Latin American Electroacoustic Music Collection

Javier Garavaglia, Arte Poética (Stanzas III to VII), 1996
(Argentina)



Recording time: 12 min 58 s.
Instruments: For 4 tracks tape
Remarks: Stereo version.

Other resources available:
- About Javier Garavaglia
- Compositions by Javier Garavaglia

About this composition:

This is the third and last piece of a cycle that I have been composing since the beginning of 1995, about the poem "Arte Poética" by the argentinean poet Jorge Luis Borges. As in the other pieces, I've tried to describe musically the meaning of the poem, which contains the essence of Borges philosophy. The main difference between this piece and the other first two is that this time the 5 last stanzas are put together, without almost a trend between them, sometimes one after the other, sometimes simultaneously.

Some materials and processes are taken from the earlier two pieces and varied here, always following the text of the poem. The most important material however, which had the most important part also in the first two pieces, remains to be the human voice, which is treated in almost every sound of the piece in many different ways, from the very rapid and easy recognition to combinations with sample-and-hold, FM, AM, filters, tranpositions, mutation, convolution and granular processes, that make the recognition difficult or sometimes impossible.

All sound processes were made with Csound and SoundHack. The mix was made with ProTools.

The following text is a free translation of the stanzas III to VII of the poem "Arte Poética" from the original Spanish:


To see in the day or in the year a symbol
Of the days of man and of his years,
To convert the offence of the years
In a music, a rumour and a symbol,

To see in the death the dream, in the twilight
Asad gold, so is the poetry
Which is inmortal and poor. The poetry
Comes back as the morning and the twilight.

Sometimes, in the evenings a face
Looks at us from the bottom of a mirror;
The art must be just as this mirror
That reveals our own face.

Some people say that Ulises, tired from wonders,
Cried with love as he saw his Itaca
Green and poor. The art is this Itaca
Of green eternity, but not of prodigies.

It is also as the endless river
That goes and remains and it is the mirror of the same
Unconstant Heraclit, that is the same
And is another one, as the endless river.

Acerca de la obra:

Esta es la tercera y última pieza de un ciclo que he estado componiendo desde el principio de 1995 sobre el poema "Arte poética" del poeta argentino Jorge Luis Borges.

Como en las otras piezas, he tratado de retratar musicalmente el sentido del poema, que contiene la esencia de la filosofía de Borges. La diferencia principal con las otras dos piezas del ciclo es que en este caso he reunido las estrofas III a VII en una sola obra musical, sin hacer divisiones entre ellas y esporádicamente exponiéndolas simultáneamente.

Algunos de los procesos utilizados aqui fueron tambien utilizados en las dos obras anteriores (sample & hold, FM, AM, filtros, transpocisiones, cross-synthesis, convolución y por primera vez en el ciclo granulación).

El software utilizado fué en su mayoriía Csound con algunas aplicaciones de SOUNDHACK de Tom Erbe. La mezcla fue realizada digitalmente empleando ProTools.

A continuación, las estrofas III a VII del poema "Arte poética" de Jorge Luis Borges:

Ver en el día o en el año un símbolo
De los días del hombre y de sus años,
Convertir el ultraje de los años
En una música, un rumor y un símbolo,

Ver en la muerte el sueño, en el ocaso
Un triste oro, tal es la poesía
Que es inmortal y pobre. La poesía
Vuelve como la aurora y el ocaso.

A veces en las tardes una cara
Nos mira desde el fondo de un espejo;
El arte debe ser como ese espejo
Que nos revela nuestra propia cara.

Cuentan que Ulises, harto de prodigios,
Lloró de amor al divisar su Itaca
Verde y humilde. El arte es esa Itaca
De verde eternidad, no de prodigios.

También es como el río interminable
Que pasa y queda y es cristal de un mismo
Heráclito inconstante, que es el mismo
Y es otro, como el río interminable.

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