Concert mosaic

Concert Mosaic for piano and orchestra responds to the commitment made to my wife, the pianist Maria Carme Poch, who was the one who really debuted it. We took the decision at a concert we attended by the late Catalan pianist Rosa Sabater, and that materialised as a result of the commission entrusted to me by the Spanish Ministry of Culture in 1981.
If until then it could be said I had moved within the parameters of a certain expressionism derived from serialised thought, Concert Mosaic seemed to initiate a new, more speculative stage as far as timbre is concerned, within a smaller orchestra than that of the previous Moviment Simfònic, (orchestra for two: 2.2.2.1./4.0.1.0/harp, celesta and a broad percussion group, with limited string involvement: 12, 10, 8 6 4), in which, at times, sound filigree and some other notes come in that were prepared with piano which would take on relevance.

The different sections making up Concert Mosaic, as highly differentiated parts despite being in one single movement, invite listeners to understand the work as a great mosaic.
The initial start of a rigorous and subtle orchestral piece is followed by written Spanish music, based on arabesques typical of cante jondo, post-Manuel de Falla, in which a piano solo, with some opaque distorted note, simultaneously plays with the sonorous melody of the harp (as an extension of the piano harp) to then focus on a kind of grotesque waltz that is played in variations. The development of these three stages leads us to an evolution in which jazz elements are found in the double bass or to the presence of circular forms, expressed with a new written form at the peak.

 

The work debuted at the 1st Catalan Contemporary Exhibition of the Catalan Association of Composers on 29 October 1983 with the City of Barcelona Orchestra, directed by Michel Decoust and with M. Carme Poch as soloist. The performance was a great success among the general public.

Carles Guinovart i Rubiella