San Juan de la Cruz: Noche Oscura

Verse 3

En la noche dichosa,

en secreto, que nadie me veía,

ni yo miraba cosa,

sin otra luz y guía

sino la que en el corazón ardía.

Saint John of Cross: Dark Night

Verse 3

In happy night,

in secret, that nobody saw me,

nor I anything,

no light and guide

but what in my heart was burning.

Translated by Eric Rosenbloom. Copyright 1999

In Secret belongs to a series of pieces inspired by poetry of St. John of Cross. These compositions explore instrumental sonorities that lie on the border of hearing. The oboe predominantly produces colored noise in this work. The concealed pitch becomes heard as the color of timbre. The electronic part uses the MAX/MSP implementation of the Tibetan Bowl physical model designed by Stefania Serafin. The model is excited by the oboe signal in real-time and functions as a continuously deforming space in which the performance happens. The bowl model produces well-shaped frequency spectra, which are used in opposition to the instrumental noise. The letters that belong to the musical alphabet were extracted form the second verse of St. John’s Dark Night. They serve as the principal resonating pitches for the model.

To hear some audio examples, click here: Example 1 (S. Perry, oboe, MP3, 940Kb), Example 2 (S. Perry, oboe, MP3, 784Kb).

Click to view the score exmples.