Michael Rothkopf

Soprano, Bassoon, and Live Electronics

Composer's Note:

Uruguayan poet Delmira Augustini (1886-1914) broke away from the Victorian tradition and wrote on themes of sexual love, passion, identity and escape. Her poetry reminds us of the courage, tenacity and creative power of the human spirit, and especially, of the societal hurdles that have faced women who have engaged in their Art. “Las Alas” brings many of Augustini's themes together in one seminal and imaginative work.

In setting “Las Alas” to music, I imagined the voice of the bassoon to represent the “wings” in a canonical call and response to the soprano as the voice of the poet.  At times the voice leads the saxophone and at other times the reverse.  Together they walk through a musical landscape conjured by the computer arriving at a collective improvisation based on the words and phrases of the poem in it’s original Spanish.  The work concludes with an awakening and dissolution of the “wings” and the music.

Publisher's Note:

New 2025 edition. Purchase includes download to electronic media files - an Apple operating system (macOS) is required to run the electronics on this piece.