a new genesis?

Text and its translation Cantata para América Mâgica [Poems of Mercedes of Torobasados ​​in antiguos texting pre-Colombinos]

set 116 singers, 2 pianos, 2 harps, 2 percussions

text: Cantata para América Mágica [Poems of Mercedes of Torobasados in antiguos texting pre-Colombinos]
Singing in Spanish

Premiere: January 27, 2013
Présences Festival, Grand Theatre de Provence, Aix-en-Provence by the ensemble Musicatreize, direction Roland Hayrabedian
Musicatreize Ensemble, direction Roland Hayrabedian Kaoli Isshiki, Céline Boucard, Elise Deuve, Claire Gouton: sopranos Mareïke Schellenberger, Estelle Corre, Marie-George Monet, Laura Gordiani: mezzo-sopranos Xavier de Lignerolles, Olivier Coiffet, Jérôme Cottenceau, Gilles Schneider: ténors Patrice Balter, Grégoire Fohet-Duminil, Olivier Delafosse, Florent Baffi: basses Victoria Harmandjieva, Jay Gottlieb: piano Célia Perrard, Annabelle Jarre: harpes Christian Hamouy, Claudio Bettinelli: percussions

September 18, 2013 Villa Méditerranée, Marseille, under the context of the Tenso Days by Musicatreize ensemble, direction Roland Hayrabedian

February 8, 2016 recording room Colonne, Paris by Musicatreize ensemble, direction Roland Hayrabedian

Commissioned by Radio France

© ŠamaŠ éditions musicales 2013