#512 Josep Maria Mestres Quadreny - Sonates au coin du feu (1984) - I

The mere reading of the concise biographical note following this commentary is relevant enough for anyone to realize that, in the case of this composer, it appears difficult, not to say impossible, to confine him to the usual esthetic schemes. Without doubt, Mestres is a musician, more specifically a composer, but when considering his creations, whether listening to them, analyzing them or reflecting on them, the concepts of what composition is and, in the like manner, of what music is, acquire a character that goes beyond their own limits and contents. In the strict sense, to compose means to build and give an order to sound material, whereas music is the art that deals with this sound material. Though these two definitions are simple or even primary, they illustrate well how Mestres breaks through his limits in order to reach more universal orders, where a new dialectic amongst creator-artist, society and sound cosmos is possible. In the end, music can be all that is perceived by the ear, discriminatedly or not, and this conscious or unconscious perception can be ordered or sequenced from perspectives in which, will itself, exists side by side with the whole of possibilities that generate the very act of engendering.

Inseparable friend of Mestres' artistic life, Joan Brossa, says that the best poem for a dog is a chunk of meat. Surely, for a composer and musician such as Mestres, to create a musical piece is to create the best sound, as the abstract and open order of anything that can touch your sensibility and arouse emotion, surprise or existential reflection.

Finally, for Mestres, musical art is not only to create a sonorous world, but also to find out how this world, this sound order can influence the evolution of the environment, and how new musics can be created starting from alien bases or fields.

This probably is why, the originality and personality very much appealing in Mestres' works may well not be a certain beauty, or the development of his sound speech in itself —always interesting and treated with the wisedom of a true craftsman— but rather the very approach, the starting point of the piece, since it implies an aperture towards new spaces where unlived experiences are possible, and where the only way out is to penetrate the pure essence of sound material.

Francesc Taverna-Bech, 1995

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Josep
• Maria
• Mestres
• Quadreny

[stanchinsky]

Thank you!