Leonardo Balada (b. 1933) Violin Concerto No.1 Folk Dreams Sardana Fantasias Sonoras The style of a composer can turn in many contradictory directions...
Leonardo Balada (b.
1933)
Violin Concerto No.1
Folk Dreams Sardana Fantasias Sonoras
The style of a composer can turn in many contradictory directions during
his creative life. While at the time of my graduation from the Juilliard School
in 1960 I was completely opposed to embracing the almost universally heralded
serialism, I was, on the other hand, unhappy with the neo-classicism I
practised at the time. It took a few years for me to find a language that I
could call avant-garde and that was also independent from the main stream as it
then was. My music turned unto a wild explosion of sonorities, rhythm and drama
in works like Guernica, Maria Sabina, No-res and Steel Symphony. Some
years later I ventured in a new direction in works like Sinfonia en Negro-Homage
to Martin Luther King (1968) and Homage to Casals and Sarasate (1975),
in what could be construed as a third stylistic period. Here I blended those
avant-garde ways with ethnic and traditional ideas. For that I was either
praised as a pioneer in this now all too common trend or attacked for having
abandoned an austere and self-imposed position.
In 1982 in an article in the Sunday New York Times dedicated to me,
Peter Eliot Stone wrote: "He believes that at this point in 20th century
music all the more modern techniques can be blended happily with more
traditional sounds to result in something different and fresh... He has lived in
Barcelona, an ancient city host to Gaudi and Picasso, where old narrow streets
empty into modem avenues... Thus, his music...encompasses...(the) old and the
new." The compositions here included reflect this trend, for they all
offer a mixture of those far-out techniques with tradition.
The Violin Concerto No. 1 of 1982 is structured in three
traditional movements which are performed without a break. The thematic
material, Catalan folk-melodies, is treated in a very unconventional manner.
In the first movement, almost a dance in character, the folk-melody is at first
hardly recognisable, but as the movement unfolds, its identity becomes clearer
and clearer until the end, when it appears in a straight-forward manner. The
second movement, slow and meditative, reverses that treatment. While in the
beginning a melody is presented in full, this fades away, gradually growing
shorter until the end. In the third movement, a melody is expanded more and
more from its original simplicity into a complex and virtuoso line. The
concerto was commissioned by Carnegie Mellon University and first performed by
the University's Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall in New York City on 21st
November, 1982, with the violinist Fritz Siegal under the direction of the
conductor Werner Torkanowsky.
Folk Dreams is a work in three movements for orchestra and these constitute a suite
based on folk-melodies from Latvia, Catalonia and Ireland. These melodies are
presented as in a dream, with a surrealistic vision in the way its components
are superimposed, dissected and in the way that the form of each movement
unfolds.
Surrealism is not a new influence in my music. From the late 1950s to
the late 1960s I was frequently in touch with the master of surrealism, the
painter Salvador Dali, in New York City. I even collaborated with him on two
occasions, the first in 1960 in a television film in which he satirized the painter
Mondrian, the second in 1967 at a "happening" at Fisher Hall in the
Lincoln Center. Dali's antics and theatricality had an unconscious effect on me
during those formative years, even if to me it was all a big joke. Some of my
subsequent compositions bear witness to that influence.
The whole suite is dedicated to my son, Dylan, and each one of the
movements is dedicated to the different prominent conductors who directed the
first performances of each movement with different orchestras. The first
movement, Line and Thunder is dedicated to Mariss Jansons, the second, Shadows,
to Jesús Lopez-Cobos and the third, Echoes, to Colman Pearce, who
gave the first performance of the whole suite in Dublin with the National
Symphony Orchestra of Ireland in May 1999.
The first movement, Line and Thunder, was written in 1996. The
dichotomy of the title suggests a similar dichotomy between the two principal
ideas in the composition. From the beginning a Latvian folk-melody is heard
with several layers of voices. This melody "line" is played with some
transformations throughout the work. Gradually and on top of it, a
fast-propelled, heavy structure of sound "thunder" occurs. While
"line" is basically traditional and diatonic, "thunder" on
the other hand makes use of abrasive clustered harmonies. The melody is
introduced by the strings but soon is performed by the orchestra's pitched
percussion, harp and piano, suggesting, in a gigantic way, the nasal metal-like
sound of the kokles, a Latvian folk-instrument. The work was commissioned
and first performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Mariss
Jansons.
