Tinta Verde by Quijerema

Quique Cruz (Claudio Durán Pardo) has composed an exceptional score for the movie with the new dynamic Latin Americana group Quijeremá. It draws from the musical roots of the Americas, incorporating jazz ideals with South American instruments and rhythms. The album is named "Tinta Verde," after the green ink in which Neruda wrote his poems.

Quique writes: The suite is composed in four parts with a flower at its center. The first part begins with Tinta Verde, in Neruda's southern Chile; a land of rain, forests, volcanoes, and lakes. This music is inspired by the Mapuche people, displaced from their land, still struggling to recover it. We use rhythmic and melodic elements as well as instruments from the region. In the introduction to his memoirs, (1974) Neruda wrote: "Anyone who hasn't been in the Chilean forest doesn't know this planet. I have come out of that landscape, that mud, that silence, to roam, to go singing through the world." When Neruda was forced into exile, (1948) he went south, and on a horse, in a Galope Winka, he traversed the Mapuche land and crossed the Andes to safety in Argentina. In Residence on Earth, (1933) he included "Dead Gallop," a surrealist poem, almost as a premonition of his later journey.

The second part of the suite takes the listener slowly towards the center of the country, with its urban worries. Here we encounter Kueca de la Espuma (cueca is the national dance of Chile). Then we stop at Isla Negra, and from the house of the poet, we contemplate the Pacific Ocean, with its chaotic and enigmatic uncertainty.

In the middle of the piece, thinking of the love that Neruda had for Matilde Urrutia, a flower grew in the form of a waltz.

The third part is a detour from the Chilean journey, via Madrid, Spain, where Neruda lived and worked in the late 1930's. There he had a beautiful home, which he named the house of the flowers. The fascist troops of Franco, bombed and burned La Casa de las Flores to the ground. He wrote about the event in 1947, in his book The Third Residence. Also, an incident took place that transformed Neruda's life: his beloved friend, the playwright and poet, Federico García Lorca was assassinated by Franco's troops.

In the Elegy for Lorca, I imagine the playwright pacing, waiting, maybe lighting his last cigarette, before being taken away to be killed and buried anonymously in a mass grave. The piece sings to him and his companions with the tears of Spain.

The fourth part, Macchu Picchu, draws from the rhythms, instruments and sounds of the Andean planet. First, the music sings to mother earth, la Pachamama, when only pipes, flutes, drums, and seeds were used by musicians-before the Europeans appeared on the horizon. Neruda wrote one of his most celebrated poems "The Heights of Macchu Picchu" after visiting this ancient peak and its ruins. Then, in Pachakuti -returning to earth-all the instruments unite to celebrate the never ending return of the poetry of Neruda to our lives. Finally, the suite ends with a reprisal as the bard returns to earth and to us all, on the hundredth anniversary of his birth.

Note: the music was recorded mostly live, without metronomes to keep a constructed sense of time. We chose certain takes for their interpretation, letting time flow free, natural, subterranean. . . as in concerts.

The musicians

Credits for songs / Créditos

1 tinta verde or green blues: quique: steel string guitar / guitarra cuerdas de metal, kena, trutruka, moxeños, jaw harp / trompe, kultrún, rainstick / palo de lluvia, chak'chas; jeremy: electric upright bass/contrabajo electroacústico maría fernanda: gendang belek, caja challera, cymbals/platillos, rainstick / palo de lluvia, bells /cascabeles, chak'chas; david barrows: soprano sax; darren johnston: trumpet; cava menzies: piano

2 galope winka quique: steel string guitar / guitarra cuerdas de metal, karma flute / flauta de la india, trutruka, quitiplás, bells / cascabel de la india; jeremy: electric upright bass / contrabajo electroacústico, quitiplás, cumaco; maría fernanda: cajón, gendang belek, quitiplás, cymbals/platillos, charrasca, indian bells; morgan fichter: violin; darren johnston: trompeta

3 isla negra quique: sea shells / caracoles, vocals, sikus / pan-pipes, bombo legüero, vocals; jeremy: sea shells / caracoles; morgan fichter: violin; alejandro sabre: piano

4 kueka de la espuma quique: ronroco; jeremy: electric upright bass / contrabajo electroacústico, sea shells / caracoles; maría fernanda: gendang belek, caja challera, cymbals / platillos; david barrows: alto sax; ocean track from Neruda's town isla negra/pista del mar grabada en el pueblo de Neruda, isla negra. barking/ladridos: coco, rankú y aslan.

5 para Matilde/ for Matilde: quique: classical guitar / guitarra clásica; jeremy: electric upright bass / contrabajo electroacústico; maría fernanda: cymbals / platillos; alejandro sabre: piano

6 elegía a Lorca / elegy for Lorca: quique: venezuelan bandola llanera, steps / pasos, matches / fósforos, cigarette / cigarrillo, door / puerta; jeremy: cumaco, steps / pasos; maría fernanda: cajón, gendang belek, steps / pasos; darren johnston: trumpet; claudio e. durán: caos acústico / acustic chaos

7 la casa de las flores / the house of the flowers: quique: venezuelan bandola llanera, vocals; jeremy: five string electric bass / bajo eléctrico de cinco cuerdas; maría mernanda: cajón, gendang belek, caja challera, cymbals / platillos, finger cymbals / platillos de dedo, maracas; david barrows: soprano sax

8 pachamama / madre tierra / mother earth: quique: kenachos, kenas, waka-pinkillos, rondadores, chiris and stones/piedras; jeremy: electric upright bass/contrabajo electroacústico; maría fernanda: wankara, chak'chas, maracas

9 pachakuti / volver a la tierra/ returning to earth: quique: steel string guitar / guitarra cuerdas metal, kenakenacho, sikus / pan-pipes, bombo legüero; jeremy: electric upright bass /contrabajo electroacústico; maría fernanda: gendang belek, caja challera, cymbals / platillos morgan fichter: violín david barrows: saxofón soprano, alto y barítono; darren johnston: trompeta; alejandro sabre: piano.

10 el vate regresa a la tierra / the bard returns to Herath: quique: kena, sikus / pan-pipes, cajón, caja challera, platillos / cymbals, metal bucket / balde,silbato / wisle, chak'chas, indian bells; maría fernanda: bombo legüero, güiro; morgan fichter: violín david barrows: saxo tenor y barítono; darren johnston: trompeta

All compositions written by Enrique "Quique" Cruz / Claudio E. Durán (BMI) except counterpoint line of the trumpet in Galope Winka written by maestro rafael manriquez.

All arrangements by Quijeremá

Composing the Music

I was commissioned to write incidental music for the first English film documentary about the life and work of Pablo Neruda. Usually incidental music is composed as a response to a nearly completed film, to enhance individual segments. However, for this project I found myself drawn into a bigger space. Thus, I decided to compose a whole musical suite based on what Neruda had given me as an artist: a world of hope, love, uncertainties, aesthetic possibilities, colors, and nothingness.

I met Neruda when I was twelve; he came to my middle school to read his poetry. He lived in Isla Negra, Chile, a few coastal towns from my own. In preparing to compose the music, I returned from California to Chile and visited Isla Negra several times, where Neruda wrote most of his poems using green ink. I needed an overarching metaphor as the key to write the music: Neruda wrote and sang to the "long petal of sea and wine and snow," as he called Chile. But he also sang to the American continent as well as the world. The resonance of Isla Negra gave me the Rosetta stone for the creation of the suite.

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