There are some sounds that cling on to history, as if they refused to become extinct. That’s the case with Carlos Paredes’s melodies and the scratched chords. It has been over two decades since his death, and they insist on exploring meanings in these new times. To celebrate the centenary of the birth of this extraordinary musician, the Metropolitana transforms the guitar timbre into a symphonic register, bringing onto the stage at Teatro São Luiz some of the songs that the guitarist himself played there in 1992, such as Canto do Amanhecer and Verdes Anos, among others. The programme is complemented with echoes of the streets of Lisbon 100 years ago, read by Frederico de Freitas, the overture to an opera by Luigi Cherubini, a tribute to Haydn by Brahms, and Paganini’s spectacular Moto perpetuo, in a dialogue with Paredes’s Movimento Perpétuo.
Programme
Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842) – Overture of the opera L’hôtellerie portugaise (1798) | 10 min.
Frederico de Freitas (1902-1980) – Prelúdio (Sobre Um Pregão de Lisboa) (1926) | 6 min.
Tiago Derriça (n. 1986) – Fantasia Sobre Temas de Carlos Paredes (from the suite Lisboa e o Tejo by Carlos Paredes) (absolute premiere*) | 20 min.
I. Canto do Amanhecer
II. Serenata
V. Canto da Rua
IV. Canção Verdes Anos
V. Canto do Trabalho
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) – Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56a (1873) | 17 min.
I. Theme: Andante
II. Variation 1: Poco più animato
III. Variation 2: Più vivace
IV. Variation 3: Con moto
V. Variation 4: Andante con moto
VI. Variation 5: Vivace
VII. Variation 6: Vivace
VIII. Variation 7: Grazioso
IX. Variation 8: Presto non troppo
X. Finale: Andante
Carlos Paredes (1925-2004) – Variations in E Minor (1971; orchestration by Miguel Amaral)| 5 min.
Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840) – Moto perpetuo, Op. 11 (1835; orchestral version)| 4 min.
Carlos Paredes – Movimento Perpétuo (1971; orchestration by Pedro Neves) | 2 min.
* Ordered by Metropolitana
