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who refused to fight for his tribe. He was a warrior, but he desired to play
his harp and be a musician instead. He was exiled from his tribe for his
refusal to fight. The warrior loved the daughter of the Chief of his tribe. By
fighting one last time for his tribe, he earned the right to marry her, and
they fled their home together. The third movement is a musical portrait of
the daughter of the Chief who loved the exiled warrior. The second
movement is a musical telling of their escape, through the Valley of
Echos.
I. El arpa del guerrero
In each tale a
tabele
edition as a toque
of war.
Toques are drum calls (in African and Afro-Cuban tradition) containing particular
rhythmic cells. Each rhythmic cell can be translated into specific meanings.
Therefore, a toque
of war is a drum call that summons a tribe to war.
Brouwer begins El arpa del guerrero with a short declamation of a whole-tone scale
fragment (D E F-Sharp) spanning two octaves. In the passage that follows, there
is an alternation between two very different musical ideas: an
from one scale collection: the octatonic scale. Specifically the collection
is OCT
1,2
, w h i c h i s C - s h a r p , D, E, F, G, A-flat, B-flat, B (or enharmonic equivalents). There
is one missing pitch from the collection: B-flat. Yet within this same collection
Brouwer sets up an alternation between the ostinato figure and a melodic fragment
(see mm. 5-6). Upon repetition in bar 7, the ostinato is longer by one cycle, and the
melody has been extended in bars 10-12 with an extra bar and the addition of the
pitch E. In the final repetition (mm. 13-16) the ostinato is now four measures long,
and the melody (mm. 17-23) is expanded to its full seven-measure statement. The
melody in its full form ends with a reflection of the initial declamatory statement of
measures 1-2
El decameron negro
should be considered programmatic music, based on these stories from Africa
collected by Frobenius. I believe also that this is further evidence for the drums
(both African and Afro-Cuban) as sonic inspiration for the ostinato/arpeggio pattern
that begins
El decameron negro
.
Brouwer, in the first movement of El decameron negro
sets the ostinato figure four different ways: mm .
than the other similar cells in the movement. This could be an adjustment to
account for formal considerations of the section. The tale of Samba Kullung offers a
programmatic explanation:
66 In Samba Kullung one of the
tabele
was a false alarm. Brouwers evocation of this false
tabele
in pitch and set-class selection can be understood as another significant
demonstration of programmatic composition, or text-painting. There are certainly
a number of prominent musical devices in all three movements of this work that
point to very specific programmatic intentions. The first movements title specifies
a harp as the musical instrument of the warrior who refuses to go to battle. There