Pajarillo Cadencioso

Description

The “Pajarillo Cadencioso” is a solo double bass cadenza that takes its inspiration from the Venezuelan Joropo style called “Pajarillo.” The Joropo is a fast 6/8-3/4 meter musical piece influenced, rhythmically and melodically by Spanish music. However, as in any historical process of creolization, the vernacular instruments and the local musical aspects blended to create this particular music style. The composer wrote this masterpiece for acoustic bass which exploits many of these elements in many distinct ways. The melodic features of the style are used, sometimes as lyrical ideas, but other times as motives to create percussive and climatic moments. The bass imitates the sounds of the “rasgueo” or strumming of the “cuatro” (a four-stringed Venezuelan small guitar); the percussive incisiveness of the maracas; and the “bordoneo” (a particular plucking, mostly on the lower strings) of the Venezuelan Harp. The “Pajarillo Cadencioso” takes the audience into the folk music of Venezuela, but also into the sounds of the Spanish Flamenco, mixed with modern sounds and musical effects. A woodstick is required to play this piece, with which the composer develops some extended techniques that bring an enormous variety of sonorous possibilities into the piece. The “Pajarillo Cadencioso” was written in 1998 and recorded in 2001 by the composer in his first album as a soloist titled “Designios”. The premiere of this work of art was in Brazil in 1999, performed by the composer.