Poema
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Piano
- Composed
- 1914
- Duration
- 4'
- Publisher
- Cayambis Music Press, CMP 1825 (2026), edited by John L. Walker from the Ricordi edition of 1940; score and cello part
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About this piece
César Cortinas, born in San José de Mayo, Uruguay, in 1892, went to Berlin in 1909 and was the only South American pupil of Max Bruch. He died of tuberculosis in Córdoba, Argentina, in 1918 [1]. He finished this Poema in Montevideo on 28 December 1914, and Ricordi published it in 1940, long after his death. Cayambis Music Press based its new edition on that printing [2]. Marked Lento misterioso, the cello line starts in the bass clef and moves through tenor clef into a long treble-clef passage of slurred, increasingly chromatic melody before breaking into an Agitato at quarter note = 80. Pablo Garcia and Javier Toledo play it in a video from the Ensamble del Río de la Plata [3].
Technical overview
Four sharps in the key signature with double sharps and many added flats, Lento misterioso at quarter note = 60 and later Agitato at 80, with bars changing among 4/4, 3/4 and 2/4. All three clefs appear within the first minute or two, and the treble-clef writing rises to about the E at the top of the staff. Long slurs, triplets, dotted figures and rit. and a tempo changes.
Technical focus
- Accidentals
- Collaboration with Piano
- Dotted Rhythms
- Legato
- Meter Changes
- Shifting
- Tempo Changes
- Tenor Clef
- Treble Clef
- Triplets