Fragmentos de teatro imaginario (versión corta) (2009)
((concert version))

Fragmentos de teatro imaginario (Fragments of an imaginary theatre) was written for the ensemble Ascolta. The short version that will be played tonight is a cycle of four instrumental pieces that have very different tonal color characters, but are nevertheless linked by some common musical building blocks. These building blocks appear again and again unexpectedly, in changing contexts, in changing formal functions. The result is a theatrical game with surprises and confusion in the listener's imagination. Hence the term ‘imaginary theatre’ in the title of the piece, which has already been used in different ways by other composers such as Hans-Werner Henze or Mauricio Kagel.

While in the short version this term refers to acoustic phenomena that appear in the listener's consciousness as theatrical play through a dramaturgical treatment, the long version is supplemented by two further pieces that theatricalize the sound production itself: The emergence of the musical building blocks in the ensemble is increasingly staged, the performers gradually cross the threshold from musician to actor, some everyday objects appear in the already familiar sonority of the building blocks and develop a life of their own... In this way, the ‘theatre’ shifts from the listener's head to the stage, from imagination to visualization.

Elena Mendoza