Review of Ibero — American Landscapes

For My final project, I am going to share my notes from the world premiere of Iberio — American Landscapes. I was unfortunately unable to attend the premiere in person, and my Wi-Fi was super unstable so I kept getting kicked off. So these notes are from technically my second time watching through it, but it is still my first reaction. The band tuned on stage and played a bit before the actual start of the premiere I believe, unless it was technically a part of it. It sounded very flamenco inspired, with lots of guitar noodling. After a few minutes of this, everything got quiet and Dr. Mugmon gave a speech. when the piece starts, there’s some very beautiful lead flute, and it’s very ethereal.

Around 12:27 In the recording was the first time I noticed the musicians talking to each other. I found this pretty interesting because in high school I was always taught that you definitely cannot talk during a performance, but these are professionals making beautiful music, and they were talking during the performance. I believe this happened a few times throughout the recording and I found it very interesting. I don’t think it took away from the performance at all, and it showed that this was a premier, they have never performed this before so it wasn’t going to be perfect. This just goes to show that talking during a performance isn’t necessarily disrespectful to the audience. I also couldn’t tell if this talking was in between two sections of the peace or if it was just in the middle somewhere. I couldn’t really tell it was happening there, but I thought it’s important to add in.

Around 24:42 there is some beautiful polyphony, and the guitar lines sound like they’re going in opposite directions. The rhythm guitar reminds me of a rythm called partido alto that I play in Brazilian music, which makes sense since Brazilian rhythms tend to be similar to latin ones. The part after the second time Dr. Mugmon talks changes a lot, with some pretty dissonant harmonies in the chords.

(I am adding a revision from a later date here: Apparently I completely missed the fact that the actual piece didn't technically start until this point. This does make me look a bit unobservant, but I am leaving in everything I wrote since it was my original reaction to the performance. The whole section about the musicians talking makes a lot more sense now for sure. At least you get to hear in detail about the dress rehearsal!)

This happens around 38:41, and gets faster a bit after that. Around 39:09 gets even more dissonant and builds more stress in the listeners head. The dissonance and building last for a while, until it turns back to Samba feeling music, at least to me (I may just be used to hearing a lot of samba though). The chords become major and the rhythm becomes much simpler. There is still an element of the dissonance in the melodies that transfer between the different instruments, but overall it is much more calm feeling than the part before it. There is a repeated riff that all of the instruments play near the end, and it is broken up with guitars strums in between. The performance ends with an abrupt hit from all the instruments at the end.

My overall review of the performance is very good! I think all of the musicians were incredible, and I really love the style of music. I really feel like combines Brazilian, Latin, and maybe even some classical music, and I do think it’s my favorite thing we have listened to in class this year. If I was going to compare it to a piece we’ve studied this year I would probably compare it to the Rite of Spring, because dissonance was a big part of that piece as well. That is probably my second favorite thing we listened to this year, which is interesting because I’m not normally a big fan of dissonance, but I think these pieces were a nice break from somewhat boring mostly major chords (in my opinion of course). I loved meeting Edwin Guevara Gutierrez and all of the other musicians in class, and made it a very special experience. I’m very glad to have been able to attend this world premiere, and I hope I got a bunch of my friends to watch it. I don’t feel I want to judge, but I do feel that this piece was written beautifully and made a lot of sense to my brain. I’m not completely sure how to explain it but the structure felt like it was the way it was supposed to be, if that makes sense. i’m very glad I had the opportunity to see this premiere, and if I was going to give it a rating out of five stars I would give it a 4.5.