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This CD is a picture of Leo Brouwer that depicts some aspects of his polyhedric personality : composer, orchestrator, conductor.
Leo's thought processes are always a step ahead of the compositional techniques that he uses.
His natural curiosity for knowledge finds its way towards new horizons thanks to the plasticity of his incessant peregrinations: everything for him is a source of amazement and inspiration.
Whether it be 12-tone music, aleatoric or concrete music, Baroque or popular music, he glides with a feline agility through these different forms of expression without ever being trapped by them.
This is certainly one of the reasons why his music is so popular.
G.P. Telemann: Suite Burlesque de Quixotte (1760)
Within the realm of so-called Baroque "program" music, Telemann's Don Quixote is distinctive in its delightful musical profiles of the characters of Cervantes.
Brouwer, in perfect keeping with Baroque performance practices, has added his own doubles and ornaments to the score.
G. Gershwin: Two Preludes (1936)
The Preludes are the only work for solo piano that Gershwin ever published. In these works Blues and other popular American styles are treated with great refinement.
Leo Brouwer chose two of the original three preludes and transcribed them for strings.
The sounds of the strings in Leo's orchestration give this work a special character, a "clan-d'oeil" to the Jazz orchestras of the Thirties.
L. Brouwer: Es el Amor quien vé (1973)
This chamber cantata for high voice and six instruments was composed (along with works by Gramatges, Angulo and Alvarez y Rivalera) for the anniversary of the birth of José Martí (1853-1895), the great Cuban poet and revolutionary.
The text Por el amor se vé/con el amor se vé/Es el amor quien vé (For love we see/with love we see/it is love that sees) was only relatively recently discovered, almost a century after it was written, by Cintia Vitier and Pina Garcia Marrúz, members of the Cuban literary group Origene.
R.A. Luciani: Le Tombeau perdu (1991)
"Not a single one of his friends or acquaintances was present when the corpse of Mozart was flung into a common pauper's vault...when his wife visited the churchyard there was a new gravedigger, who could not tell her where Mozart had been buried." H. Abert, Mozart.
A musical meditation built around a motif used frequently by Mozart and many other composers before and after (simply stated: C-D-F-E).
Here this motif is transposed to many keys but never heard, acting like a secret cantus firmus.
The term tombeau, meaning "tomb" in French, was also a frequently used musical form in French Baroque music.
A. Vivaldi: Concerto `Il Gardellino'(based on RV 9O)
Vivaldi wrote two versions of the Gardellino ("Goldfinch") Concerto: the first was scored for recorder, oboe, violin, bassoon and continuo whilst the second was scored for flute, strings and continuo.
David Bellugi, for this CD, has re-orchestrated the earlier version, choosing the sopranino recorder, certainly more adept at rendering the bird calls of Vivaldi's score.
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