EXPLORE THE SCORE | Ciudad perdida by Reinaldo Moya
Part of a series introducing our readers to works commissioned by Sparks & Wiry Cries, published through E. C. Schirmer.
Ciudad perdida (The Lost City) is an art song cycle for soprano and piano, composed by Reinaldo Moya on texts by Adalber Salas Hernández. The piece was commissioned by Sparks in 2021, and was written for soprano María Brea and pianist Howard Watkins. The cycle received its world premiere virtually in 2021 as part of sparksLIVE, which occurred entirely online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Click to expand this excerpt from "Ciudad perdida"
Composer Reinaldo Moya set two poems of his contemporary, Adalber Salas Hernández, to explore the Caracas of Moya’s youth, before his immigration to the United States. Rather than comment on the political realities and domestic unrest of Venezuela today, Hernández also writes from his distanced perspective as an émigré, wistfully longing for a city that no longer exists besides in his own memory. Moya was drawn to Hernández’s ability to create a profound sense of place, conjuring that lost Caracas, and has dedicated the cycle to caraqueños “wandering the world still yearning for their Ávila mountain.”
““The city that we grew up in no longer exists, it has either been washed away by the rain, or we have lost it by leaving it.” ”
Both of Hernández’s poems in Ciudad perdida are extensive, longer than those usually set in art song repertoire. For this reason, Moya broke each of the poems up into smaller parts. Part I is set to one poem (Ciudad perdida, from Salvoconducto) but divided into four movements. The rain, evoked aurally through beautifully percussive piano writing, seeps into every part of the city. It viscerally depicts a biblically heavy rain that seems to flood away even the city’s history.
Part II (Poema XXXIII, from La ciencia de las despedidas), in two movements, highlights the alienation of immigration and the change in identity one undergoes through leaving one’s homeland. The narrator’s thoughts become more introspective while undergoing the bureaucratic objectification of an immigration facility.
Playing with sparse textures and musical sketches of the natural world, Moya also borrows stylistic elements from other musical genres, including flamenco in Part I and commercial popular music in Part II.
This score, along with our other innovative commissions, is available on our Score Store and through E. C. Schirmer.
Ciudad perdida (The Lost City): A Song Cycle for Soprano Voice and Piano (2020)
Reinaldo Moya (b. 1984), on poetry by Adalber Salas Hernández (b. 1987)
Vocal range: A3-Bb5
Duration: 27:00
Part I. (Ciudad perdida) from Salvoconducto
1. Intense, incandescent
2. Not too slow, contemplative, yet intense
3. Recitative
4. Fast, frantic
Part II. (Poema XXXIII) from La ciencia de las despedidas
1. Like the ambient music on the waiting room to hell
2. Moderato, gentler, without a hint of irony
October 2, 2024
