- Date: 1991
- Composer: Javier Alvarez
- Period: Modern (1910-1949)
Review
This is a vigorous and genial composition with some characteristics of the American minimalist school, particularly later John Adams music. The minimalist suggestion is made by a constant quick pulse carrying on throughout the seven-minute work. But other elements of the work contradict the "minimalism" tag: There is consistent use of counterpoint, and quicker, more varied harmonic motion than the usual minimalist compositions.Born in 1956, Javier Álvarez emerged in the 1980s as one of Mexico's more intriguing young composers, though he has based his career overseas. He was educated at the University of Wisconsin in the northern United States and then at London's Royal College of Music. He remained in London, and attracted attention as an important new composer there and in his native Mexico.
The performers were the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, the leading string quartet of Latin America. The art work in question is a kinetic piece by Marco Limenes. It is in the form of a working escalator, suspended high above the passers-by's' heads. Mannequins placed on the escalator ride it endlessly up and down in a long circle. The constant rapid pulse of the music and the tendency towards circular patterns in it certainly are suggestive of the artwork.
In 1986 Álvarez had composed a work for string called Canción de tierra y esperanza (Song of land and hope). The composer adapted some musical material from it to serve as the basis for this music. After the dedication performance by Cuarteto Latinoamericano Álvarez rescored Metro Chabacano in a string orchestra version.
Although the sound of the music is urban, there is a specifically Mexican flavor in the accentuation and rhythmic displacement of the constant eighth-note motion, so that it resembles earlier classical Mexican music (such as Carlos Chávez's Sinfonía Índia) as much as it does Nortemamericano minimalist-derived music.
The main motive of the work is also rhythmic. A brief statement with syncopated displacement of its notes, it provides much of the Mexican flavor of the music. As befits a piece that was originally for string quartet, Metro Chabacano's texture is a counterpoint of four mainly independent musical lines.
Although the feeling of the music is urban, with all the bustle and constant going to and fro that marks great world cities such as Ciudad de México, the mood is genial, energetic, and upbeat; there is no bitterness or expression of urban tension. Here the city runs smoothly, and people confidently get where they intended to go. Reaching its destination, the music concludes with the first general pause in the entire composition and a single chord, humorously scored with a prominent violin harmonic on the top. ~ Joseph Stevenson, Rovi
Albums with Complete Performances of the Work
| Title | Date |
| Danzón | 1998 |
| Elegie | 2000 |
| Lament | 1994 |
Albums with Excerpt Performances of the Work
| Title | Date |
| Memorias Tropicales | 1994 |
| Metopes, poems (3) for piano, Op. 29, M31 | |
| Metro Nativitas (Reflecting on Beethoven, Op. 18, No. 1), for string quartet |
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