20/02/2023The composer David Llorens has told us about the premiere of his latest work, this Thursday, February 23, at the Academy of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi in Barcelona. These are the 'Seasonal Images' for voice and piano, which he has written about four haikus by Matsuo Basho, and the performers will be Japanese soprano Kimhiyo Nakako and pianist Núria S. Leiva. The work will be premiered during the concert entitled 'From Barcelona to Tokyo', programmed within the cycle 'Classical on Thursdays', where a COUHYB piano will be used, a modified piano to obtain two different timbres.

https://www.ccma.cat/catradio/alacarta/assaig-general/david-llorens-a-la-meva-nova-obra-he-usat-el-silenci-i-les-escales-pentatoniques-japoneses/audio/1163092/

'Imatges estacionals' with the nuances of Acouhyb
(On 4 Matsuo Bashō’s haiku)



David Llorens and Guillaumes and Kimhïyo Nakako explain the composition process of the piece Imatges estacionals and shed light on its meanings.
'Imatges estacionals' premiered on February 23 of this year, at a concert by Musical Innovators with Acouhyb. According to David, 'The idea for the work arose from a previous proposal, also based on some haikus that Kimhïyo helped me understand. Since then, I wanted to write a play for Kimhïyo, about haiku and in his native language. Then I contacted Musical Innovators, who I had collaborated with on the Acouhyb piano project, and they quickly embraced the project.'
This is how the idea of expanding the range of sounds of 'Imatges estacionals' with the Acouhyb arose: 'The next step was to test the fragments that I had already written with the Crazy 0/4 sound, since at school I have a wall piano in that tuning, and the result was that some fragments worked very well, but not the whole work. Even so, the new Acouhyb has 7 different sounds, so I didn't give up and tried it on 0/1. With this tuning, the whole piece worked, so we decided to use the 0/1 sound as the main one instead of the secondary one for the first time.'
To add the Acouhyb, they had to convince the pianist Núria S. Leiva, and the result was more than satisfactory: 'not only did she like playing with the Acouhyb, but it was the first time that a pianist asked for her piano to be tuned in this system to be able to get hold of the sound and look for the best possible interpretation'.
THE HAIKUS
Kimhïyo tells us a bit about how haikus are defined in Japan, to avoid falling into some Western generalizations when adopting them.
Haiku has substantial rules. If they are not met, we fall into another modality called 'senryu', used for poems that are just as short as haiku but do not meet all the rules, which are the following:
1. The syllables always must follow the 5-7-5 pattern.
2. You must use a word that refers to the season of the year, the 'kigo' It is useless to use the name of the season directly. There are even 'kigo' lists that serve as inspiration and are often memorized by professionals.
3. No feelings. It is a photo or an image that serves as a metaphor to evoke feelings, but it cannot use expressions such as 'I am sad' or 'I have fallen in love'.
Often, in haikus composed in foreign languages, these rules are broken. For this reason, David's composition winks at each of the aspects.
1. The title 'Imatges estacionals' (seasonal images) refers to the actual definition of haiku
2. The title of each song corresponds to the 'kigo' that appears in the chosen poem
3. The sound of each song evokes images and sensations, like the cicada's song or the movement of the wind, of death...
As the composition is divided into four seasons, a selection process for the haiku associated with each one was necessary, which was as follows.
Winter
Tabi ni yande I get sick in the middle of the trip
Yume wa kareno wo My dream, by the arid field (or mount)
kakemeguru Goes everywhere
The first haiku we decided on was this one. It seems that, in the early morning of October 9, 1694, Basho was in bed and asked a disciple to write down this haiku. He had been sick for a month, and, without warning, this was his last haiku. He died in Osaka, where he was traveling, four days later. According to a disciple's diary, he had made this trip in Osaka to mediate a dispute between two disciples.
We call 'Jiamari' to the fact that the first stanza has 6 syllables instead of 5. One study deduces that Basho probably did it expressly, since right after it became fashionable to do 'Jiamari' to emphasize a word.
Spring
Shibaraku wa For a short time
Hana no ue naru Will be on the sakura blossoms
Tsukiyo kana The moon at night
We were clear that spring should have for 'kigo' the 'hana', the flower of Sakura (cherry tree), since this tree is the most important symbol for the Japanese.
Hana, meaning flower(s) in Japanese, here becomes synonymous with cherry blossoms, 'Sakura' in the ancient poetic term. Cherry blossoms bloom in early spring. Despite their spectacular beauty, they last very little, and for this reason they are the symbol of the ephemeral nature of life or beauty.
Summer
Shizukasa Already the Silence
Iwa ni ape iru Penetrate the rocks
Semi no koe The voices of the cicadas (or the cicada)
During the summer, we picked up the famous poem in which Basho talks about the cicada, or cicadas (the Japanese language does not differentiate between the singular and the plural. If he had composed it at the beginning of summer, it would be in the singular, because in that season it is usually only feel).
This haiku is included in the travel chronicle Okuno hosomichi, and that is why we have a writing about the context in which he composed it: 'There is a temple in a high mountain, it is very far away and there is a lot of silence. (...) It is a mountain made of rocks, you don't feel anything in the temple, which is well closed. The panorama is so silent that it made me empty my mind (or feeling).'
Autumn
Akikaze no The Autumn Wind
Fukedomo aoshi Although it is already blowing, green they are
kuri no iga Chestnut skewers
