Short Days Long Nights

De josta’ls breus jorns e’ls loncs sers

2016

for four flutes

7’

not available yet

Premiered at the Zodiac Music Festival 2016

in Valdebore, Côte d'Azur, France.

July 14th 2016, Église Saint-Jacques-le-Majeur

Dedicated to the victims of the attack in Nice de night of July 14th 2016.

Program Notes

In the summer of 2016 I was invited by the Zodiac Music Festival to write a new work for flute quartet to be premiered at the Eglise Saint Jacques le Majeur of Valdebore, in the southeastern French region of Côte d'Azur, not far from the city of Nice. Trying to find inspiration for the project came to me the idea to relate it to the troubadour era. Between the 12th and 14th-centuries, these composers-performers moved around Europe spreading their art.

One of them, Peire d’Auverne, was famous for his beautiful melodies. Besides our obvious homonym connection, he always intrigued me, and after doing some research I found one of the two known melodies by him that have survived until today. This melody, which belongs to the poem Dejosta´ls Brous Jorns e´ls Loncs Sers  (towards the short days and long nights), emerges and vanishes in this piece like resonating from the Middle age, as a little homage to that fascinating Era and its mysterious characters.

During the concert where Short Days Long Nights had its premiere, July 14th of 2016, a terrible attack to innocent people in the streets of Nice was perpetrated. This piece is dedicated to al the victims and their families, with the hope that such terrible violent actions that happen in many places in our world will be one day only in the past.