Description
PROGRAM NOTES by Elisenda Fábregas
Tiempo de amor (Time for Love) (2015) for soprano, tenor and piano was commissioned by the Barcelona Festival of Song and soprano Patricia Caicedo. The premiere took place in July of 2015 at the Caixa in Barcelona. It is set to texts in Spanish by Andalusi poet Ibn Zaydun (1003-1071) and princess Wallada (1011-1091). Both poets were born in Cordoba at the height of the Al-Andalous culture in Spain and were known as the lovers of Cordoba, due to their passionate love relationship. The text used in this work are fragments of the letters they wrote to each other, which have come to us through Wallada in the form of poems.
This song cycle includes six songs that are sung without a break. The tenor (Ibn Zaydun) and soprano (Wallada) sing alternate songs as if it were a dialogue, sometimes questioning each other or commenting on the state of their relationship. The text of the last song are the epitaphs written in a monument in Cordoba dedicated to them.
