Tres Caprichos

These three Caprichos refer to pictures from Francisco de Goya’s cycle Los Caprichos (Whims). As well as in their colors and movements they also lean on the topics of the etchings with their musical figures. The Tre Caprichos are dedicated to Jürgen Ruck. I El sueño de la razón produce monstruos (2004) In the first short piece with the title from the famous Capricho no. 43 The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, complex sequences of homogenuos material are expressed, which, however, appear to be torn, broken. Irregularities of the material stem from a rationalisation of the discourse, similar to a sound mosaic. II El amor y la muerte (2003) The topic of Love and Death is mirrored in the musical material of this short piece. White and black stand as colors and as pitch material synaesthetically for love and death, whereby two worlds of sound color meet. At the end of the composition some kind of funeral march appears. III Volaverunt (2005) The last piece of the cycle is based on material, which is developed from repetitions and ostinati. The focus is on the confrontation between the continuous movement of the music and the playfulness of progressive agogic variation. This creates the impression of an irregularly but constantly flying music (volaverunt = lat. they have flown). (José M. Sánchez-Verdú, 2010)