La Casa de Parra

[Mandryka]

Very impressed by this Spanish composer - Hèctor Parra.  My attention has been grabbed by this CD from Ensemble Recherche, which contains a wonderful long piece called L'aube assaillie - for cello and tape.




The idiom is familiar - Richard Barrett vibes and even strong Jonathan Harvey vibes - but there's something new too and it seems to me accessible, coherent, flowing music,  and well done.

Anyway, I'm not sure this thread will come to much, I'm not sure there is very much music available to hear, but here's a place to put ideas about this interesting composer.

[ritter]

I haven't (yet) explored Hèctor Parra's music, but this imminent release has caught my attention:



The work was a commission of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, and is based on Jonathan Littell's mammoth (916 pages) 2006 French language novel Les Bienveillantes (The Kindly Ones), which was hugely successful and controversial (it won both the Prix Goncourt and the Prix du roman de l'Academie française).



The label's blurb says: "Together with Klaus Händl, who wrote the libretto, Hèctor Parra has achieved a musical, intellectual and human masterpiece".  Wow!

[Mandryka]

Very contentious novel, Les Bienveillantes as you say. I'll check this opera if I can get a libretto. You can hear some of it here

https://soundcloud.com/h-parra

[Mandryka]

I haven't (yet) explored Hèctor Parra's music, but this imminent release has caught my attention:

 

This may be a good way in - Carressant L'Horizon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXr2rIM2LQ8&ab_channel=IdeasinScience

[Mandryka]

And I just found this performance from the Jack Quartet streaming in November. They have a Parra CD, but I have never been able to find it.

https://www.worldconcerthall.com/en/schedule/porter_and_the_jack_quartet_play_a_parra_and_a_walshe_world_premieres_xenakis_and_gryka_in_cologne/66178/

https://www.discogs.com/release/7038851-JACK-Quartet-Rodericus-Carter-Crawford-Seeger-Haas-Angelorum-Psalat-Tripudium-String-Quartet-No-3-St

[brewski]

Thanks for starting this thread. I haven't thought about Parra in awhile, since hearing a couple of his works a decade ago with the Talea Ensemble. But enjoyed both: his String Trio (2006, on that Kairos recording) and Stress Tensor (2009/2011).

-Bruce