Flamenco Meditations

Carlos Surinach's Flamenco Meditations for Voice and Piano.
On five 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Dedicated to Hilde Wittgenstein.

'The heritageof flamenco is one of Spain's richest treasures. From its Berber-Sephardim roots, this pure form of music has made itself a unique place in the history of the humanities and the arts. Its joys and sorrows are of an intricatenature: at once introvert and extrovert, they are conveyed through dramatic rhythms and singular contrasts. I write freely in this idiom.

In this song cycle I have combined drama with sheer primitivism to celebratelove and death. The five Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning were the ideal lyric inspiration. This is great poetry, and strangely enough it is close to what would have been said in Spanish had the songsemanated from ethnic impulses.' - Carlos Surinach