Piano Solo - Advanced -
Composed by Manuel Matarrita.
21st Century, World, Folk,
Latin. 18 pages. Published by
Manuel Matarrita Desvaríos sobre "La botijuela" - a set of variations of a Costa Rica song through Latin American dance rhythms.
Performance time: 13 mins aprox.
Legend has it that the gamonales (landlords) used to keep their money in botijuelas (earthen jars) with the purpose of insuring it against the thieves. These jars were hidden in the thick walls or floors of the houses. As time went by, it so happened that the owners of the money usually forgot the place where they had hidden it and died without finding it. According to popular imagination, the soul of every person who dies having their money buried did not rest in peace until it was found. But on other occasions the owner of the money had been so greedy in life that, even after death, his spirit was still taking care of its capital, and lashed out against the person who dared to find it and take it away. To appease the spirit, it was necessary to invoke the sound of the dance "La botijuela", so that it would not take revenge and reveal the hiding place with the booty.
The work ?Desvaríos sobre La botijuela" (Deliriums on ?La Botijuela?) was inspired by this popular Costa Rican dance and legend. It is a really divertimento for solo piano, consisting of ten variations (or rather free reconstructions) of this Costa Rican folk dance. This musical theme is a danza criolla (creole dance), a rhythm that in Costa Rica is clearly related to other international dances such as habanera and contradanza. Some of the variations of this work make direct musical allusions to the style of composition of important figures of Latin American pianism, namely: Heitor Villa-Lobos, Manuel M. Ponce, Ignacio Cervantes, Astor Piazzolla, Ernesto Nazareth and Alberto Ginastera. Other variations, on the other hand, set rhythms present in the traditional musical imaginary of Costa Rica, even though they are not unique to the country. Such are the cases of rhythms such as pasillo, calypso, swing criollo (cumbia) and tambito. All these adaptations of the original theme are always made from a traditional tonal scheme. In this way, it demonstrates how a melody can be framed with extreme versatility in different rhythmic and stylistic patterns of the continent. That is why it is accurate to affirm that ?Desvaríos on La botijuela" is a composition eminently Latin American.
Alberto Ginastera
