Al-Zahra
Large Symphony Orchestra:
3.3.3.3 – 4.3.3.1. – 1timpani.3 percussion.1hp.1pf.-16.14.12.10.8.
Duration: 4 minutes
World Premiere:
Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Yoichi Sugiyama (conductor)
Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, Tokyo, 26 May 2024
Commissioner:
Toru Takemitsu Composition Award
Program notes
Al-Zahra is scored for large orchestra and is an imagination of the disappeared city of Al-Zahra in Cordoba. The only thing we have about this disappeared city nowadays are its legends and ruins.
I am amazed with the splendor of the ruinous city itself and its relevance to the complex and turbulent history of this region of Spain. The piece is a fantasy around Al-Zahra, my notion of fantastic is a notion that is ultimately no different from the notion of realism. My reality is a reality where the fantastic and the real intersect on a daily basis.
The two parts of work, sharply contrasted, relate to two different facets of Al-Zahra. The first part, rough and energetic, is related to the ruins of the City itself and is dominated by sounds of hammering and banging on all manner of percussion.
Innumerable short motifs coming from popular Aramaic songs and Spanish dances are deconstructed, counterpointed and juxtaposed in the manner of a mosaic. The second part, evokes a person who was an old citizen of Al-Zahra, reborn and finds immersed in existential uncertainty seeing the ruins of the city. This part, is slow and lyrical, connecting the motifs into long, flowing melodies.
During the writing process, I understood that the only way to close the work was by quoting the Spanish Christmas carol Los campanilleros.