WORK INFORMATION

M.E. In Memoriam

    INFORMATION

  • Composer: Carlos Sánchez-Gutiérrez
  • Country: México
  • Format/s: Sextet or more
  • Instruments: Flute (+piccolo +alto flute), Oboe, Clarinet (+ bass clarinet), Marimba, Vibraphone, Piano, 2 Violins, Cello
  • Year of composition: 1994
  • Approximate duration: 9:00
  • Description: When he set out to compose this work, Sanchez-Gutierrez thought about maintaining the anonymity of the individual to whom the work pays tribute, but he later made it know that the "M.E." of the title refers to Mexican composer Manuel Enríquez (1926-1994), who was born in the State of Jalisco, and who Carlos met towards the end of the former composer’s life. Enríquez is an important, yet contradictory, figure in Mexico’s cultural history. His contributions as a composer and organizer of cultural events are of everlasting importance. Sanchez-Gutierrez’s composition is not conceived as an epitaph, but instead aims to celebrate the contradictory character and explosively powerful quality of Enríquez’s music. Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez provides us with the following commentary: "Octavio Paz wrote that ‘death is a mirror where the vain gesticulations of life are reflected.’ Rather than mourning the departure of a friend, this work is likely to invoke the complexity of the man's life--and the anger of those he left behind." Certainly, without trying to be a gloss of Enriquez’s work, or to imitate his style, Sanchez-Gutierrez’s piece shares many general qualities with the former composer’s work—if only tangentially. During the first half of the composition, the oboe appears to play a leading role through a series of gestures and motives that are reiterated across the entire range of the instrument; this resource is further explored, if less evidently, during subsequent passages. During a breaking point, the robust and tense discourse established by M.E. in Memoriam is supported by the piano and percussion instruments over a wash of repetitious pitches on the strings. The final section of the piece revisits the energycharged expressiveness of the beginning, reminisces on other previous passages, and ends with a final peremptory gesture on the piano.
  • Commissioned by: Comisionada por la Cuicani Orchestra con fondos del U.S./Mexico Fund for Culture (USIA, Rockefeller Foundation, Bancomer, FONCA).

    • PREMIERE DATA

  • Premiere date: 23/10/1994
  • Premiere performers: Cuicani Orchestra, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, dir.
  • Premiere information: XXII Festival Internacional Cervantino, Guanajuato.

    • MORE INFORMATION

  • Commercial recording: Princeton Composers Ensamble. Capstone Records. USA, 1998. / Princeron Records. USA, 2000.
  • Location: Contactar al compositor a través de su correo electrónico: carlossg@esm.rochester.edu
  • Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV-ZHGAOrYY
  • Additional Information: https://www.carlossg.com/m-e-in-memoriam-1994