"Piezas para el Ingeniero" – for String Quartet by Emmanuel Berrido

PIEZAS PARA EL INGENIERO (“Short pieces for the Engineer”) is the musical recollection, interpretation, and tribute to four short anecdotes revolving around the life of the late Rafael Agustín De Moya (in Spanish, “El Ingeniero De Moya” – in English “Engineer De Moya”) and focuses on simple day-to-day life stories of him as a husband and head of his family. The short movements are monothematic, drawing from two rhythmic and melodic ideas, and using a variety of compositional methods to convey an interpretation to the stories, which are the topic of each piece.

I. SU MAJESTAD TIENE SU REINA (“His Majesty has His Queen!”)

This miniature serves as a conversation of the always-calm and collected Cello (El Ingeniero), the other, more dramatic Violins around him whom unsuccessfully demand his attention, and the Viola (“The Queen”, the only one), the only one whom is entitled to it.

II. LA QUINTA Y EL SUSTO (“La Quinta and the fright”)

Fear towards the unknown is the anedotal concept behind this short piece. How distorted from the actual thing would a person’s first impression towards a rhythm (and culture altogether) be? This piece features an ostinato line in triplets, a purposely-distorted version of the actual rhythms and lines that might be heard in Afro-Dominican religious music often performed in funeral processions in the Dominican Republic. “La Quinta” was the street where the Ingeniero lived in Barahona, Dominican Republic, where the short story that inspired this movement happened.

III. DE MADRUGADA (“In the wee hours”)

An interpretation of the sounds of the wee hours, sometimes quiet, and sometimes shocking is the main concept featured in this miniature. At the end of the movement, the Ingeniero greets his son, whom surprisingly was waiting for his father to get home from a workday that transcended into the next day.

IV. LA PARED (“The wall”)

The “wall of sound” created by the four instruments playing at the same time serves as a refuge to the Cello, which in the middle section speaks to itself in a solo. The Cello once more takes on the role of the Ingeniero on this final movement, being THE WALL a representation of the wall in the front of his house, behind the one he lived his final days in his home in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. This wall, rather than represent an imprisonment, was the one that served as the container for his save haven.

©2014, Emmanuel Berrido.