Cositas Diminutas is a solo piece for prepared piano and objects commissioned by Ricardo Descalzo and written in close collaboration with him. Together we experimented with little things inside piano, which eventually turned into a Land of Speaking Objects. This piece is still a work in progress, though different versions of it were already presented in concerts to public. The initial version of the score was my first experiment with paper of different transparency. I’ve made a special binding putting sheets of tracing paper in-between the blank pages so one could be seen through another. I placed remarks and comments on transparent layers, so once learnt, they could be removed but at the same time easily placed back again. In such way, I attempted to marry previously separated legend and instructions to the score with the score itself, which made it efficient in use.
Further experiments with the score led to creation of the second, reduced, version of the piece (15 min, as opposed to the initial version of 25 min). The concert version of the score transformed into an audio score - an elaborate click-track with directions of actions, created by Ricardo himself, in order to play the piece without a score and focus on gesture and interaction with objects instead.
The next step in our research is further exploration in notation, aiming at finding the best way to keep the balance between indicating the details of physical gesture and sound in the score and at the same time giving space for Ricardo to interpret and inhibit this magic Land.
The piece is dedicated to Ricardo and his daughter Mara, who became a marvelous inspiration for this piece. Cositas Diminutas is a story told by an Ant traveling to the land of Speaking Objects, insects, bugs, crickets, thimbles, magnets, balls, fairies and many other tiny little things and creatures. If you look carefully in the score and its map, you’ll see that each of them has a name and speaks its own language, and a pianist turns to be a magician discovering the unknown…
