Antón García Abril’s Cántico de las siete estrellas: towards a collective construction of meaning

Abstract

The cantata for choir and orchestra Cántico de las siete estrellas, by Antón García Abril, was commissioned by the Community of Madrid in 2004. Inspired by the constellation of stars that surrounds the coat of arms of the Town, for the first time in all his vocal production the composer decides to write himself a text that is based on the humanistic literary tradition of the 16th century, within the paradigmatic framework of man as a small world or microcosm whose observation of the universe is governed by the astronomical and musical principles of the macrocosm, as it was explained in the Quadrivium of the Middle Ages. The terrorist attack of March 11, 2004, months before its premiere, not only motivated the dedication of this work to the victims, but also transformed the construction of a personal and private sense into a new social and collective meaning. This work proposes a detailed examination of the context of his creation and performative life, literary filiation, the expression of pain in the face of terrorist barbarism, and a musical analysis that reveals the compositional instruments placed at the service of the word transformed by reality.