Sinestesias

Music needs its own vocabulary and becomes synesthetic in the two forms in which dictionaries define synesthesia. If, on one hand, we resort to the figure of speech to describe what we hear or what we feel when we hear it, when the conductor gives directions, when a teacher explains or suggests an interpretation; on the other hand, we, as listeners, do not perceive music in a purely abstract way, but in a more concrete form, associating it with other senses (colours, sceneries, scents, textures – either by the sense of taste or touch). This combination of sensations from one single stimulus is fascinating and places music as the most enigmatic of all the arts. The “combination of sensations” makes the musical experience something unique and inexplicable in itself. Our brain makes use of other senses to try to understand and describe what the musical stimulus triggers inside of us. And, for the composer, what is timbre texture, speech? They are synesthetic mechanisms used to create…
For this piece, I began with this idea of stimulus vs. sensations and senses in order to create music from one single stimulus – one chord – and present several possible meanings of that stimulus.
This piece is dedicated to my brother João, who is also a musician and perceives, feels and describes the musical phenomenon in a way that is completely different from mine. The same sound stimuli have, for him, different meanings and senses. And this confrontation and discussion over the sensory power of music encourages me to work with music and to turn it into different sensations through composition.

Instrumentation: Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, Trumpet, Trombone, 2Precussionists, Piano, 2Violins, Viola, Violoncello, Double Bass