Finally, we decided on autumn, thinking about the combination with the others. We wanted something with movement, and the theme of the wind was going very well. We laughed because, despite being a 17th century haiku, it seems to be talking about climate change when it describes a 'hot autumn'.
The haiku was written in 1691, which, it seems, was a year with very high temperatures in autumn, and for this reason the chestnut fruit was still green (chestnuts dry up and fall in the cold). In Japanese, the colour blue ('aoshi') is used to indicate that the fruit is not ripe, as it happens in Spanish with 'green'.
THE MUSICAL PIECE
After this introduction, David Llorens explains the composition process and the decisions he made when adapting the poems:
The music of the images does not keep any structural form with the 3 verses of 5-7-5 syllables of the haikus. Each one has a different structure and, if the music requires it, the verses or words are repeated, changing the rhythm of the haiku.
Although the compositions are based on Western harmony, all of them contain some characteristic of Japanese musical art, either because of the scales in which they are made (it would be the case of summer and winter), because there is the use of some popular melody (such as spring) or because there are imitative characteristics of Gagaku music (such as autumn).
Although the work is a single piece, it is divided into four joined parts. In some cases, this union occurs through silence or 'MA'.
'Hana': cherry blossoms –in Japanese, 'Sakura'– (spring)
There is a long introduction the melody of which is taken from the Japanese folk song Sakura Sakura (Puccini used the same theme for La Bohème), and motifs from Vivaldi's spring are superimposed on this melody. This allows me to treat the music in a bimodal way, since Sakura Sakura is on a Japanese scale, also called 'Sakura', which has the color of a minor key, and Vivaldi's spring has a clearly major key. Afterwards, there is a passage that imitates the song of the birds and that is also inspired by Vivaldi (this same passage will be used later as Coda of the piece).
The text melody is also inspired by the song Sakura Sakura. The structure consists of repeating the first verse twice, followed by the second, and this is played three times in a row with different transports and piano accompaniments. The third verse is only sung once at the end, just before the Coda (the Vivaldi-inspired birdsong).
'Semi': cicada, or cicadas (summer)
This haiku speaks of the summer silence only broken by the song of the cicadas or the cicada. Therefore, it begins with a long rest ('ma') and the haiku melody, based on a Japanese scale, is sung without accompaniment.
This time, the lyrics of the haiku are sung all at once and without repetition, just as the poem is. Only at the last verse do we begin to feel the song of the cicadas, represented by the piano and which lasts for a whole long interlude on agreements (made in the same Japanese pentatonic scale). When the interlude ends, in the form of a coda, the haiku melody is played again with some variations, again without accompaniment and with only a few touches from the cicadas.
'Akikase': autumn wind (autumn)
In this image, the piano makes some arpeggios inspired by the harmony of the Japanese liturgical music Gagaku that represent the wind, and above this atmosphere the voice sings the text of the haiku freely, repeating the words and going back and forth on the first verse of 5 syllables.
A second melody that contrasts with the first introduces the text of the second verse, which is interpreted (also playing with words) by the piano and the voice in unison, but there are small melodic and rhythmic variations between both instruments, as if it were an improvisation in which they were chasing The operation of the melodic instruments of a Japanese instrumental formation is imitated, which insert small improvisations and changes in the repeated melody at moments with unison.
The third verse is said only once, recited, at the end, and just with the last syllable the initial arpeggios of the piano (the wind) start again, and the singer repeats the melody from the beginning, but articulating only the first two syllables. of the first verse.
In this part she used the twelve-note chromatic scale, a scale also used in traditional Japanese music, although it is true that, to an ear accustomed to Western music, it sounds musically like a pentatonic scale with ornaments and small chromaticism.
'Kareno': the arid field (winter)
This was the first part that she composed, when she was still experimenting with Japanese modes and was not very clear about the direction the work would take.
Initially, the entire work had to consist of the three sentences of the haiku set to music, with a short piano introduction. When I sent it to Kimhïyo, but doubts arose. We were not sure that such short pieces could be accessible by the western public, so we made the decision to repeat the text of the haiku 3 times. This caused us to change the name of the composition from '4 Seasonal Haiku' to 'Seasonal Images'.
Another problem was Kimhïyo's fear that the piano would cover his voice since the melody is written in its low register. For this reason and adding that I loved the first performance she did with solo voice without accompaniment, I decided that the voice would sound alone after the piano introduction, and that the piano would enter later to make a small interlude and, then yes: that the voice would recount the melody, this time higher pitched and with some variations, with piano accompaniment. After this, the piece is followed by a long silence and the melody is repeated in a low register, a bit varied and without piano accompaniment, which only intervenes to highlight the last note.
The dialogue between the Western, Catalan, and Japanese traditions, which includes Acouhyb’s the many sound possibilities, is very present throughout the work, we hope the public will enjoy it!
Nadja Bas

