In Piano Solos, Fabio Caramuru delves into different moments of his career. He contemplates pieces of his own composition, created between the years 2011 and 2021, and creates new interpretations from them.

The experience in both classical and popular music of this pianist and composer from São Paulo often flows under the spell of nature, as evidenced by The Wings Suite, Op. 16. Within it, the movement Tangará evokes the song of the bird to which its title refers and also finds inspiration in Claude Debussy’s (1862-1918) Danseuses de Delphes. On the other hand, Sabiá, Saudade do Brasil, another segment of the suite, brings a melody in sixths that recalls the roots of Southeastern Brazilian music, and it also turns its attention to the sabiá and – in dialogue with Gonçalves Dias (1823-1864), Tom Jobim (1927-1994), and Chico Buarque (1944) – to its presence in national art.

A piece with ironic verve, Em Três, Op. 7, reexamines the waltz. It subverts some of its usual conventions, aiming to gently push the listener away from a comfort zone within the traditional dance. In Variations on a High School Hymn, Caramuru takes a school anthem as the theme. In this composition, he constructs four brief variations. The fifth and final variation expands and stretches the original melody. These two pieces, in particular, illustrate, but do not exhaust, the imaginative palette of the album, which is filled with sonic, conceptual, and inspirational contrasts.

Text: Daniel Bento – @enxerguemusica