FEMINA FEMINAE
Femina Feminae was born in the midst of the pandemic: a chamber project I created with my wife, clarinetist Marta Urzaiz. Working side by side at home, Marta helped me refine the clarinet writing with great precision. To this day, it is my most personal work—one with unmistakably impressionist roots.
The album’s title piece originates from the Femina Feminae exhibition at the Museu Carmen Thyssen Andorra; three of its eight movements are directly inspired by paintings in the museum’s collection. We premiered it at the museum itself, with Guillermo Cervera, General Curator of the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, introducing the paintings before the music.
The album is completed by Imaginary Dances, originally written for cobla (2018) and, at Marta’s encouragement, transcribed for clarinet and piano to great effect. This work in spirit converses with Lutosławski’s Dance Preludes. I dedicated the work to one of the clarinettists I most admire, Josep Fuster, who had asked me for a clarinet piece some time ago.
The scores of Femina Feminae and Imaginary Dances are published by Editorial Boileau.
FOR CLARINET & PIANO
Available on
FEMINA FEMINAE
1 - Bergère nue couchée
2 - Dídac i Núria
3 - Battery Park
4 - La llamada de…
5 - Paseo a orillas del mar
6 - L’ecole buissonière
7 - Mordersken
8 - Der Traum
TRACKLIST
DANSES IMAGINÀRIES
9 - Dansa de tardor
10 - Dansa d’hivern
11 - Dansa de primavera
12 - Dansa d’estiu
#coverbyraulguillamon
Musical edition
FEMINA FEMINAE by Gerard Pastor
Published by Boileau-Music
DANSES IMAGINÀRIES by Gerard Pastor
Published by Boileau-Music
Reviews & Reflections
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Femina Feminae and Danses imaginàries are compelling proof that chamber music of the highest caliber is very much alive today.
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Bringing art and music together in a single project is the clearest example of what we aim to achieve.
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In 2006 I got to know Gerard Pastor as a composer. It was then when I became captivated by his musical language and afterwards I ventured into asking him to write a composition for clarinet and piano.
Marta Urzaiz
clarinet
This work is a valuable contribution to the current repertoire for clarinet. Nowadays, the clarinet repertoire isn’t generally growing in the style in which these pieces are written. Those that tend to emerge are pieces written in styles more representative of the 21st century, with a wide stylistic variety within this type of language, but in general, they don’t explore typical styles from other periods. The inclusion of new repertoire in these styles, like in this case, in which the pieces range from romanticism to impressionism, means an outstanding contribution to the clarinet world.