monumento

Instrumentation:

Flute / Bass Flute / Piccolo

Oboe/ English Horn

Contrabass clarinet/ Bass Clarinet / Bb Clarinet

Bassoon / Contraforte

Harp

Violin

Cello

Live Electronics

Duration: 25’

Commissioned by: Ensemble Proton Bern

Year: 2026

Monumento is the second of my recent works that takes the concept of “memory” and “preservation” as an initial idea for the piece. Memory is not “represented” in the musical material nor necessarily affects the structure in a straightforward way. Nevertheless, the reflections that these concepts aroused have shaped the character of the piece and the nature of its musical.

What is a monument? A monument aims to create a static point in the Sea of Time. It is static by

nature: despite its material may have movement, it is not meant to be changed by external agents.

A monument makes explicit something that it is not present, it commemorates an event, a concept, a person, or it is something that is deemed important for whatever reason.

But a monument works as memory itself, bringing to the present something distorted, idealised, ultimately unreal. We may believe that it help us to define who we are (our history, our values), but who are we (as individuals, cultures or societies) when what we have preserved has lost its original quality and meaning?

A monument is the representation of an already lost clash: trying to preserve something that cannot be preserved. It is a struggle against impossibility itself, which I find a defining feature of human condition.

Is this piece a “monument” itself?

Why the different sounds have been deemed important to be materialised and witnessed by an

audience?

Is, perhaps, just an invitation to surrender to sound itself?

Is, perhaps, just an invitation for us to become monument?

How would, if ever, future audiences relate to this work in a completely different context?

Is the work appealing to something more transcendental?