PROGRAMME

MANUELA GUERRA (IT)
Fernweh* 20’

JOSQUIN DES PRÉS (BEL)
Nymphes des bois 4’30’’ Mille regretz 2’20’’

ANTOINE BRUMEL (FR)
Tous les regretz 2’

JÜRG FREY (CH)
Extended Circular Music’ 10’

ARVO PÄRT (EE) 10’ Fratres

*Commissioned by Quatuor Amapola

PROGRAMME NOTES

The pieces that make up this program have as their central theme melancholy, contem- plation, and the acceptance of the passage of time.

Fernweh is a commissioned work by Manuela Guerra. The name of the piece is a German term that signifies a longing for elsewhere, for places, experiences, and sensations never lived. The piece, framed at the beginning and the end by selected verses from a poem by F. Garcia Lorca that evokes Fernweh through the allegorical image of rain, is a silent madri- gal divided into three scenes. Each of them describes three moments of contemplation of something that has never been lived, and over time, builds the emotions that shift from objective experience to subjective experience.

The works of Des Prés and Brumel express the pain of lost love and death through polyphony, while Lorca captures a more diffuse and natural lament, symbolized by rain. In all these works, there is an implicit acceptance of sadness as an inevitable part of the human experience, whether through separation, mourning, or nature itself.

The temporal extension in ”Extended Circular Music” by Jürg Frey recalls repetitiveness and the feeling of immutability. It is a soundscape that, like Lorca’s poem “Lluvia,” invites contemplation and the acceptance of sadness as an inherent part of existence.

The works of Frey and Arvo Pärt are connected to the pieces of Des Prés and Brumel from the Renaissance through their emphasis on melancholy, repetition, and contemplation. Whether through the complex polyphony of the Renaissance, the austere sound of Frey, or the spirituality of Pärt, all these works invite us to reflect on sadness, loss, and the beau- ty found in the acceptance of time and nature.