Intriguingly complex and moving: the music of Orlando Jacinto García

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

The prolific Cuban American composer Orlando Jacinto García recorded three of his string quartets with the invaluable Amernet Quartet for METIER. The CD came to my attention as a result of his having recently received a well-deserved GRAMMY nomination.

After listening intently to the three quartets in the METIER CD I came away impressed by my compatriot’s intriguingly complex and moving compositions, to which I listened in this order: String Quartet No. 1, “rendering counterpoint”, String Quartet No. 2, “cuatro”, and String Quartet No. 3, “I never saw another butterfly.”

Orlando Jacinto García’s music defies categorization or, worse, labeling. Thus I have to resort to subjective language as I did above – “intriguingly complex and moving” – rather to musicological lingo. For the musically untrained listener this music will not begin to sound like anything you have ever heard before, that is unless you are an habitual attendee of “new music” concerts.

That said, this music dispenses with the triple tenet of Western music of the last seven centuries: there is no harmony to speak of, neither counterpoint nor melody – certainly not as one has come to understand the meaning of those three terms. Instead García spins continuous, seemingly uneventful music in which minute changes of texture and tone happen imperceptibly. In listening to these quartets the listener must commit to complete attention. If one does indeed commit, quietude settles in, and the rewards then to be derived are immense.

Whereas some of the titles that this imaginative composer assigns to his works might at first seem cryptic, that of his String Quartet No. 3, “I never saw another butterfly” elicits at once an intense emotional response from those who are familiar with Celeste Raspanti’s play of the same title, or the poem by Pavel Friedmann that inspired it. The eerie calm that pervades this one-movement, 24-minute sonic landscape is now and then bluntly interrupted by a dramatic thudding sound from the cello that, given the largely even sound of the composition sends shivers up one’s spine.

The Amernet Quartet plays this music with complete discipline and sensitivity. The engineering is exemplary. I hope that METIER will continue to record the fascinating music of this pioneering artist.

Rafael de Acha     ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”