Naxos 8.559876
Roberto Sierra
(Cornell University)
Naxos Records
Roberto Sierra’s refined compositional voice is subtly combined with
contemporary musical techniques and his Puerto Rican heritage in the
three works recorded here. Cantares, commissioned by the
Cornell University Chorus and Glee Club to celebrate the university’s
sesquicentennial anniversary, evokes ancient Peruvian, Aztec and Afro
Caribbean voices lost in time. The virtuoso Triple Concierto
transforms the popular Caribbean rhythms of salsa, bolero and merengue
into complex contemporary expressions, while the polyrhythmic layers of Loíza conjure a Puerto Rican town known for its strong African traditions.
About This Recording
When I was asked to write Cantares (2015)
my initial impulse was to compose music that would evoke lost voices in
time. I searched for texts that dated back in history and memory, and
the inspiration for the first movement was drawn from a 17th-century
manuscript book of prayers that contains the hymn Hanacpachap cussicuinin written
in Quechua, and published in 1631 in Cuzco, Peru. This early attempt at
musical syncretism is fascinating and triggered in my mind many
questions about how this music may have unfolded. In the end I decided
not to reconstruct the sound or the way the hymn would have been played,
but rather create my own modern reflection on a beautiful text and four
voice polyphony written around 400 years ago. The text combines both
ideas and concepts from the Quechua culture and the Christian concept of
the mother of God.
Canto Lucumí traces its ancestry to Afro-Cuban ritual music
of West African origin. The text consists of incantations that have been
phonetically transcribed into Spanish. The meaning of the words is
sometimes obscure, but what really interested me was how they sounded
and their fascinating rhythmic quality. The floating nature of the music
and the use of extended vocal techniques of sibilant noise and
percussive sounds enhance the mystery already embedded in the original
texts.
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