De dentro afuera (2016)
(for violin, violoncello and piano)

The title De dentro afuera (from the inside out) refers both to the form of the piece and to the underlying compositional attitude. Although my musical language draws on many cultural characteristics of my Andalusian homeland, such as the sensuality of sound or the baroque tendency towards the theatrical, flamenco music remains outside my work as a composer because of the different mindset from which it springs.

When approaching this form of folklore, as a new music composer I always had the feeling that I was walking through mined terrain: If the two musical languages do not enter into a fruitful dialogue, they can quickly neutralize each other and each can seem like a flattening of the other; moreover, new music can easily be devoured by the emotional force of flamenco, so that in the end nothing remains of its own compositional language. These and many other “dangers” have always prevented me from touching the folk music that I grew up with and that is very dear to me.

That's why the commission from Trio Arbós to write a piece for their unique project Flamenco envisioned was a particular challenge. It was only when I understood that the approach to flamenco could not come from the outside, but only from the inside, that I found the key to the piece. From the inside out means analysing one's own musical language in search of elements that could build a relationship to flamenco music - and not the other way around. I found connections in my music to the melismatic melodic line of the singing and the percussive sound character of the guitar playing, but above all, as I am currently increasingly concerned with meter, to the complex rhythms of flamenco. I then became particularly interested in the Bulería genre, which is based on a pattern of twelve units with the accentuation structure: 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. The idea of coming from within is also reflected in the musical form, in which this Bulería rhythm, which was originally only hinted at, gradually emerges from the piece and, towards the end, stands pure in the space in a percussive manner.

De dentro afuera is dedicated in gratitude to the Trio Arbós.

Elena Mendoza