A souvenir of Piedmont, op. 64

The development of a chamber repertoire where the guitar is a concert instrument and at the same time harmonic support of the musical discourse, is one of the most interesting fields of culture in order to consolidate its active participation in the world of music.

Traditionally, the piano, with its polyphonic capacity, has served as a pillar to build a chamber repertoire that we currently consider to be one of the most solid arms of Western music. The guitar -which, within some peculiar parameters, also boasts an important polyphonic capacity- can also generate an important chamber repertoire in which the structures of reduced format that those propitiated by the piano, have a value and an aesthetic meaning of first order.

I wrote these four pieces on behalf of the "Concert Artists" of Baltimore (USA), city where I premiered them on May 3, 2009. When composing I wanted them to have a very contrasted character to test the effectiveness of an instrumental combination for which I had never written. In them you will find two pieces of happy character (the first and the last), one of light and moved (the third) and one slow and very sad (the second) that in the viola finds its most appropriate expression.

La Obra is a musical joke vertebrate around some extraordinary "waffles" that -during one of my stays in Piedmont (California) - prepared as breakfast my friend and violinist Debbie Dare, to whom she is dedicated.