Par CASABLANCAS BENET. Shade and Darkness, lasting some 12:30 minutes, was co-commissioned by the Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical and the Festival Internacional de Música y Danza de Granada. The work is inspired by Turner's famous painting of the same name, subtitled 'The Night Before the Flood', although this does not imply any programmatic or even less descriptive intention, beyond the composer's admiration for the painter, and for the richness of tones and chiaroscuro, subtlety in the treatment of pictorial matter, and the dynamism and emotional force present in his work, to whose depth John Ruskin alludes: 'Nuance is in Turner, first of all, a beautiful aid to the great impression to be conveyed, but it is neither the source nor the essence of that impression; it is little more than a visible melody... preparing the feelings for the reading of the mysteries of God.' The score, generous in expressive contrasts, explores the ductility and richness of possibilities of the strings, with a very diversified use of textures, densities and colours. The formal arrangement describes a wide ternary arc, consisting of two slow and often static sections - not without ominous foreboding - and a more lively central part, punctuated by occasional turbulence and dazzling flashes of timbre, culminating in a powerful climactic process. In the final bars the four voices of the classical quartet fleetingly emerge, as a tribute to Günter Pichler, founder and member of the Alban Berg Quartet, to whom the score is dedicated, and who conducted the premiere of the work in front of the Joven Orquesta Nacional de España on 24 and 25 June 2014 at the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid and in the Patio de los Mármoles del Hospital Real in Granada. / Date parution : 2022-03-15/ Répertoire / Petit Orchestre

New edition 2001 Study Score. <br>Suite 2, Three Dances from The Three-Cornered Hat, a Ballet in two acts by G. Martinez Sierra after a story by D. Pedro Antonio de Alarcon. Conductor's score and orchestral parts are available on hire from the publishers. <br> <br>Translates to Three Cornered Hat. / Classique / Partition /

This first version was compiled from sketches by musicologist Antonio Gallego in 1986. <br> <br>Originally written in 1914-15. / Classique / Partition /

Composer's Notes:This piece written during the winter months of 2000-2001 consists of one movement Allegro con fuoco in which an old score is revisited raided and ravished by its composer. The earlier music hadbeen written in the mid-fifties for a stage work Maratona di Danza and for its maker the director Luchino Visconti.Elements from the older piece reappear on and off like shadows under the surface of new ones like more orless vague memories images of young people suffering pain and despair in their struggle for survival in a barbaric pitiless modern world.My new composition is a kind of concerto for very large symphony orchestra an étude onconstant and often rapid musical changes of mood and colours built on a variety of rhythmic figures incessantly and brutally pushing the music ahead. Sometimes it is as though voices are weeping sometimes crying out loud withpain with anxiety under the cold hearted pressure of an overwhelming violence. Hans Werner Henze Commissioned on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of das neue werk Hamburg. Premiered on 29th June 2001. Duration 15minutes.