Crónica de una muerte anunciada (2008)
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and percussion
9 minutes
Premiered in Paul Hall at the Juilliard School October 2007.
Other Performance include the DaCapo Chamber Players at Merkin Hall, NYC; October, 2010. Performed by the Da Capo Chamber Players in June 2019.
Live performance
The Da Capo Chamber Players
Read a review for a performance of this piece here!
Program notes:
This piece is based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez' novel Chronicles of a Death Foretold. First published in 1981, this quasi- journalistic novel fleshes out the historical tale of a revenge killing in a small Colombian village in 1951. It is discovered that a local bride is not a virgin. Her brothers hunt down her lover and after denouncing him throughout the town, publicly stab him to death.
The piece follows closely the plot of the book. In the beginning section, quotes from famous musical wedding marches (Wagner's Lohengrin and Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Nights Dream), as well as dance music, recall the wedding scene in the book. The next section depicts the wedding night. The music begins sensuously and builds to an intense dramatic point that symbolizes the discovery of the bride's secret. The name of her lover Santiago Nasar is represented musically by a short figure in the pizzicato strings and piano. It is this motif that serves as the subject of a slow, lugubrious fugue symbolizing the spreading of his name throughout the town. Santiago Nasar's public execution is depicted in the brutal coda, complete seven "stabs" delivered by the solo bass drum.