World Premiere Performance 27 November 2018 - Patrícia de Almeida, Desperatio (Piano Piece No. 5) (2017-18) with film by Daniel Antero

Abstract

This piece began as a short fragment written for Ian Pace's 50th birthday, and then expanded into a longer work with film. The following is the composer's programme note. Desperatio is my 5th piece for piano, developed from a miniature with the same title and written for the aforementioned instrument and film. It was written for Ian Pace, not only as a pianist who not only uses his fingers on the keyboard but is also a complete performer, changing his way of playing as the score asks. Like earlier pieces, this work involved a collaboration with the film artist, Daniel Antero. The two mediums used, music and film, are intertwined in such a way that they need to co-exist at the same time and place. The main inspiration was the text by André Breton, ‘Je connais le désespoir dans ses grandes lignes’, but the work was informed by other individuals including Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, Salvador Dali and Man Ray among others, who have inspired various of my works. The main gesture used for the film/music is the nervous flickering of a closed human eye, which symbolizes the despair of a being. At a certain point it opens, but we never know when, as the pupil and iris, at a certain point, are transformed into a pearl (among other ‘actions’) which arises metaphorically from Breton’s text ‘Un collier de perles pour lequel on ne saurait trouver de fermoir et dont l'existence ne tient pas même à un fil, voilà le désespoir.’ Je connais le désespoir dans ses grandes lignes. Une forme très petite, délimitée par un bijou de cheveux. C'est le désespoir. Un collier de perles pour lequel on ne saurait trouver de fermoir et dont l'existence ne tient pas même à un fil, voilà le désespoir. Le reste, nous n'en parlons pas. Nous n'avons pas fini de deséspérer, si nous commençons (...) Dans ses grandes lignes le désespoir n'a pas d'importance. C'est une corvée d'arbres qui va encore faire une forêt, c'est une corvée d'étoiles qui va encore faire un jour de moins, c'est une corvée de jours de moins qui va encore faire ma vie. André Breton. © Patrícia Suçena de Almeida 2018