Daan Janssens (étude scénographique) (2008)

for mezzo soprano and six instruments 

The origin of (étude scénographique) – a composition for mezzo soprano and six instruments – was an ode by Ricardo Reis (one of the heteronyms of the renowned Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa). Most of the text is effective audible in the composition. However, the first and the last words are only virtually present.

Pequena vida consciente, sempre

Da repetida imagem perseguida

Do fim inevitável, a cada hora

                Sentindo-se mudada,

E, como Orfeu volvendo à vinda esposa

O olhar algoz, para o passado erguendo

A memória pra em mágoas o apagar

                No báratro da mente.

Little knowing life, always

Pursued by the repeated image

Of its inevitable ending, itself continually

Feeling a different life

And, like Orpheus who turned

His killing glance to his wife, raising

Memory to what was, to erase it in sorrows

In the abyss of the spirit.

In my composition, I work primarily with different short motifs and musical gestures, sometimes linked to one instrument. Rather than being intended to illustrate the text word for word, the music evokes the underlying thought. The text, which is more lyrically, yet fragmentarily presented, is pursued by continually recurring short musical images: a nervous tremolo in the viola, a bowed crotale...

(Daan Janssens)