It is not easy to characterize the cultural and musical life in Portugal in the 20^th century. After the "golden age"¹ of the Portuguese Renaissance, there was a stagnation in musical composition. Instrumental music was of no importance until the end of the 19^th century, and before that, the only genre that mattered was outmoded, Italian influenced Comic Opera. These compositions were amateurish and had as sole purpose to entertain the aristocracy. From the late 19^th century onwards, there was an enormous will to renew Portuguese music. However, the lack of musical tradition and the authoritarian political regime instituted in 1933 made all the attempts of composing in a modern style fall back.²

Born in 1937, Agustina Capdevilla Moreno, known as Constança Capdeville, was part of the first generation of avant-garde composers in Portugal. This group of composers labeled as “Portuguese Darmstadt Generation” emerged in the 1960s and was constituted by composers such as Maria de Lurdes Martins (b. 1926) and Filipe de Sousa (1927-2006) and later Clotilde Rosa (1930-2017), Armando Santiago (1932), Filipe Pires (1934-2015), Constança Capdeville (1937-1992), Álvaro Salazar (b. 1938), Cândido Lima (b. 1938), Álvaro Cassuto (b. 1938), Jorge Peixinho (1940-1995) and Emanuel Nunes (1941-2012)³. They embraced new languages and approaches to composition marked by atonality, serialism, experimentalism, transdisciplinarity and the use of technology in music. Many of them also had the chance of studying abroad, where they met or heard European composers such as K. Stockhausen, P. Boulez, L. Nono, B. Maderna, H. Eimert, P. Schaeffer or P. Henry. The Portuguese Darmstadt generation showed interest in genres such as musique concrète, electronic music, music theatre and in working with artists from other fields such as cinema and visual arts.

Capdeville was especially relevant in the field of music theatre. This genre started being explored on the beginning of the 20^th century when, as described by music theatre professor David Roesner on the introduction to Composed Theatre: Aesthetics, Practices, Processes, composers started approaching the theatrical stage and its media as musical material and using through compositional techniques⁴. On the second half of the 20^th century, the genre flourished in Europe with the Argentine-German composer Maurice Kagel as its lead figure. Kagel's experimental music theatre (which he calls “instrumental theatre”) was very personal and marked by a “subversive and often surreal wit”⁵. In Portugal in the late 1970s, Capdeville started developing her own aesthetic, resorting to multiple medias and means such as spoken word, electronics, singing, traditional and unconventional instruments, music quotations, lights, etc⁶. As mentioned in various of her interviews, Capdveille refuted the expression “music theatre” not wanting to be linked to what she calls Maurice Kagel's “Theatre of Absurdity” as she thought her music in a more poetic and serious way. The composer coined the term “theatre music”.

Even though Capdeville's early compositions are rather traditional, after Momento I from 1974, she embraces a new musical language focused on the timbral exploration and the incorporation of physical and theatrical movement on her pieces⁷. 

In spite of the fact that her work and her knowledge had an enormous influence on her successors, because of her timely death, Constança's music was not performed for many years. One of the main reasons for this was the fact that the vast majority of her pieces were not published and no effort was made to archive and preserve her compositions after Capdeville's death. Many of her works are constituted by a score (usually containing graphic elements or an open notation), a script, tape and light schemes. Parts of some of her pieces are scattered through different archives and many are lost or not yet categorized. It is therefore challenging to perform these pieces as they were originally conceived. Despite all this, in the past years some efforts have been made to recover and perform her work: the musicologists Ana Filipa Magalhães and Mónica Chambel devoted her master and doctorate studies to Constança Capdeville’s work; in 2018 Xperimus Ensemble (Helena Marinho, Alfonso Benetti, Luís Bittencour and Mónica Chambel) recreated Capdeville's theatre-music pieces Don'T Juan and Double; Helena Marinho and Luís Bittencourt recreated Avec Picasso, ce matin...  in 2019 at 4th International Meeting of Contemporary Piano in Porto; and the group Capdeville Ensemble was created in 2021 with the goal of performing Constança Capdeville’s works.

I became fascinated by Constança Capdeville from the moment I started to learn more about her. I felt connected with her open and experimental approach to composition, her ideas, and her affinity to literature and cinema. As I listened and read interviews made to the composer, Capdeville’s thoughts and ideas really caught my attention and resonated with me. There were two particular quotes that directly influenced my research. One was on her views on tradition. In an interview with the composer Miguel Azguime, she states: 

“It is necessary to refuse inherited tradition in every single aspect, be it personally, artistically or socially. (…) The important thing is that people start feeling from square one, forgetting about education and concepts. For me that’s of utmost importance.”

As I was starting to question the role of tradition in my practice, Capdeville's words were truly inspiring. The other quote that marked the course of my work was on her views on scores:

“A score should be an invitation, not a recipe.”

At first, Capdeville's pieces came to me as a way of starting to explore theatrical elements on my performance practice. However, as my research and work expanded, Capdeville's pieces and beliefs inspired me to think out of the box. Her aforementioned ideas on tradition and her experimental and theatrical approach to performance motivated me to question classical music conventions and the way we perceive the composer and the scores. Therefore, in the context of this artist research, it made sense to me to use her piece Avec Picasso, ce matin... as a case study and starting point for experimentation.

