Duets d'abril

Duets d’abril (April Duets) has special significance in my life as man, which necessarily includes my condition as a composer. The title reflects the fact that it was in precisely this month of the year 2005 that one of the most painful events I have ever had to live through happened: the unexpected death, in Argentina, of my beloved nephew, aged 29, with whom I was very close. His death to some extent started me thinking about the meaning of life, its value, and also about the meaning of everything I had ever produced musically. I also found myself left with certain questions which it seemed would surely never be answered. The purpose of these four pieces for guitar and clarinet –my nephew played a little the guitar, and I used to play the clarinet when I lived in my home country– is to establish some kind of a dialogue with these unanswerable questions and also, to some extent, in these four moments represented by these four pieces, to express my feelings about this fateful month of April. The pieces are dedicated to his memory and were composed between May and June of 2005. After a period of grief and mourning during which I wrote no music, I returned with this piece, which was shortly followed by a Concerto for electric guitar and orchestra, which I dedicated to my sister Mònica, the mother of Sergio Javier Godoy.

Alejandro Civilotti