Javier Zalba

Preludio #1

The dedications accompanying Preludio No. 1 and No. 2 show the author's admiration and respect towards his former teachers and masters, the eminent Cuban clarinetists Roberto Sánchez López (1914 - 1987), Enrique Pardo Fuentes (1905 - 1996) and Juan J. Junco (1913 - 2001), who also stand out as composers and, especially, as notable pedagogues teaching this instrument to several generations of Cuban musicians.Contrived as duos for Bb clarinet and piano, these pieces are exemplary of one of the diversified creative tendencies within contemporary Cuban chamber music, demanding the revelation of the varied spectrum of technical and interpretative possibilities of both instrumentalists.These compositions feature the use of polytonality, the simultaneous application of various modes and complex polyrhythmic passages established between the clarinet and the piano; yet, they also show those huge intervallic leaps and the existence of fragments of improvisational or cadence-like character determining the clarinet's melodic discourse.Their style is not only sustained by the specific characteristics and complex traits peculiar to contemporary concert music, but also by latin jazz and the distinct manifestations of Cuban popular and folkloristic music. Among the latter, the canción afro and the son stand out by their singular ways of melodic intonation and their typical concatenations and superpositions of sincopes. Achieving an appropriate and pleasing execution and interpretation of these preludes will therefore represent an attractive and tempting challenge to the musicians.Ana V. Casanova (Musicologist)