Music is Life, collage by Rafael Adobas Bayog - 2nd Round from C. Nielsen International Competition

Music is Life
Collage by Rafael Adobas Bayog (Flute)

Life, by Rafael Adobas Bayog, evokes the great beauty of life in its entirety, from its very beginning to its end, with all its lights and all its shadows.

The work is divided in 4 parts: the 4 stages of life connected to the 4 main moon phases.

1. New Moon: Birth
2. First Quarter: Youth
3. Full Moon: Maturity
4. Last Quarter: Death

“The Moon” as focal point, by my best friend Jordi Campillo Grau
The ‘moon’ had a powerful yet intimate meaning during the early twentieth century. It symbolized an object of desire to most of the Spanish artists, who were influenced by Andalusia and its traditional culture. Some artistic references include Federico García Lorca in his tragedy Bodas de Sangre (1931), Salvador Dalí in his painting Noche de Luna (1918) or Luis Buñuel in his film Un perro andaluz (1929). In music, the ‘moon’ has a romantic precedent which is essential to understand its artistic relevance: Moonlight Sonata (1801) by L. van Beethoven and, furthermore, Clair de Lune (1905) by Debussy, which comes from a poem, published in 1869, by the Symbolist poet Paul Verlaine. The poem speaks of the still moonlight, sad and lovely (“au calme clair de lune triste et beau”). 

The ‘moon’ appears in these masterpieces with a narrative interest: it appears with solemnity and quietness, it gives light to the mystery of the unknown in the middle of the night and hypnotizes the tides that dance to its light. The moon evolves, just like life, in a complex way but, at the same time, as simple as a white sphere in the middle of a black canvas. 
Therefore, it becomes an ideal storyline to define the movements of this piece. The moon phases refer, certainly, to the course of a lifetime, with an almost perfect metaphor that only MUSIC could narrate in such a profound way.

Carl Nielsen International Competition 2019

Live performance recorded at the Pro Musica Hall (Odense, Denmark) on March 2019.

© Medici.TV / Carl Nielsen International Competition

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