Latin American Electroacoustic Music Collection

alcides lanza, ontem [tape part only], 1999
[(part 2 of ) ... de la historia universal]
(Argentina)



Recording time: 10 min 44 s.
Instruments: For actress-singer, tablas, percussion, electroacoustic sounds and DSP
Recorded at: Composer' studio (SHELAN Studio) and McGill University EMS. Montreal, QC, Canada.
Remarks: Tape part with pre-recorded percussion. Second trilogy: expanção; ontem; vôo.

Other resources available:
- Biography of alcides lanza
- Compositions by alcides lanza

About this composition:

ontem [1999] was written by alcides lanza during the summer of 1999 and realized at the SHELAN studio.

The title - meaning 'yesterday' in Portuguese - also refers to things past. The text is taken from a book by the Brazilian poet-composer Gil Nuno Vaz [see below, notes on 'vôo']. As a pre-quel to 'vôo' the text in 'ontem' is subjected to a number of changes and may sound to the listener ears as Spanish, Italian, French or even other real or imaginary languages. 'ontem' was commissioned by Meg Sheppard and Shawn Mativetsky with a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.

The poem:

No principio era o ovo, denso.
Depois, a grande explosão, o ovo partido ao meio.
Dos universos gêmeos projetados para fora.
Espaço e tempo simétricos, refletem-se mutuamente.
Caminham, inconscientes um do outro, para o espelho.
O espelho, este lugar-momento em que me encontro.
Dois jovens, dois universos, se aproximam.
Para o choque do encontro.
Raul nada sabe do futuro, apenas o pressente.
Sua memória quase nunca é completa.
Vagas lembranças das coisas que lhe aconteceram.
Leônidas nada sabe do passado, apenas o imagina.
Sua memória nem sempre é perfeita.
Vagas lembranças das coisas que lhe acontecerão.


[English translation]

At the beginning it was the egg, dense.
After, the big explosion, the egg divided at the center.
Two twin universes projected outwards.
Symmetrical space and time, reflecting into themselves.
They march, unconscious of each other, towards the mirror.
The mirror, this place-moment where I find myself.
Two youth, two universes, approaching.
For the clash of the encounter.
Raul knows nothing of the future, just of the present.
His memory is almost never complete.
Faint remembrances of things that have happened to him.
Leonidas knows nothing of the past, he can barely imagine it.
His memory is not always perfect.
Vague remembrances of things that will happen to him.

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