The second movement, Shadows, written in 1994, is a brief essay
in soft and slow sonorities for orchestra. The basic material is a Catalan
melody that is introduced gradually from the beginning. Rich textures are added
beneath the melody, creating a suggestion of evening lights, shadows and
mystery. A wide variety of techniques is used, from traditional harmonies to
clusters, from conventional lines to aleatoric devices. The work was
commissioned for the hundredth season of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and
was first performed by this orchestra on 31st March, 1995, conducted by Jesús
Lopez-Cobos.
In Echoes, composed in 1998, several Irish melodies are juxtaposed
in what is essentially a "jig". Fragments of these melodies are
presented by some instruments while others create echo effects of these
fragments, by way of layers of sounds or pedal-notes.
Sardana, A Symphonic Movement for Orchestra, was completed in 1979. The sardana
is the national dance of Catalonia. The music is performed by an ensemble,
a cobla, of ten wind instruments and a double bass. Of these the most
characteristic is the tenora, nasal and very penetrating in its quality.
The dancers of sardanas, the ordinary people of the region, hold hands
in a circle and others join the group spontaneously as the dance goes on. The
dance consists of two different parts which are repeated exactly several times,
the curts (short ones) and the llarcs (long ones), referring to
the type of steps in each one of the sections.
In Sardana I am attempting to establish the duality of the cobla
and the actual dance by the people, as well as to suggest a sculpture-like
character to it. As such, the woodwind, brass and percussion become the cobla,
performing the actual musical part, and the strings convey the idea of
people with a basically dance-rhythmic function. From time to time I use a
degree of musical freedom in linking the traditional folk character of the dance
to a more universal one. I also blend traditional ideas with contemporary
harmonies and techniques.
Sardana was composed in response to a commission from the Catalan patron of the
arts Joan Cendros
to whom the work is dedicated, and it was first performed by the Pittsburgh
Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Lankester, in Pittsburgh in October
1982.
Based on a simple melodic and rhythmic cell, Fantasias Sonora, ('Fantasies
in Sound'), written in 1987, is the result of the constant variation and evolution
of this cell. In the process, the work encounters a number of sound build-ups
of different degrees and characteristics. The composition was commissioned to
commemorate the opening of the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts in Pittsburgh,
a lively theatre, the result of the transformation of a large cinema into a
building for opera, ballet and dance. The work has a festive mood of
celebration that suggests enthusiasm for old Hollywood films, despite its
far-out sounds, textures, harmonies and a virtuoso level of performance that
recalls a concerto for orchestra. The composition was first performed at the
Benedum Center in October 1987 by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, conducted
by Sixten Ehrling.
Leonardo Balada
Leonardo Balada
Born in Barcelona on 22nd September, 1933, Leonardo Balada graduated
there at the Conservatorio del Liceu and in 1960 at the Juilliard School in New
York. He also studied composition with Vincent Persichetti and Aaron Copland
and conducting with Igor Markevitch. Since 1970 he has been teaching at
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he is University
Professor of Composition. Balada's works are performed by the leading
orchestras throughout the world, under conductors of the highest distinction.
Leonardo Balada has received commissions for new works from many outstanding
organizations in the United States and in Europe. He has also composed works
for artists including Alicia de Larrocha, the American Brass Quintet, Andres
Segovia, Narciso Yepes, Lucero Tena and Angel Romero and has collaborated with
artists and writers like Salvador Dali and Nobel Prize winner Camilo Jose Cela.
Many of his compositions have been recorded by leading record companies.
Balada' s compositions, in addition to chamber and symphonic compositions,
include cantatas, two chamber operas and three full length operas, Zapata and
Christopher Columbus. This last was given its first performance in
Barcelona in 1989 with Jose Carreras and Montserrat Caballe singing the leading
rôles and attracted international attention and wide critical acclaim. He has
recently completed a sequel to this opera, The Death of Columbus.