Remembrance. Carlos Pellicer Anderes

V-550-2024

Remembrance is the ?rst symphony for symphonic band of Carlos Pellicer and has been commissioned by the Societat Filharmónica Alteanense as a piece of mandatory interpretation for the 45th edition of the Certamen Internacional de Bandas de Música Villa de Altea' which, under the slogan Una dona del poble: Carmelina Sánchez-Cutillas' (a woman of the town: Carmelina Sánchez-Cutillas), will be dedicated to women, to gender equality and in particular to the ?gure of this writer from Alicante.

The woman, very present in Remembrance

Remembrance is not a descriptive symphony that follows a script based on the texts of the novel. Music itself doesn't tell any story, it's just that: music. What it does try is to provoke very different and strongly contrasting sensations continuously, from beginning to end. It is the same essence with which Sánchez-Cutillas impregnated his novel 'Matèria de Bretanya' but using the language of music as an inevitable tool towards a fantastic musical game of continuous remembrance: perhaps resurrecting the beings and emotions that once existed with the intention that they regain form and presence, especially within the mind of the listener.

Symphony in 3 movements

I. Trans?gured Reality
This ?rst movement is born from the idea that nothing is what it seems, at least from the beginning. In the novel 'Matèria de Bretanya' by Carmelina Sánchez-Cutillas, she presents us with a world that is undoubtedly real but at the same time idealized and apparent. In fact, 'Matèria de Bretanya' can be considered as an exceptional work of (inevitable) trans?guration of reality, as a proli?c work of a game of remembrances, of unalterable permanences and of the search for a world that is completely irrecoverable. The musical discourse itself is also in charge of this, just as the Alicante writer did in her novel: of taking us along paths completely guided by them, of musically 'trans?guring' almost everything that seems obvious.

II. Because we all have a mom Paula
The title of this second movement clearly suggests the musical path that it is intended to achieve from the beginning. Sánchez-Cutillas writes the chapter titled 'Remembrança' in her novel 'Matèria de Bretanya', which focuses on the ?gure of 'La mare Paula' (mom Paula), an older lady who, although she had no family relationship with the writer, for her and seems being that for many other boys and girls it was even a little more than that. In short, this second movement aims to be a fair and necessary tribute to all of them, to those women who fortunately have always existed and will exist for all of us. The emotion of this music when performed must necessarily be linked to our own 'mare Paula'.

III. Imposed Reality: present and absence
It is always hard to accept the passage of time, even if we make every effort to hide our almost forgotten memories, our irrecoverable absences. It is best to always assume the present. The essence of this third movement of the Remembrance symphony lies in the fact that any reality that we try to recover from the past will always be inevitably trans?gured by the simple fact of the passage of time, our memory thus makes it up for ourselves.