The pianist Fedor Veselov performed, a few months ago, Homenatges Enigma by David Llorens i Guillaumes, his first work composed by hybrid piano. As a gift to the audience, the room was infused with the vividness and light that Fedor Veselov drew from the bells of the new piano. David Llorens y Guillaumes decided to be a composer when, while still an eight-year-old piano student, he saw the small pieces that Mozart composed at four. 'If he did this at 4, I can do it at 8.' Then he got excited about the film Amadeus. Later, it is clear, he became a composer. 'Dedicating yourself to songwriting is difficult, especially when you start saying you want to get paid for your work.' This led David to find the web of someone named Sergey Gogolev who was looking for composers for his project. He got in touch and sent him some songs. Sergey liked them and invited him to hear the sound of the timbre. Thus, David Llorens i Guillaumes became the first composer for ACOUHYB. The first concert led him to reflect on which authors would be enriched with the new sound. 'Debussy would fit in his most impressionistic phase, the last Liszt -when he became a priest and composed religious music-, Satie... Especially the post-Romantics of the 19th century. Also the minimalist and light music of Tiersen and all his followers. And some composers from home, I will not say the names because some are already in contact with Sergey and I do not want to squash the surprise.' As for the timbre, 'I have read the other articles, and I agree with what all the musicians said; it is a melancholic, crazy, new, nostalgic sound... But I don't think they have taken my word for it yet: movement. For me, the sound of the hybrid piano is alive, I have the feeling that it can never be still. ' I asked him how he translates this sensation of movement to the pieces. 'Using accords with open fourths and fifths, augmented, novenas, slow beats and long notes. It is about allowing time for this movement to be felt in the vibration. However, this cannot last the whole piece; it is fortunate to be able to change the bell and make things faster. In the case of the work Homenatges Enigma, I wrote it when the piano did not yet have the possibility of changing the timbre by means of the pedal, so the faster and more dissonant movement is almost all written in the low register of the piano, where the notes have only one string and the sound 'crazy' is not possible. 'You have to feel it to understand it. 'It's funny that, when you try it with the interpreters, you see that there are places where you didn't expect the bell to sound good and it does. Then you change it.'
With Fedor Veselov, the interpreting pianist, they got on right away. 'He loved his first work. We have seen each other, we have often met (well, not so much, we do not always have as much time as we want), we have a similar vision of what art is, how it should be interpreted... Sometimes I am even surprised by the way he interprets. It is nice to see how someone contributes to the piece based on what you have done. Naturally, the interpreter must do his part to overcome the 'coldness' of the score. The composer often gets lost in harmonies, resonances, dissonances ... And it is the interpreter who has to find expressiveness from the outside. Sometimes I would go beyond pointing out dynamics, ligatures ... And let the interpreter choose them. ' David has composed about everything for cameras, couplets and orchestra, and has gone through many types of groups and instruments (curiously, he has created little for piano). Homenatges enigma ('Tributes Enigma') is a piece composed exclusively for a hybrid piano. It has a continuation called Reflexions, a piano and cello duo, which was performed by the DeLis Duo on May 8ofthat same year (in the article about this concert we analyze the piece more thoroughly). 'At Reflexions I no longer thought of any composer, I wanted it to be more personal and to experience what I could do with this timbre. It is quite different from everything I have composed. I consider it to be my best work, despite having done others afterwards.' It may be that in a short time we will listen to a trio, composed for a long time, that has waited for the other two pieces to be released to appear and add one more instrument to the harmonies of the 'crazy' timbre. 'I would like to continue experimenting with these and new ringers.' David often proposes ideas to Sergey and he advises him, from the knowledge of the technique. 'Maybe it occurs to metoplay the strings with my fingers to change the sonority, and Sergey says to me: man, this will fill the strings with grease and they will rust! Well, it's an example, this was done a long time ago, but illustrates the idea. ' David Llorens i Guillaumes defines his style as eclectic. 'I am classically trained and I love it, since I discovered Mozart. Now I no longer take it as much as a reference and I am also attracted to impressionist music, twentieth century and contemporary music. Perhaps due to rebellion with the family I went from Stravinski to Ligeti, Stockhausen... On the other hand, I listen to a lot of modern music, rock, heavy metal, Catalan rock... In the work Reflections, for example, there is a very heavy metal passage. I confess that I really liked groups like Metallica and Guns and Roses. Well, Guns and Roses only until I saw how they played live.' 'When I compose I am more cerebral than sentimental. I can't imagine neither the green field with flowers nor the terrifying scene. Afterwards some images may come to you, but I start out being cerebral. My composition process is to start looking for sounds. I erase more than I write, I close things. Until there is a moment when the piece takes me and I forget the rest. Then I have to set alarms so as not to forget daily routines. At this moment, the play is in charge, and not me. ' Homenatges enigma is so called because it is inspired by various composers who, according to David, fit the timbre a lot.' It is the least personal work I have because someone always remembers... Some parts can become plagiarism.' I asked who the composers were, and he emphasized that the second part of the name is 'enigma'. He couldn't tell me. 'In fact, we made a game for Facebook where weposted fragments and people had to try to get it right. It was funny, because people often told names that weren't what I had in mind, and I found that they might have fit in, too. Anyway, it was not very successful.' Following the anecdote with Facebook, I asked him about the music world nowadays.' He is lost. We have a lot of popular, electronic and independent music of a low level; everything is prefabricated and repeats the same structures, and therefore, everything sounds the same. And those who fight for an innovative contemporary music, perhaps vertiginous, are in a corner and have no projection. Even here there are good works and others that sound terrible; as in a painting exhibition, not all doodles are well done. And classical music has an audience with a very high average age, and it will soon run out of it. I think that it should put an end to the 'fuddy-duddy' of the concerts. This aura of ephemeris of the big halls is not visual; the musicians come out speechless and with bitter faces, always performing the same works by the same composers. I think that one is needed. more modern staging, with lights and smoke to catch the audience, and that you can go to see a concert in a more relaxed way. Maybe even have a drink while listening to the music.' In this context, the ACOUHYB project is trying to make its way. 'I think it will be difficult because nowadays what succeeds is electronics. I like the acoustic better. One thing is to play instruments, the other one is that the computer makes the music for you. I really liked the idea of searching for a new sound with acoustics. I love it but it goes against the current.' Or maybe we like it because it goes against the current. 'It is still in process; it is very new. Sometimes, with Sergey we talk, looking for new ring possibilities. Usually, he has already thought about your new ideas. It is a project which is alive and has a lot of chances for evolution.' The ACOUHYB project has the liveliness of a dynamism always with one foot against the current: a whole acoustic whirlwind.
Nadja Bas

