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Cantica Gelidæ  

Full Orchestra (pgs. 13-34)

VOICE & LIVE--ELECTRONICS

NOV. 2015

Premiered by Sergio Andrés Martínez at Morse Recital hall as part of the New Haven New Music concert series.

About the piece:

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Cantica Gelidæ explores the ephemeral nature of 'the voice' (the figurative voice and the literal voice) and the human desire to perpetuate it in time. The piece uses a MaxMSP patch containing a harmonizer, a granulator, and IRCAM's Spat5 to multiply, fragment, and sustain the singer's voice.

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The piece explores our relationship to time as we hear the singer’s voice live (as it comes out of his mouth), then shadowed by the microphone (a few milliseconds later), echoed by the electronics (half a second later), and even frozen at times as it is sustained indefinitely.

Text:

from De rerum natura  (On the Nature of Things) by the Roman poet, Lucretius.

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Replentur loca vocibus abdita retro. (603)

Latin:

Praeterea partis in cunctas dividitur vox,

ex aliis aliae quoniam gignuntur, ubi una (605)

dissuluit semel in multas exorta, quasi ignis

saepe solet scintilla suos se spargere in ignis.

Ignis copiosus.

Ignem qui se vertere in auras aeris.

Ignem qui aestifer ut radiorum

Meare de terra ad sidera mundi.

et faciat caelique serena concutiat sonitu,

tum fulmina mittat

caeli subter labentia signa quae.

mmm (Replentur loca)
vocibus abdita retro. (603)
Sed comes insequitur facile et discedit in auras et gelidos artus in leti frigore linquit. (401)

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And so, the voice reaches the most hidden place.

English translation:

Moreover, a voice is into all directions divided up,

since off from one another new voices are engendered,

when one voice hath once leapt forth, out-starting into many--as

oft a spark of fire is wont to sprinkle Itself into its several fires.

A plenteous fire.

Fire that turns into the winds of air.

Fire that splits like rays

To go their way from earth onto the stars of the ethereal world.

And shake the serene spaces of the sky with sound,

And hurl his lightnings

Beneath the gliding stars.

mmm (Reaches place)
voice, the most hidden

However, it goes with mind into the winds

away, and leaves the icy members in the cold of death.

Instrumentation: 

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     Voice (Basso Profondo)

     Live - electronics (via MaxMSP)

Julián Fueyo: [Excerpt] Cantica Gelidæ / Frozen Chants • Sergio Martinez
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INSTRUMENTATION
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