“Parafuso”, by Ronen Altman

Predetermination in the creative process of Orquestra Popular de Câmara

Abstract

Orquestra Popular de Câmara [Popular Chamber Orchestra] was an ensemble created in São Paulo in 1997, by initiative of pianist Benjamim Taubkin and flutist/saxophonist Teco Cardoso, aiming at promoting a confluence of “contemporary” and “traditional” musicalities, by “appropriating popular and classical idioms”. In this context, the coexistence, in the Orquestra’s repertoire, of pieces with “closed structures”, marked by compositional predetermination, alongside others with “open structures”, established interactively “in the course of performance”, became one of the ensemble’s aesthetic trademarks, and one of the central elements used to reference each polarity in the continuum encompassed by the group’s creative process. This article discusses the compositional process behind such “closed structures” by analyzing the track “Parafuso”, a composition by mandolinist Ronen Altman recorded in the Orquestra’s first album. In contrast with the “open structure” pieces, described in a previous article, consisting of themes connected by long improvisational sections, this track displays a planned structural development that is in accordance with its creative process: Altman himself says it was created as a compositional exercise in a “classical” educational setting. The analysis presented here is intended to highlight the elements that demonstrate this predetermination. Additionally, considering that one of the piece’s most striking features is its non-isochronous rhythmic construction (11/8), the article includes a brief discussion of such meters and how they became gradually more common in Western music along the 20^th century.