May 8, 2021. DeLis Duet performs R. Schumann, N. Boulanger, A. Piazzola and D. Llorens i Guillaumes at the 'SiFaSol' School in Barcelona. They establish a dialogue between the ACOUHYB (a piano tuned in such a way that if you press the left pedal, it changes the tuning) and a cello in the beautiful premiere of the work Reflexions David Llorens i Guillaumes, composed specifically for this timbre.
Irina was the first to know Sergey. He explained to her the Crazy Piano project and she became interested. It has been a year and a half since they started planning the concert, which was to take place before the pandemic. It was postponed. And yet, at the last minute, they had to postpone it for another month…

The DeLis Duo is made up of the cellist Irma Bau and the pianist Irina Veselova. They met in 2017, in a masterclass given by Peter Brus in Barcelona. Irina was the accompanying pianist, and Irma performed Cesar Frank's Sonata. After the masterclasses, Irina called Irma and told her that she had always wanted to play Frank's Sonata and hadn't had the chance. She asked her to rehearse it, to do some concerts... They met and got along right away. They soon had their first concert as a duo. They won the second prize in the International Competition of Les Corts in Barcelona, and ​​the first prize in 'Josep Mirabent' and 'Magrans a Sitges'. This pushed them to more concerts, activities... They got along very well and ended up being friends. After four years, they still wish to start more projects.
The concert with ACOUHYB was quite a challenge for them.

