SAMPLE 2. ORNITOGRAPHIES. Inspired by the photographs of Xavi Bou. String Quartet (2021)
“I was not interested in making a descriptive picture of the position of the bird´s body in each point. I wanted to lose completely the bird´s shape leaving just its trayectory...I don´t do pictures of birds, I do pictures of the movement of birds.”
Photo by Xavi Bou
Performed by JACK Quartet at Scholes Street Studio/ New York in April 2021
Ornitographies is named after the photographic work of Xavi Bou that inspired the piece in different levels: by an association that matches the emotion that I get when I see the pictures that conform it and also by taking its principle of focusing on the trajectory rather than particular points in time finding parallels in the way of treating the quartet. By mimicking space interactions like reverb and delay in written processes and enhancing them in the recording, the individual instruments diffuse and merge into a texture with a traceable trajectory that is perceived as a whole. In that sense, this is not a recording of a quartet, this is a recording of the movement of a quartet.
ORNITOGRAPHIES SKETCHES
Sketch 1. This studio sketch explore a diffuse progression of the viola, which ended up being a material for all the quartet players, expanding and contracting its spectral range while changing gradually its timbral color leaving a trayectory trail with delays.
Sketch 2. This Quartet excerpt is about different approaches to diffusing a single melodic idea by orchestrating it with the quartet thinking of how it would sound if some parts of a single instrument were frozen for some time. Starting with the most diffused texture, then less diffuse repetitions.
Sketch 3. Another texture approach with a more granular and chaotic texture. The audio is a MIDI mockup.