The ensemble “AlmaViva”, founded by Pablo Márquez, gave the first performance of Espira I, Espira II for guitar, piano, violin and cello on August 16 in the Teatro Municipal de Bahia Blanca in Buenos Aires, as part of the programme of the Mozarteum Argentino.

The composer spoke of this new two-part cycle, as follows: “I have now been working for some years with players for whom I have high esteem and great admiration; in this case Espira I, Espira II is dedicated to the extraordinary guitarist Pablo Márquez. In Spanish the term “espira” refers to the curved line of a spiral. The title alludes to the fact that in certain moments the direction of both movements tends to plunge into a sort of vortex within which the sounds are condensed.

Espira I has an extramusical reference in its subtitle, de lluvia (“of rain”), alluding to the sensation the material gave me while I was working on it, like drops of rain. In reality the first piece has two alternating objects that never mix, but tend – despite their non linear path – to converge on sound events that become increasingly faster and higher. 

In Espira II I was interested in the changes in luminosity of the different harmonic fields explored. It is this characteristic that gave it the subtitle, del iris, since in this case the sensation I had was to be working with different luminosities. Unlike the first movement, in Espira II, the tendency towards a vortex occurs only near the end of the piece, when the beats are transformed into formal modules, that is containers of sound objects, and their succession involves a rapid reduction in the temporal space. And so within a rapid spiral the lasts sounds disappear from our perception.” 

Espira I, Espira II was commissioned by Pablo Márquez himself and by the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte in Mexico; further performances are planned for the Teatro Gran Rex di Buenos on August 24 and in the Auditorio de la Amia on August 30, again in Buenos Aires.