O espelho de Jano
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Cello
- Composed
- 2020
- Publisher
- Musica Brasilis (free score and parts, licensed by the composer)
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About this piece
Rodrigo Cicchelli Velloso, born in Rio de Janeiro in 1966, teaches at the School of Music of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He finished O espelho de Jano (Janus's Mirror) on 17 December 2020 as a year-end commission from the Duo Santoro, and has written that the time of year, the Santoros being twin brothers and their shared Italian ancestry led him to Janus, the two-faced Roman god of beginnings and endings who gives January its name; a well-known symmetrical twelve-tone row used by Luigi Nono was his starting point. In the score the mirror is literal: a 'Lento e Expressivo' opening and close frame an 'Enérgico' section whose material is played a second time with the two parts exchanged. Paulo and Ricardo Santoro gave the premiere in a concert on 2 February 2021.
Technical overview
Freely atonal and written entirely in bass clef, so the many high passages are read on ledger lines well above the staff. Both parts carry the same demands: ricochet, Bartók and ordinary pizzicato alternating quickly with arco, glissandos in double stops, three-note chords, trills, measured tremolo, accented sextuplet bursts and constant swells between pp and ff.