ORCHESTRAL » Saudades

Saudades intends to portray the range of emotions that are experienced when dealing with a loss or sudden emptiness in one’s life; anger, desolation, frustration, solitude melancholy, nostalgia.
It was composed when I moved to begin a new life in an unfamiliar location while mourning the loss of all that was comforting and enjoyable of my previous surroundings. Although nowhere near as traumatic as experiencing a death in one’s life, their are some symbolic similarities between the two experiences; when one leaves a beloved home, there is a great deal of mourning and grief. However, despite the sadness, emotions are tinged with melancholy at the prospect of being reunited one day soon with the individuals left behind. 

I came to appreciate what my parents — and so many like them — must have felt when they left their homeland and immigrated to Canada. As a child, I often heard my folks and their friends say that they had ‘saudades’ for their homeland and their old lives. It seemed appropriate, then, to title this piece Saudades, which is the Portuguese for ‘longing.’

The opening of the piece is intended to convey a mood of bleak loneliness. A melancholic bassoon solo introduces the primary theme of the work, followed by a rhapsodic solo for the trumpet. The next segment is marked by the first entrance of the piano, a magical moment that attempts to displace the grim atmosphere of the opening and replace it with a sense of soothing nostalgia. This section is comprised of a solo for English horn and expressive passages for the strings as well as a quasi-fanfare for the brass.

A brief solo passage for the principal string players begins a dramatic swell to a passionate and angry outburst for the full orchestra. The nostalgic atmosphere now shattered, the hollow and crestfallen mood returns with the restatement of the bassoon solo. The piece quietly concludes with brooding cellos and double basses summing up the thematic material in their lowest, darkest ranges.

In 1992, Estacio won second prize in the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s Canadian Composers Competition, a prize which included a commission for a new piece of music. Saudades is a result of the awarded commission and was recorded by Bramwell Tovey and the WSO on their Collage  CD in 1993.

1998

Saudades  

February 25, 1993
WINNIPEG SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Conductor: Bramwell Tovey
Centennial Concert Hall
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Canada

For more information on score and parts rental for Saudades, contact the Canadian Music Centre.