Video Recording of Elegia by Momenta quartet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTIhYmd_B3U

Commissioned by the Fromm Foundation of Harvard University 2015, this composition is dedicated to our loved ones who had an untimely death. It was partially inspired by the poem Elegia by Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez dedicated to Ramon Sije. I used the flamenco 12/4 clave and its character as a point of rhythmic and structural inspiration for some of my composition. I did not use any quotation of Flamenco music, since the flamenco clave is used only once in the entire piece. The use of the clave, its character, and rhythmic meter are point of departure for my creative process, filtering these elements through my own voice and imagination. The rhythm is contracted, expanded, and fragmented, creating new gestures of its own. These elements are part of a complex texture of pervasive polyrhythms and syncopations, mixed with rhythmic elements and intonations from other cultures giving a deeper sense of universality to Elegy. Elegy by Miguel Hernandez.

Elegy: (In Orihuela, where he and I were born, death like a lightning flash deprived me of Ramon Sije, so dear to me)

I want to be the grieving gardener of the earth you fill and fertilize, my dearest friend, so soon. Mingling my helpless sorrow with the rain, the snails, and all the organs of your body, I shall feed your heart to the dropping poppies. Pain bunches up between my ribs till every breath I draw becomes an aching stitch. A brutal slam, a heavy frozen fist, A sudden silent killing axe-blow sent you toppling to the ground. Nothing gapes wider than my wounded cry, this grief that plummets down to roots of death sunk deeper than my life. Across the stubble of the dead I walk Uncomforted, leaving my heart behind, and go about business. Death touched you as it fled, so soon-oh, dawn shot up so soon, so soon, and you were hurtled in this pit of earth I shan’t forgive death’s last caress, I shan’t Forgive life’s heedlessness-no, not the earth nor nothing itself. My hands scoop up a storm of lightning, boulders, Strident axes thirsting, hungering for catastrophes. I want to dig the earth up with my teeth. I want to scrape the dirt off bit by bit with sharp and burning teeth. I’ll hollow out this pit until I find you, kiss your noble head, ungag your mouth, the blossoms, gathering the wax and honey of angelic hives; back to the murmuring at windows where the country lovers meet. You’ll bask beneath my sheltered glance and hear your sweetheart and the bees exhaust the theme of your nobility. Greedily my love cries out to you. It calls your crumpled velvet heart: come to these drifting almond sprays; come to the rosy petaled souls among these curdling almond trees. I need you here. We’ve still so many things to talk about, my friend, my dearest friend.