2. Gitarre (Lidio)

The three meanings of the word Lidio inspired this tribute to musician Victor Jara (b. 1932 - 1973). First, ‘Lidio’ (from “Lydian Mode” in English ) is a seven-tone musical scale from F to F or C to C, providing an initial idea of the pitch organization of the work. Second, Lidio comes from the verb lidiar (“to deal or struggle”, in Spanish). Third, Lidio is the middle name of Victor Lidio Jara Martínez, Chilean songwriter, militant of Salvador Allende’s Government, and brutally murdered by Pinochet’s dictatorship in 1973 after terrible torments in a concentration camp. His last poem, written in captivity before his death, alongside the multiple substances of his name, has inspired me to address the dramaturgic aspect of the project, identifying the act of aggression and transformation of a devastated body into something ethereal, transcendent.

Lidio focuses on building a timbral dramaturgy as a combination of sonic and physical gestures by the performers. The cartography of the piece develops around the use of the cello bows on the two guitars placed on a table, creating a pathway that takes the listener through the various sonic places of the piece. Short episodes with brief situations of percussion, interference, detuning, and distortion characterize these sonic places. The navigation offers three main areas or sections. The first zone alludes to the aggression against a subtle element by alternating bowing on string with Melos by a bottleneck acting in the buca. 

The second zone shows a rich articulation of events. The Melos of the first section became harmonics glissandi and conventional harmonics to explore another perspective of the aggression act. In this central section, timbral interferences appear between harmonics and rough sounds that increase their density thanks to a plastic ruler in contact with the vibrating strings and to the bowing with the finger and bow tremolos. This last technique requires a movement parallel to the fingerboard as the spazzolato effect on string instruments.

In the third zone, the pathway indicated by bowing incorporates microtonal glissandi by the action of detuning pigs. Repeated bars emerge to remark the bowing resonance and increase the variety and quality of unexpected colours and partials. Furthermore, repetition is a way to outline a ritualistic dimension of a vibrating and resonating sound as a metaphor for resistance against the violence expressed in Victor Jara's poem.

Dramaturgy

Víctor Jara’s last poem is a meditation about the end of an era (the Allende’s Government) through the force of weapons. My approach to this trauma considers instrumental ruins as a manifestation of broken things. Such ruins unfold through sound textures by lacerated and destroyed sounds that evoke something that resists a violent cut. Within these ruins remain an element of the project issue and the act of ‘aggression’. The first preserved ruin is the elemental Melos alluding the Victor Jara’s songs that appear disfigured in the composition by placing the gesture on the guitar buca with the bottleneck. The second preserved ruin has scenic implications and asks the performers to stand up, raising their guitars and making them oscillate to change the projection of the sound, alluding to a characteristic songwriter's farewell to the audience. Additionally, repeating bows are a timbral allusion to how something ethereal travel through the air through insistence and perseverance. This gesture is not only scenic but also an acoustic manifestation of the question about the legacy of Victor Jara: a man brutally murdered that became transcendent. The request to leave the guitars lying horizontally on the tables is a third preserved ruin. Such placement has a double function. Firstly, to facilitate the performance with bows and objects. Secondly, it evokes scenically the image of the hundreds of corps found at the Estadio Chile, the concentration camp where Victor Jara died, and whose body lay along with hundreds of victims.