Hilda Paredes / Jake Arditti, Arditti Quartet – Cuerdas del destino (2014, Mexico/UK)
Our next spotlight is on number 919 on The List, submitted by mimo.
This album celebrates renowned Mexican-born/London-based composer, Hilda Paredes, with a handful of her works performed by the string quartet founded and led by her British spouse, the violinist Irvine Arditti, and featuring countertenor vocals by their son, Jake Arditti. A family affair, if you will.
The album includes performances of the following pieces, composed by Paredes between 2000 and 2009:
- Cuerdas del destino (“Strings of Destiny”; 2008) – Paredes’ second string quartet, where the instruments “are conjoined, strung together, moving through phases that are quite different from one another and yet linked, each emerging from the last, until the end, as if indeed the music were pulled, pulling itself, through its attachment to ‘strings of destiny’.”[1]
- Canciones lunáticas (“Lunatic Songs”; 2008-09) – This 3-part piece was written for her stepson, Jake Arditti, inspired by imagery in the poetry of Pedro Serrano. “Madness enters the vocal writing in the sudden leaps, the verbal tics…, the swaying glissandos and the…use of speech-song – and yet this is still a lyrical piece, the voice’s shine sometimes beautifully prolonged by the quartet.”[2]
- Papalote (“Kite”; 2000) – Written for treble voice – particularly that of her stepson while he was still young (I believe he would’ve been about 12 years old when this was composed) – and violin, presumably that of her spouse, “the piece perhaps expresses the intimate kinship between its intended performers…, the violin doubling every one of the voice’s notes, in unisons that certainly add to the piece’s luminosity, while finding its own way from each to the next. The voice is an abstract of the violin, the violin a development of the voice.”[3]
- In Memoriam Thomas Kakuska (2006) – Written for solo violin as part of a memorial concert for “Tommy” Kakuska, a viola player who played in the Alban Berg Quartet for almost 20 years, Paredes “wanted to portray Tommy’s cheerful spirit…by means of working on short contrasting motivic ideas…[and] to express his profoundly melancholic soul…mostly explored in the last section of the piece.”[4]
- Papalote (“Kite”; 2007) – This version for treble voice and string quartet was created for a concert celebrating Paredes’ 50th birthday.[5]
Hope you take a listen and enjoy.
By the way, did you know it’s the second anniversary of the 1001 Other Albums blog today (first post here)?! And, here’s to many more! Like, literally, because we’ve only covered about 230 albums from The List, so it’ll still be a LONG while before we manage to spotlight each of the remaining albums, lol. But, truly, thank you all once again for taking part in the project and listening to the music, I’m immensely grateful for all of you.
Quoting Paul Griffiths, from https://hildaparedes.com/compositions/cuerdas-del-destino. ↩︎Quoting Griffiths, from https://hildaparedes.com/compositions/canciones-lunaticas. ↩︎Quoting Griffiths, from https://hildaparedes.com/compositions/papalote. ↩︎https://hildaparedes.com/compositions/in-memoriam-thomas-kakuska ↩︎https://hildaparedes.com/compositions/papalote-2 ↩︎
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1001 Other Albums
1001 Other Albums
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