Rosario Armas:
Arias Florentinas & Canciones de la muerte

Release: Nov 01, 2024

Irreverence Group Music [IGM] presents the debut studio album of Mexican mezzo-soprano Rosario Armas, accompanied by her husband, Cuban pianist Ahmed Alom, set to be released on November 1st (Día de los Muertos). The album features the premiere recordings of two song cycles by minimalist composer Julián De La Chica: Arias Florentinas, Op. 15 and Canciones de la Muerte, Op. 20 (2024), the latter dedicated to Armas.

This new commission is based on verses by Fr. António da Ascenção and was composed after De La Chica's visit to Évora, in southern Portugal, during the summer of 2023. In a chapel known as the Capela dos Ossos (Chapel of Bones), built with human remains, these verses were found inscribed on one of its pillars. Additionally, at the entrance, it reads: “Nos ossos que aqui estamos, pelos vossos esperamos,” which translates to “We bones that are here, await yours.” This inscription serves as a poignant reminder of mortality and the transient nature of life. Deeply moved by the story and the verses, De La Chica decided to transform them into songs.

Listen to Aria No. 3: El Arno

Arias Florentinas & Canciones de la Muerte

Format: Album
Release: November 01, 2024
Catalogue: IGM-046
GTIN/EAN/UPC: 4068992221731
Producer: IGM
Commissioned by Rosario Armas & IGM
Rosario Armas (Mezzo Soprano)
Ahmed Alom (Piano)
Julián De La Chica
Julián De La Chica
(Based on four verses by Padre António da Ascenção)
De La Chica — Arias Florentinas, Op. 15 & Canciones de la Muerte, Op. 20:
Arias Florentinas, Op. 15:
01. No. 1: El Soneto
02. No. 2: Sigilo de un beso
03. No. 3: El Arno
04. No. 4: El Sueño
05. No. 5: Las Calles de Florencia
Canciones de la Muerte, Op. 20
06. No. 1: Peregrino
07. No. 2: Introspección
08. No. 3: Soberbia09.
09. No. 4: Quietud
10. No. 5: Epílogo: Transfiguración
Bonus Track:
11. La Llorona (Arr. by Ahmed Alom)
Commissioned by Rosario Armas & Irreverence Group Music
Produced by Irreverence Group Music
Music by Julián De La Chica
Lyrics by Julián De La Chica
(Based on four verses by Padre António da Ascenção)
Rosario Armas - Mezzo Soprano
Ahmed Alom - Piano
Recorded, mixed & mastered by Greg DiCrosta
at Firehouse 12, New Haven, CT
Edited by Julián De La Chica
at IGMLab Music, Brooklyn, NY
Performed on Steinway “D” Hamburg (CD-79)
Piano Technician: Timothy J. Robinson
Album Notes by Juan Lázaro
Artwork/Cover: IGM
Photography by Julián De La Chica
Videos by IGM
Julián De La Chica’s music is published
by Vagabundo Music Publishing, Inc. (BMI)
Manufactured and marketed
by Irreverence Group Music (Brooklyn, NY)
Made in US. Total time: 53 min
Ⓟ & © IGM 2024

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Album NOTES

By Juan Lázaro

The new album by Mexican mezzo-soprano Rosario Armas, accompanied by her husband, Cuban pianist Ahmed Alom, features the premiere recordings of two song cycles by minimalist composer Julián De La Chica: Arias Florentinas, Op. 15 and Canciones de la Muerte, Op. 20. In both cycles, Armas explores the inevitable and enigmatic concepts of life and death through a minimalist lens.

Life and death—themes exhaustively examined across various disciplines—remain quintessentially human. Yet De La Chica’s work transforms these grand ideas into something more intimate, even mundane, reflecting the raw simplicity of daily life. Armas understands this vision, delivering her performance with frankness, austerity, and authority. This is especially evident in the first aria, El Soneto: “Escucha, dormido, el soneto. El alma espera, inquieta y piadosa” (Listen, asleep, to the sonnet. The soul waits, restless and compassionate). Alom complements the sound architecture with a "minimal piano," using De La Chica’s own phrase, which is crucial to the composer's music. De La Chica notes:

Ahmed creates a diaphanous piano, maintaining a uniform pianissimo, impeccable tempo, and austere use of interpretative elements, with minimal use of the pedal, achieving not only to 'accompany' Rosario but to construct a duet with her, turning the piano into a voice that sings alongside her, even in its silences.

Arias Florentinas delicately weaves poetic imagery with symbolic narratives inspired by Florence, where beauty and decay coexist in an eternal dance. These pieces subtly juxtapose the fragility of life with its artistic profundity, inviting listeners into an intimate space of reflection.

City of Florence
By Julián De La Chica

The Arias Florentinas were composed in the summer of 2021 during De La Chica’s travels to Florence in a post—pandemic world. Italy’s emptiness in the summer—a stark contrast to its usual bustling nature—served as inspiration. While wandering the city’s streets, De La Chica discovered a concert poster featuring a Portuguese soprano performing Italian arias in a small chapel. He attended, and the experience of returning to live music after more than a year of isolation, combined with the traditional repertoire and the magic of that night, compelled him to immediately compose the song cycle. "That night, those arias sounded like never before," he recalls. "We take everything around us for granted until something like a pandemic makes us realize our fragility.”

