Máscaras

In this musical version, these angels are harmonically based on the four intervals of fifths—the fifth being a symbol of perfection. The ANGEL OF DARKNESS is characterized by deep, dense sonorities, with earthy textures generated by natural harmonies. These harmonies spread until they are fully present in the ANGEL OF DAWN whose arrival heralds the break of day. With the ANGEL OF LIGHT, the harmonies open completely; the work reaches its zenith, its noon. Finally, they blend in the ANGEL OF DUSK and become less concrete, less tangible, symbolizing the end having been reached. This last of the four angels ends where the first one begins: thus, the music strives to express the idea that life is the beginning of death and that death is at the same time a beginning and an end.

Each angel is also characterized here by a different orchestral element: the first angel by the brass, the second by the brass and strings, the third mostly by strings and woodwinds, and the fourth by percussion (with emphasis on the metallic instruments). Angels of light and darkness, of death and fulfillment, of dawn and dusk. Angels of Flame and Ice: “full of interior figures,” condensations of desire and terror, of love and discord.

– Francisco Serrano, Author of Ángeles de Llama y Hielo, Four Poems

Ángeles de Llama y Hielo
Four Poems by Francisco Serrano
English Translation by Laura Reinking

Ángel de Tinieblas
Imperious, glacial, like a bare blade of steel
he suddenly appears, dark in the place of shadows,
on the edge of silence, unrelenting, unvanquished,
terrible messenger of an existence that has not been reached.

He is a wind born of the void to gnaw at the body
(body itself) to leave it in an instant, intact.
Prisoner perhaps of an excessive bliss,
there is no passion in the angel: He is the stranger.

An acrid air precedes him, a limitless fog,
coalesced shadow, breath of the Breath.
Being of silence, angel so sad, do you grieve for us?

Do you take for yourself what you need, or get back what is
yours?
Will this flesh sustain you when death
finally breathes under your incomprehensible light?

Ángel del Alba
Is there no place for the angels to spread their wings?
He sparkles in the loose breeze of first light,
indelible, a face kneaded
from water and fire and air and salt.

He hovers over time, like a flowing sky,
wings and skin undulating at the edge of bright water.
With very gentle hands, a sketch of gold on each finger,
he reached toward light that fulfills its promise.

Angel, sacred vessels of Being, luminous condensation of the
cosmos,
divine space: In your grace everything is about to be born.
Would you deign to hear a prayer addressed in your name?

The world is like rain and does not support you.
The angel has no roots: He moves among us
detached from the earthly heart, like a hostage.

Ángel de Luz
Angels, birds of the abyss, are they so different from us?
A breath of crystals coming from afar,
a superior command, shining and hidden,
sheer love unlimited within the boundaries of the spirit.

Maybe your diaphanous nature is not inaccessible to us.
In the exact center of the heart,
beyond pleasure and grief,
you exist alongside anguish, like an act of love.

And if we shouted, would you hear us?
If you descended upon us, could we keep silent?
We can only guess at your strength, at your pitiless mediation.

The song of the earth is the trace of his passing;
The white light of noon is shadow.
He is stillness.
He does not last.

Ángel del Ocaso
Like windows opened on an untended garden,
a wasteland beneath the open sky,
angels see with their eyes closed,
shadows of a body in search of its form.

They wander among us, sleepwalkers,
extravagant, like faceless blind men:
Fire greedy for light, impenetrable fire surrounded by water.
Where they alight, dancing ceases.

Angels of dusk, messengers
of who knows what vacant and higher kingdom,
they turn into night with each one of us.

They stalk in the crevices of consciousness, formless,
at the threshold of time, in the crack between life and death,
while a dove flutters in the frightful amputated sky.