BRINGING NEW MUSIC TO LIFE VII

This year we have once again honored our commitment to commissioning and premiering new works for saxophone quartet. On November 13 and 15, the towns of Molins de Rei (Catalonia) and Gandia (Valencian Community) hosted the world premiere of a very special work dedicated to the victims of the DANA storm: Cantes de Agua y Duelo. In this blog article, we share all the details about this new piece by one of the Spanish composers with the greatest international projection and career: Mauricio Sotelo.

Lítore Quartet with composer Mauricio Sotelo and clarinetist Joan Enric Lluna after the premiere of Cantes de Agua y Duelo. Casa de la Marquesa de Gandia, 15/11/2025.

Since our early days at the conservatory, we had known Mauricio’s music through works such as Muros de Dolor, which has become a standard piece in the tenor saxophone solo repertoire. In 2022, at the Arnuero International Chamber Music Competition, we had the pleasure of meeting Mauricio in person, who was serving as jury president that year. After accepting our commission proposal at the beginning of this year, and with the support of the National Institute of Performing Arts and Music, we have added another valuable contribution to the saxophone repertoire.

Cover of Cantes de Agua y Duelo by Mauricio Sotelo, published by Universal Editions.

Mauricio describes Cantes de Agua y Duelo as an intimate and deeply moving tribute to those affected by the catastrophe that occurred in October 2024. The beginning of the work evokes, as in the verse by Fernando de Herrera, a “voice of sorrow and song of lament”, where water becomes a symbol of mourning, of the relentless flow of time that carries memory and loss with it. Sotelo uses floating harmonics and melodic glides that suggest contained weeping and the emotional fracture that permeates the entire piece. The saxophone quartet, with its timbral malleability, becomes a kind of human choir that breathes and cries in unison, unfolding a somber yet profoundly beautiful lyricism.

For us, the piece posed various challenges, mainly related to the compositional techniques Mauricio employs. A clear example is the second movement, “Canon-Spiral”, in which the different voices enter asynchronously, giving the sonic result an element of unpredictability. In these passages, we had to bring together our ideas to create a cohesive canon in which the different lines maintained the same “flamenco” essence specified by Mauricio. In our view, this compositional technique conveyed the chaos of the DANA catastrophe.

The flamenco influence we mentioned is a recurrent element in Mauricio’s music. This essence merges with other compositional elements far removed from conventional sound production, especially multiphonics and microtones. This combination has been named by the composer as “After flamenco” or “Spectral flamenco”, and is probably the most characteristic element of his music.

We would like to end by once again thanking Mauricio for his dedication and commitment in composing this work. It has been a pleasure to share the premiere in Gandia with him and have the opportunity to get to know each other better. But this doesn’t end here! We will soon meet again to work on the piece and record this “sonic meditation on loss, memory, and hope”.