Juan Erena
Bergmann Edition : 22 pages
I have seen and heard many of this composer’s pieces since starting this review site, and I can only say that this latest three – movement Sonata left me stunned. It is some of the most individual music I have ever played, very different from anything I have ever seen before, totally tonal incidentally, but in such a new way, that I can honestly say that the emotions throughout this piece that one encounters when playing it are utterly riveting, and like nothing else. Having read that he has also taught harmony and improvisation, I am not at all surprised, because part of the emotional content of this piece is the way the phrases continue in a completely unexpected way, in one moment almost sounding improvised and yet in another just sounding completely right and beautifully thought out.
The opening movement Si Un Dia Faltaras ( if one day you were missing) is full of movement from the outset, in two and sometimes three voices and never sitting still , or using one set of patterns to make its point. This piece keeps moving along in its own unique way, crossing along many harmonic changes, and key changes, so that the E minor key signature, at times doesn’t give the player much of an idea of its key. It is literally like a dialogue of someone talking, as if going through lots of different emotions as it progresses along it path. The actual music is very carefully fingered so that, in spite of you nearly always putting your fingers in combinations that you have rarely, if ever, used in that manner before, everything flows very successfully. It’s definitely not an easy play, but worth trying!
The second movement Del Tiempo Que Compartimos ( Of the Time we Shared) is an Andante in D with a dropped 6th on D, but that again only tells a small part of the story, as just about everything I said about the music in the first movement is equally relevant here, as the piece goes through many changes and momentary keys before closing on a definite music question mark, that leads you into the final movement.
Del Corazon en Llamas (from the Heart on Fire) begins with an Allegro semiquaver run that rarely slows down, and along the way it weaves and dives all across the fingerboard in a very relentless fashion, until the final few bars where the repeated pattern repeats and one is instructed to fade to nothing, just like those old 60s singles where ‘repeat and fade ‘happened so often!
I loved this piece, and if that is the sixth of his sonatas, I want to see the other 5 now. Brilliant, inventive, utterly different and compelling to play and hear!
Chris Dumigan