033-Last star to disappear before the day...

Extract from the work "Songs to the livestock keeper", lyrical show about poems from the book "The livestock keeper" by the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, although in this work he used the heteronym of Alberto Caeiro.

The origin of this work was conditioned by three challenges: the first one, to present it in a composition competition held in the city of Valencia, if I remember correctly, the second one, the self-imposed challenge of generating a work in in which the melodic line was created without any instrumental help, a melodic line generated uniquely and exclusively by what my musical mind was creating, and the third one challenge and not least, to use some of the poems that I had fallen in love with at that time of the great Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa.

And so it was. Once I finished the melodic part of each section of the work, I continued in the creation of the piano accompaniment and then added the violin, and thus I progressed in the creation of the whole proposal.

I submitted the finished work to a competition, but it didn't get support. Then I realized that the real prize had been creating it and having learned so much along the way as a composer.

Now I just hope that both the effort and the joy I invested in making it, will be used for everyone who listens to it or who wants to interpret it, as it happens with the rest of my creative catalog.

The original work from 1991 was created for baritone, violin and piano. Later, in 2012 a version for soprano, violin and piano was born thanks to the interest in my work by the soprano Maite Mer (Water Nymphs (the show)), and finally in 2024 I created a new revised version of the entire work where I corrected some errors and simplified and cleaned up the violin part.

In this extract I give the possibility of using a rapsoda to recite the poem before the interpretation of the theme.

 The poem on which the theme is inspired is the following:

Última estrela a desaparecer antes do dia.. (Original in Portuguese):

Última estrela a desaparecer antes do dia,
Pouso no teu trêmulo aular branco os meus olhos calmos.
E vejo-te independentemente de mim;
Alegre pelo critério (?) que tenho em poder ver-te
Sem "estado de alma" nenhum, sonho ver-te.
A tua beleza para mim está em existires
A tua gradeza está em existires inteiramente fora de mim.

Última estrela a desaparecer antes do dia... (mix flute, oboe and piano version) (3'08):

• Oboe: Almudena Jambrina
• Flute: Esteve Zulet
• Piano: Paco Viciana

Concert at the Church of l'Assumpció de Segur of Calafell on August 25, 2002 (show Journeying)

 

 

Score in pdf (Full Score and parts - flute, oboe and piano version - 18 pages) 2€:

 

 

 

Última estrela a desaparecer antes do dia... (original version for violin and piano) (3'25):