Mexican composer Hilda Paredes’s new work The Hearing Trumpet is a tribute to the British/Mexican surrealist artist Leonora Carrington. Born in Lancashire in 1917 and eventually moving to Mexico, she was revered for her refined and imaginative work, and the width and depth of her writing. Sadly, this same recognition was lacking in her home country, and she died in Mexico City in 2011.
In the score, Hilda explores several recurring ideas: 'I took the idea from her book The Hearing Trumpet, "a book about how we hear and how we don’t". The hearing trumpet being the "instrument" that can help us hear what cannot be heard. With this concept in mind the score establishes a dramatic interaction between the off-stage horn and the rest of the ensemble exploring the acoustic space at the Wigmore Hall.'
Today we will hear Hilda’s work twice: once as the opening of the concert, and once again to conclude after we journey together across the expanse that is Brian Ferneyhough’s Liber Scintellarum. Brian, too, is an artist who journeyed far from his homeland. Born in Coventry (1943), he first emigrated to Germany (1973-86) and then onward to the United States (where he still lives today).
