Juan Erena
Bergmann Edition: 17 pages
Composer Jan Erena Marmol , who also teaches and arranges works for guitar has had his musical fingers in many pies over the years and has a good many publications in print too , his latest for Bergmann being this Sonata No5 (Poems and Songs)
Set in three movements, and with a Dropped D 6th throughout, its first movement is in Dm, which has a quotation from Miguel Hernandez (Sad men, if they don’t die of love). This gives you an idea of how this Andante Espresivo feels and sounds. Immediately one gets the emotive quality of the writing, and also the very individual style he writes in which is utterly tonal, but quite unlike anything else. His main theme is set in two voices which gentle wave around the fingerboard, never sitting still for very long, thus creating some surprising moments along the way. There are momentary faster sections but ones that still manage to sound mournful even though the note values do occasionally resort to semi – quavers and fast running triplets. Towards the end the key changes into sharps and the themes are completely new, and, as far as I can see, variations of the opening ideas ,and the movement ends somewhat enigmatically on a high E.
The second movement is in Am , and is a Molto Libre y Espressivo, with a quote from Rafael de Leon ‘Ours is to sail without finding ourselves adrift, love, adrift ‘and is a relatively short two themed movement , the first being gentle quavers, sometimes one, and sometimes two notes, atop dome long bass lines. The second idea is marked Seranamente that begins very sedate nd moves slightly more as it progresses, turning to the opening of the section for a final time.
The final Presto is a 12/16 extremely fast set of semi – quavers in two or three voices, with a quote from Luis Cernuda (There, there far away, where oblivion lives) .This four pages of constantly short and extremely quick notes never slackens for a second but is relentless throughout its 65 bars of music and is certainly an extremely difficult handful for anyone but a really good player.
So this Sonata is very varied, with lots of interesting ideas, and definitely not for any player less than moderately advanced, but is well worth trying if this sounds like something you might enjoy, or if you have come across this fine composer’s works before.
Chris Dumigan
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