The texts from the arias are conventional, casual conversations of everyday life. De La Chica jotted down fragments of conversations overheard throughout the city, transforming himself into a troubadour who stitched them into passionate songs. Through Rosario Armas’s voice, which ranges from the intimate to the stentorian, these cycles coalesce into a narrative of suspense, love, suicide, and acceptance.

In Arias Florentinas, Armas employs the full breadth of her vocal register, skillfully transitioning from lower, Verdian mezzo tones to the gentleness of bel canto legato. Her mastery echoes the golden—age singers as she seamlessly navigates the range required to conclude with Las Calles de Florencia, a leisurely andante that reflects De La Chica’s contemplative stroll through the city, cleansing the emotional palate as the cycle ends.

The Capela dos Ossos
Photo by Julián De La Chica

Suddenly, the atmosphere left by the arias—concluding with a seemingly inconclusive piano C-flat note—shifts as the stroll transforms into a pilgrimage with El Peregrino from Canciones de la Muerte, Op. 20. A brief but shocking display of virtuosity from pianist Ahmed Alom abruptly transports the listener into the realm of death. While the cause is unknown, it is clear that this is not a peaceful transition.

Canciones de la Muerte were written and dedicated specifically to Rosario Armas after numerous collaborations between her, De La Chica, and Alom, following their work on Alom’s debut album Exilio, which included Adiós Cuba, a piece composed by De La Chica in 2008. Their first single was Soledad, followed by Armas’s first EP Mandala (texts by Susan Campos Fonseca). Impressed by Armas’s voice, De La Chica envisioned this collaboration long before visiting Évora, Portugal, where he realized, “This cycle must be for Rosario. No one else could bring that darkness and conviction.”

Take 46. Ritual. Exercise I.
Based on Canción De La Muerte No. 1: Peregrino

The cycle was composed in the summer of 2023 during De La Chica’s first visit to Évora, where he visited the Capela dos Ossos (Chapel of Bones), constructed from human bones. Nestled within one of Évora’s squares, this austere chapel left a deep impression on De La Chica. The simple, clear, and minimalistic verses inscribed inside, attributed to Father António da Ascenção, reflect on the fragility of life and death.

These four verses, along with an additional verse by De La Chica (Canción de la muerte No. 5: Epílogo, transfiguración), explore the acceptance of mortality. De La Chica translated them into Spanish to maintain a consistent phonetic flow with the arias. As a composer drawn to themes of death and spirituality, De La Chica returned to his earlier works, particularly his song cycle Op. 9: Experimentelle und Unbestimmte Lieder, where he first explored existential concepts.

Take 43. Introspection. Exercise IV.
Based on Aria No. 3: El Sueño

The opening piece of Canciones de la Muerte begins with the text (original in Portuguese): “Aonde vais, caminhante, acelerado? Pára...não prossigas mais avante; Negócio, não tens mais importante, Do que este, à tua vista apresentado.” (Where are you going in such a hurry, traveler? Pause...do not advance your travel. You have no greater concern than this one: That which is now before your eyes.) De La Chica masterfully conveys this “pause” with dark, heavy chords, followed by a virtuosic piano passage that mirrors the hurried pace of everyday life.

In this cycle, Armas delves into the solemnity of death’s arrival, exploring the layers of human emotion that accompany the end of existence: fear, acceptance, and transcendental peace. Interwoven with De La Chica’s own verses, La Canción de la muerte No. 4: Quietud and No. 5: Epílogo: Transfiguración expand on the death marches of Chopin’s Sonata No. 2, the voice of death in Schubert’s Der Tod und das Mädchen, and Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death. In Quietud, death emerges as a teacher, laying bare the inevitable truths we must all face. In Epílogo, Armas unleashes the full power of her voice, concluding with a final burst of energy as our traveler raises their fist one last time before Death gently leads them into the unknown, accompanied, as De La Chica notes, by unexpected dark and clandestine clusters from the piano that evoke the uncertainty of what awaits us.

Take 22. Duda. Exercise V.
Based on Canción De La Muerte No. 5: Epílogo

In a surprising turn, and as a bonus track, Rosario—who is Mexican—ends the album with a heartfelt rendition of La Llorona, arranged by Ahmed Alom. More than just a lament, it becomes a love call to what so many fear. “La muerte,” Armas notes:

[La muerte] doesn’t overwhelm in this minimalist approach; instead, it creates spaces for contemplation, where silence is as significant as sound. This is an album that asks listeners not to fear death, but to sit with it, observe it, and find solace in its mysterious, inescapable nature.

The album ultimately guides us through a language of whispers and fragments. If we listen closely, we may hear the stories of unknown people. Whether they come from the living or the dead, however, remains a mystery best left to the imagination.

About the Author

Juan Lázaro is a New York-born pianist of Peruvian and Russian descent. He serves as a Spanish coach and assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera of New York. Lázaro holds a bachelor's degree from the Juilliard School and a master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music. He has completed the first year of his Doctor of Musical Arts at the Manhattan School of Music.