Homenaje a Federico García Lorca
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' (Homage to Federico García Lorca) is a work for chamber orchestra by the Mexican composer
Silvestre Revueltas Silvestre Revueltas Sánchez (December 31, 1899 – October 5, 1940) was a Mexican composer of classical music, a violinist and a conductor. Life Revueltas was born in Santiago Papasquiaro in Durango, and studied at the National Conservatory ...
.


History

On 19 August 1936, the Spanish poet
Federico García Lorca Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936), known as Federico García Lorca ( ), was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblemat ...
was murdered by fascist militia forces. Outraged, along with many other intellectuals and artists, in October Revueltas composed ', one of his most important works, which was premiered on 14 November 1936 conducted by the composer. It was given its first Spanish performance at the in Madrid on 17 September 1937.


Instrumentation

The work is scored for a chamber orchestra of piccolo, E clarinet, two
trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
s,
trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...
,
tuba The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...
,
tamtam The tamtam, sometimes spelled tam-tam, is a type of gong. TamTam, Tam-Tam, tamtam, or tam-tam may also refer to: * ''Tam-Tam'' (album), a 1983 album by Amanda Lear * Tam Tam (''Samurai Shodown''), a character from the fighting game ''Samurai Sh ...
,
xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in ...
,
piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
, two
violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...
s, and
double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...
. The absence of low
woodwinds Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and reed ...
,
viola ; german: Bratsche , alt=Viola shown from the front and the side , image=Bratsche.jpg , caption= , background=string , hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow , range= , related= *Violin family ...
s, and
cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...
s produces a sound meant to evoke a Mexican village band, or the sound of
Indian music Owing to India's vastness and diversity, Indian music encompasses numerous genres in multiple varieties and forms which include classical music, folk (Bollywood), rock, and pop. It has a history spanning several millennia and developed ove ...
.


Analysis

The composition is in three
movements Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...
: The main, Allegro, section of the first movement is typical of Revueltas's orchestration. An almost constant rhythmic substructure in 4/16 time is produced by the staccato of the piano, repeated plaintive fourths in the violins, and an obstinately repeated G in
semiquaver Figure 1. A 16th note with stem facing up, a 16th note with stem facing down, and a 16th rest. Figure 2. Four 16th notes beamed together. In music, a 1/16, sixteenth note ( American) or semiquaver (British) is a note played for half the dur ...
s in the contrabasses. Over this texture, wind instruments present the thematic material, "at once sad and gay, in a light contrapuntal passage of the greatest transparency". The second movement, Duelo, is written in a style close to the Andalusian ''
martinetes ''Martinetes'' (, sing. ''martinete'') are a flamenco '' palo'' belonging to the group of the ''tonás'' or '' cantes a palo seco''. As the rest of the songs in this group, it is sung with no accompaniment. In some dance shows for the stage, thoug ...
'' sung by miners and prisoners awaiting sentence. In imitation of the characteristic hammer-and-anvil accompaniment, Revueltas wrote a major-second ostinato for xylophone and
pizzicato Pizzicato (, ; translated as "pinched", and sometimes roughly as "plucked") is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of instrument : * On bowe ...
double bass, over which the trumpet plays a mournful melody in C minor. The final movement superimposes several ostinatos, a device Revueltas uses extensively throughout his oeuvre.


References

Sources * * * * * *


Further reading

* Estrada, Julio. 2012. ''Canto roto: Silvestre Revueltas''. Vida y Pensamiente de México. México, D. F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. . * Garland, Peter. 1991. ''In Search of Silvestre Revueltas: Essays 1978–1990''. Santa Fe: Soundings Press. * Hoag, Charles. 2002. "Algunos aspectos de las melodías de Revueltas", translated by Ricardo Miranda Pérez. In ''Diálogo de resplandores: Carlos Chávez y Silvestre Revueltas'', edited by Ricardo Miranda Pérez and
Yael Bitrán Yael Bitrán Goren (Santiago de Chile, 1965) is a Chilean-born naturalized Mexican historian, translator, and musicologist. Education She studied piano at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música (CNM). She has a degree in history from the Faculty ...
, 109–117. Ríos y raíces: Teoría y práctica del arte. México, D.F.: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (CONACULTA) (Dirección General de Publicaciones). . * Kolb Neuhaus, Roberto. 2002. "Leyendo entre líneas, escuchando entre pautas: Marginalia paleográfica de Silvestre Revueltas". In ''Diálogo de resplandores: Carlos Chávez y Silvestre Revueltas'', edited by Ricardo Miranda Pérez and Yael Bitrán, 68–96. Ríos y raíces: Teoría y práctica del arte. México, D.F.: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (CONACULTA) (Dirección General de Publicaciones). . * Madrid, Alejandro L. 2000. "¿Influencias o elementos de retórica? Aspectos de centricidad en la obra de Silvestre Revueltas". ''Heterofonía: Revista de investigación musical'', no. 122 (January–June): 19–38. * Revueltas, Silvestre. 1958. ''Homenaje a Federico García Lorca (Homage to Federico García Lorca'' (score). New York: Southern Music Publishing Company. * Vogt, Harry. 1986. "Hommages und Elegien in memoriam Federico García Lorca". ''Dissonanz'', no. 9 (August): 15–17.


External links

* *,
National Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands The National Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands (NJO, nl, Nationaal Jeugdorkest) is the national youth orchestra of the Netherlands, founded in 1957. It consists of young musicians between 18 and 26 years of age. It has appeared with conductor ...
, Etienne Siebens conducting {{DEFAULTSORT:Homenaje A Federico Garcia Lorca Compositions by Silvestre Revueltas 1936 compositions Chamber music compositions Funerary and memorial compositions