Dialogues for 2 violins and electronics is an electro-acoustic work commissioned by the Contemporary Music Festival Hochschule Luzern 2017, Switzerland, premiered by the violinists Carlos Cámara and Marta Peño.
Both the title and the subtitle of the different movements refer to the dialogue established between the violins and between them and the electronic sound mass that acts as a third personage, as well as the sound construction based on phonetic words and sounds.
It consists of three movements:
Conversaciones en la nube
Diálogos para 2 violines y electrónica
The work takes as its starting point phonemes of the spoken language, fundamentally of the Spanish language, to construct sound masses (blocks, clouds, linear textures) that combine with the acoustic sound of the violins. Each of the movements uses various techniques as well as mood states derived from different real situations:
Confidencias is a sound mass elaborated from reverberation tails of the previously recorded violin sound, in addition to bell sounds and others from various phonemes (m, s, f, vowel sounds, etc.). The sound is developed based on blocks integrated by compact lines. The reverb and delay effects become "unnatural" by appearing at times before the actual sound that (supposedly) produces them. (It's like hearing the echo before the sound that causes it).
The whole movement consists of an intimate dialogue in which the phrases create a mood-fog in which the sounds seem blurred, intermingled with other lines and their own reverb.
Conversaciones en la nube (Conversations in the cloud) consists of the active participation of violins in the creation of a sound cloud above an electronic granular basis performed using violin sounds and spoken voice in the synthesis of grains of different sizes (granular synthesis). The violins will follow a score consisting of a graphic design that will serve as a visual guide for the development of acoustic sound cloud based on points and lines (short and long sounds) and the combination of both.
It refers to the broken conversation using the current communication systems when the coverage is poor, as well as chatting in groups of a large number of members, without forgetting the appearance of a new type of language, based on letters and abbreviations.
Anda jaleo! (Come on!) is a "wink" to the sound environment of the Andalusian "tablaos flamencos", in which the rhythm of the palms is confused with the broken voice and the strumming of the guitars, all wrapped up with the cheerful dialogue of those present. The movement is developed using melodic-rhythmic lines in a pseudo-fractal L-system design by acoustic instruments, on a pre-recorded rhythmic basis.
The score is accompanied with a legend explaining the contemporary techniques used by the instruments, in this case violins.
Second movement score