De Las Criaturas Carlos D. Perales

A diptych inspired in two verses of Saint John of the Cross's Spiritual Canticle. The text's exuberance of images and expressive impulse comprise an inexhaustible wellspring of figures and gestures from which the musical discourse emerges.

The first part, whose title and stanza opens the poem, presents a discussion between a husband and wife. This dialogue between the soul and God is intoxicatingly glossed by St John in a lyrical outpouring that fuses theology and Platonism. The melodic elements and sound contrasts are directly connected to the oxymorons that abound in his poetry: sonorous solitude, quiet music, the mysticism and spiritual metaphor that define his literature and the extreme austerity of his figure.

The second part is inspired by the ascent of Mount Carmel, a metaphor for ascetic plenitude symbolising the ascent to the Mount of Perfection. The road leading to it is narrow and steep, having been sketched in a drawing. It is a path on which he writes up to five times: nothing. On both sides of this path are the bounty of earth and also those of heaven: disappointing, elusive material wealth, which one must relinquish if one hopes to attain Iuge convivium or heavenly feast. The work's micro-formal organisation arises from arborescent, self-generating systems, in conversation with the elements of nature that appear in his poetry.