MANEL RIBERA

An exhaustive analysis of the repertoire, from Italian Baroque to the spectral paradigm or the canon of the repertoire to the impact of noise, serves as a reference point from which he can assume his place on the landscape of composition, and insert himself in that history. This positioning is expressed through the selection and use of primary material. But we must not confuse content and form. It is not about borrowing pre-existing material, but about being conscious you can become aware of who used it and how. This duality, in the play between irony and knowledge, implies listening to two levels. His music can be understood from what is explicit or implicit, from what it is or where it is coming from. Composition becomes a way of generating knowledge.

The other aspect that must be stressed is the deliberate search for detail. Nothing is casual nor without cause nor probabilistic nor indeterminate. The global is subjected to the discrete. The essential, the basic, is in the detail of the present. Thus, Ribera is included in the stream of craft composers, interested in moulding and polishing raw material. In this process of distillation, another notable aspect is manifested: the composer acts parting from the interpretative praxis, searching to join these two dominions, opposed by recent history, that is composition and playing. The composition parting from the playing.

Bienvenido Arana Rodríguez, musicologist