Compositions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ouroboros 
 

Bestiarium, Livro 2 #1

2023  - 

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instrumentation:  solo shakuhachi and two double-basses drone

                                                                                       

other versions: --                                                                                                                           

 

epigraph: --

 

score: LAI-EP 52

 

duration: 12'30"

 

date/place of composition: August 2022 - March 2023, Florianópolis

 

dedication: --

 

first performance: Concert Músicas de Luigi Antonio Irlandini, 01 June 2023, Igrejinha da UFSC, Florianópolis

 

audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YQjRGZEhAc

 

notes:

The popular image of the Ouroboros (or Uroboros) appears in several cultures around the world since, at least, ancient Egypt.  The snake or dragon that bites its own tail stands as a symbol of eternity, perpetuity, cyclic time, totality, primordial unity, self-sufficiency, self-begetting, renewal from its own substance, existence within the circle, and the beginning of creation, which, in the individual, according to Erich Neumann, is the psychic state before the formation of the ego.

A quick description of the compositional process is the following: the piece results from a ouroboric algorithym that generates the entire monody, combined with a time cycle of nine durations that works very much like a Medieval talea. The algorythm is a chain of permutations (vikṛti), a recurring technique in my music since Agnistoma II, which is first applied to a series of eight melodic intervals (the series appears in the first ten measures of the music), and, next, applied again to larger segments of the line in this section, resulting, in measures 11 to 52. A third application of the algorythm, now to the even larger monodic segments that constitute the second section, generates the rest of the music. One could go on expanding the music infinitely, but, in reality, one needs to stop at a certain point...  This is why the music does not really end, but simply stops at the completion of the third application of the algorythm, offering to the listener something like a "slice" of eternity: a musical time that is ecstatic, circular and static, where changes are only apparent or superficial.

My Ouroboros is the first composition of the second Bestiarium series and it has two original versions, meaning that I have conceived them as being equally original: one version for symphonic orchestra and the other for shakuhachi, the "pocket version". The shakuhachi part contains the core of the music, and, for this reason, had to be composed first, while the orchestral part, as it expands the monody in terms of timbre, register and intensity, was composed later.  The orchestral version is intended for the orchestra alone, and is not to be performed together with the shakuhachi version. The shakuhachi version is performed with a drone, which requires two double-basses. The drone is not notated, as it is improvised according to a few indications. The score is written for a C shakuhachi, but the piece may be performed on shakuhachi of any size, provided the relationship between the monody and the drone be maintained. This means that, for the C shakuhachi, the drone is G; a D shakuhachi, the drone is  A, and so on.

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