Leo Brouwer – the Sonata del Decamerón Negro (2012)

On 16th November 2017, a Latin Grammy was announced for Sonata del Decamerón Negro by Leo Brouwer in the category best contemporary composition, it’s contained in the album of the Spanish guitarist Mabel Millán by AdLib records (Gran Recital). Born in Córdoba, Mabel Millán (23 years old) is awarded in dozens of contests and owner of incredible sensitivity and skill.

The Sonata - The award has motivated me to talk about the Sonata del Decamerón Negro, the third Brouwer’s sonata for guitar solo, composed in 2012, dedicated to Costas Cotsiolis and premiered by this Greek guitarist at the 21st Koblenz Festival (Germany), in 2013. It’s well known, in 1981, Brouwer composed the Black Decameron inspired by the homonymous work of Leo Frobenius, which fables and knight stories were collected in the 1920s by this anthropologist in deep Africa. This Sonata of 2012 is, therefore, a new work that demonstrates Brouwer's interest in the theme of the Black Decameron. Let’s go to do an examination of the Sonata, has composed in four Movements, so what suggest their titles and resulting sonorities.

I - Güijes y Gnomos - Güije is an elf of the Cuban public imagination, inhabiting forests near rivers (as well as our Curupira or even the Saci, in Brasil), and his image can be linked to the European gnome, not only for the appearance, but also for the magical sense, because a Güije could transform himself into creatures, like fishes and birds, and, as most goblins, he tends to play jokes on human being.

This movement opens the Sonata by the meeting of sonorous worlds – the Cuban musicality is present in Cinquillo patterns, that are united to Fantasies quotations by Luys de Milan; it’s a musical metaphor for the mixture of cultures, it's something so evident in the guitar of Cuba, of Latin America, invented nations in a cohabited space since the Renaissance.

II. Treno por Oyá - Threnody, the funeral chant, Oyá, female orisha of waters and winds. In the Cuban Santería, religion that is equivalent to our Candomblé (Brazil), Oyá would be very similar to our Iansã by the power of the storms, or even Iemanjá or Oxumaré, by the contact with the waters. What is there to regret for Oyá? According to Brandon [1] (1997: 77) Oyá is also responsible for taking us to the world of the dead, she is the cemeteries’ guardian.

This movement begins with a such mysterious sound environment (announced by harmonics and melodic cell in the high pitches) and then passes to a dance (ritual of the orishas, ​​presumably), alternating with the resumption of the initial environment. In short, a look for African ancestry in that section.

III. Burlesca del Aire - Arias and burlesques forms are present in the daily life of musical literature from Spanish heritage. The rhythmic cells from Cuban popular music initiate this part, in notes that create atonal melodies, which in turn find a path for micro-quotations of motifs, which provoke a varied Spanish ambiance, so the mazurka Adelita by Francisco Tárrega as a direct quotation.

IV. La Risa de los Griots - The smile of the griots. A griot has one of the most important functions in the traditional African society, which is to narrate historical facts that can identify a social group; the memory of a people is present in his narratives, and the griot does it with his music skills. The sonorous results of this movement take up ideas about African ancestry, worship and ritual dances.

Narrative – The most marked thing in this Black Decameron Sonata is the narrative, and Brouwer does it from the 1st to the 4th movement, in which the sounds are alternated in Modes of Being, different culturally, so reunited in that cohabited space - a "Cuban Decamerón", from mythical beings, which took senses from the Cuban colonial age, to the afro deity, to the salon music-style, an encounter to the new, finally, stories narrated also there, of multiple inheritance like the author himself, and so all that it means.

The Sonata approaches very subtly something from Black Decameron (1981), it means that it's fully built on new motifs. A beautiful work from the most recent repertoire of this brilliant composer, who needs that relationship with the guitar,  throughout his life. The guitar without Brouwer would be unimaginable. It’s a necessity for both.

[1] - BRANDON, George. Santeria from Africa to New World - The Dead sell Memories. Indiana University Press, 1997.

More:

AdLib Recordings and Latin Grammy details:
https://www.facebook.com/adlibmusicmx/
https://www.facebook.com/LatinGRAMMYs/videos/10154793047251106/


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