Quatre soliloquis

The composer himself, Francesc Taverna Bech, who dedicated these Four Soliloquies to the violinist Antoni Brosa, described this piece by saying that it unfolds serial lines around a monologue that will never become a dialogue. Before this comment from the composer himself, I had already written that in honour of the title they represented an interrogation and a dialogue with oneself on the external elements that affect us.
The piece comprises four evocative, passionate movements which can only facilitate communication if the player makes them his own in some small way. It opens with great refinement which is concentrated on an original melodic line giving rise to double chords. The second develops trills which persist as an auditory echo through to an argumentation that is transformed into longing in the third. And in the fourth we find very profound popular roots.
The year of its composition was a very fruitful one in terms of the composers output. He had premiered with the OCB the first work of his works that can be regarded as symphonic, Contrasts, and had embarked on another, Estampes. He wrote Aforismes for voice and piano and had also started a rhapsody for piano and strings, Auguris.
It is worth bearing in mind that the background to the Soliloquies, premiered in 1989 by Néstor Eidler, is a homage imbued with regret that, after a great international career, the violinist did not enjoy greater recognition. All those efforts by Antoni Brosa that could have brought so much to Catalan music has just passed by virtually unnoticed, wrote Taverna.

Jordi Maluquer