The Other Time: Reflections on The Piano Works of Aurelio de la Vega

Abstract

I write about this collection principally as a lover of the arts, as the occasion calls for addressing the art of good friends like Aurelio de la Vega and Martha Marchena, who are celebrating the launch of de la Vega's longawaited CD. I cannot claim that I know much about serious or classical music beyond a layman's rudiments. My training is mostly in literature, which I teach at the university level, and so I tend to view the arts under the lens of poetry, the one art form that is linked historically to music through its various and numerous melic affinities. I would therefore like to propose a layman's intuitive reading of The Piano Works, which I read experimentally and, indeed, lacking certainty of critical success. I should like to begin by claiming (waxing bold) that I read de la Vega's piano works as a single piece, that is, as a large symphonic poem composed over a period of 60 years, a life's master work to say the least. I am not