David Llorens i Guillaumes (to whom we will dedicate an article later) had been sending them the piece bit by bit, as he composed it. Even before the confinement, they met to clarify doubts about the piece. 'For me, it's been quite an easy and nice job,' he told me when I asked him.

We talked about the process of composing Reflexions. It is the second piece composed specifically for the timbre of the Crazy Piano. In the first one, Homenatges enigma (that was not for a hybrid piano but for a piano only 'Crazy') had tested how different composers would look with the new sound. In Reflexions, I already wanted to do something more personal, and try the harmonies that would look good, now with a hybrid piano. The subtitle, however, remains Enigmes 2. Sergey gave him absolute freedom, and put him in touch with Irina: 'If the piece is too long, we'll do more concerts.'

Reflexions consists of four movements. The first one is the introduction of the acoustic hybrid piano, and there all the themes that will be developed in the other movements appear. 'I didn't conceive that part would last so long but I couldn't find a way to get the cello in. In the end, I did it in the rough'; thus the second movement begins.' The Crazy 'timbre goes well with slow melodies, open harmonies... But I also wanted something more hardcore.' So let's go to the third movement, called 'Dispute', in which the piano ends up leaving suddenly, as the cello had entered. The 'Epilogue' compensates the cello for the silence of the first movement; if the piano had shone in the beginning, all the cello resources are used here: pizzicato, glissando, harmonicas, sul ponte, col legno…
They had to meet Irma to test if the hard parts of the cello were working. With the Crazy Pedal, however, they could not rehearse until the day before the concert. David Llorens i Guillaumes had not written in the play where he wanted the crazy timbre 'I don't have it at home and I couldn't try it, moreover, this is part of the colour that the performer wants to give it -he says-, I imagined me in the role of the ancient composers who composed for organ or key, and let the artist decide to register. '

Even though they had talked about it before confinement, they couldn’t finish suiting it until they had the acoustic hybrid piano in front of them. 'It was a bit stressful for me -explains Irina- the concept of the new piano, to understand how it worked… In such a short time!'
The sound and power of acoustic hybrid piano are very different. Besides, this timbre has not yet been used much with other instruments. The cello finds it difficult to find the tuning. Irma finds it strange: 'The problem with tuning with the Crazy Piano is that it doesn't just sound like a note; each note has several tuning centres. It's hard to find the right note.'
Due to a lack of time, the DeLis Duo did not risk playing pieces by other composers, not made for this timbre. I asked them if they could associate a word with the sound of this timbre: 'It's like memories of the past... melancholy, nostalgia…'.
In the end, they were happy with the result and how the experience went. They agreed that 'it was a great experience to premiere a work like this and with such an exclusive and innovative piano.' David also praises the result: 'When a composer listens to a work of his first performed, it is normal that he is not completely satisfied. This is what the composers talk about among us but no one dares to say it in public -he pauses-. Well, I do. You have your idea, a tempo, an expressiveness... in your head, but of course, the performers have to give you theirs, which is not yours. And you never leave the premiere completely happy. In this case, it has been different. '
Perhaps because, when the play premiered after so long, 'I didn't remember it much anymore; in between, I had written other works. It’s what often happens when you listen to the recording of the piece that at the time hadn’t satisfied you, and you like it.' Very much.
'Apart from that, the rehearsals went very well. Usually at the premiere... there are nerves. But I was very relaxed in the sense that I had a lot of confidence in the performers. They had to be excellent in it. I knew the result it would give -he remained pensive-, well, yes, I had nerves. I was a little unbearable, my family knows that. But I trusted the performers a lot, and I'm very happy with how everything went. '

The DeLis Duo want to introduce the Crazy Ring and try it with more pieces when they have more time to rehearse. They think that Nadia Boulanger's pieces would look good. Or Tchaikovsky, said Irina, if I had to play the piano alone. In any case, 'we are eager to keep trying. Let's see if we have more opportunities to enjoy it! It is worth it.' It is worth it.

Nadja Bas

Full piece of D.Llorens:
https://youtu.be/dlv44vL6PXw
Full concert:
https://youtu.be/mVpRjhIWeVE