The piece Avec Picasso, ce matin… was my first insight into Constança Capdeville’s world. Even though I knew she was a composer of the second half of the 20^th century, Capdeville’s relevance to the Portuguese avant-garde and her music theatre work had been until then foreign territory to me. Avec Picasso, ce matin..., is a piece for piano and tape and was composed in 1984. It was commissioned by the pianist Madelana Soveral to be premiered at the Festival Femmes et Musique at the Théatre du Rond-Point in Paris. After its premiere, the piece was performed again in 1985 by the pianist and composer Jorge Peixinho at the 10^th Edition of Gulbenkian’s Contemporary Music meetings and later, in 1993, in an homage to Constança Capdeville on the 1^st year anniversary of her death. Avec Picasso, ce matin… would only be performed again almost 30 years after its premier, at the 4^th International Piano Meeting of Contemporary Piano. This was a recreation undertaken and performed by the pianist Helena Marinho and the percussionist Luís Bittencourt. The reason for this long hiatus was the fact that the piece’s constituent materials were scattered through different archives and were only re-organized in 2019 through the efforts of the musicologist Mónica Chambel, one of my collaborators and sparring partners in this research project. 

When I learnt about the piece Avec Picasso, ce matin… I got intrigued. As I didn’t have access to the recording, my only source of information on the piece was my previous piano teacher Madalena Soveral, her vague recollections of its performance and the score she used for the premiere. She told me about the tape, the openness of the score and what she remembered about the theatrical scene and right way I got interested in performing the piece. When I later started to work on my research I already knew the pianist and artistic researcher Helena Marinho had been working on Avec Picasso, ce matin…. It was through her and her student Mónica Chambel that I was able to gather all the adjacent materials and more information on the piece.

Avec Picasso, ce matin… starts with a scenic prelude accompanied by the tape that runs through the entirety of the piece. During this scenic prelude there are specific instructions related to the stage lighting. The piece is constituted, therefore, by score, light scheme, scenic script and tape. During her archive work, Mónica Chambel found¹:

• 2 scores: one at the Portuguese National Library and other at Madalena Soveral’s archive
• 1 cassette tape containing Avec Picasso, ce Matin...'s tape in Madalena Soveral’s archive
• 1 set of instructions related to the scenic script and the lightning scheme in the Portuguese National Library
• 1 cassette tapes containing the recording of the piece by Jorge Peixinho in Janine Moura's archive
• 1 cassette tape containing audio fragments recorded by Capdeville and labelled as “scraps effects (Picasso)” in Janine Moura’s archive

Other sources of information on this piece are a program note written by the composer that can be accessed at the Portuguese Music Research and Information Centre's website and a chapter written by Maria João Serrão on her thesis Constança Capdeville. Between Theatre and Music.

It is mentioned in the program note, that Constança Capdeville took as inspiration for the composition of Avec Picasso, ce matin… the following Picasso quote:

… To force yourself to use limited means it’s a constraint that frees invention².

The influence of Picasso and, by extension, of cubism, extends to the form and the process of composition of the piece. We may think of cubism as the superimposition of different planes in order to obtain a picture, something that works as a whole. Avec Picasso, ce matin... can be perceived as a piece constructed through the superimposition of different materials: the tape is the superimposition the three aforementioned elements; the piece is the superimposition of tape, performance and lights; the piece is played by sequencing and superimposing the diferent cubes. Even the word "cube" as the choosen word by the composer, in the score, to describe the different sections of the piece, doesn't seem coincidental.

Looking at the score, we see that each cube, demarcated by a rectangle containing musical notation, only last for a few bars, are very openly notated and don’t have strict dynamic or articulation indications. There’s only a character indication at the beginning of each cube (quasi tango; very percussive and rhythmic; calm and delicate; calm and enchanted³) but even that leaves a lot to imagination. The tape is a simple collage of three distinct elements - Picasso’s text, a vocal effect and some motives played on temple blocks - and the theatrical scene and light scheme are short and straightforward. It is as if the composer constrained herself to limited and simpler means during her compositional process, creating thus a piece that organically intertwines its elements without any artifice or complicated techniques.

In terms of formal structure, the piece is divided in recitativo and cubes. After the recitativo, played on temple blocks with claves, the cubes must be sequenced and combined according to a scheme written by the composer. The last cube works as the cadence of the piece that mustn’t take longer than the duration of the tape. 

I was drawn from the beginning by the challenge that would be performing Avec Picasso, ce matin…. Not only had I never worked on a piece with that many elements (until the point I learnt about the piece, the only media I had dealt with were electronics) but also, I can’t deny how knowing that the piece’s adjacent materials were scattered around different archives attracted me. Even though it was the mystery surrounding Avec Picasso, ce matin… that caught my attention I can’t deny that expanding my knowledge on the piece didn’t take away my interest in it. Every time I work on it, I imagine new possibilities and have different ideas. Avec Picasso, ce matin… turned throughout the course of my research an enormous source of inspiration for developing my work.

Capdeville works span from instrumental music for solo or ensemble to music for ballets or cinema. Her most important works, however, were with no doubt the pieces with a strong performative and theatrical component such as Mise-en-Requiem (1977), Libera me (1977-79) or Don’T Juan (1985). In these works the musicians often played characters, having written dialogues or had to undertake certain theatrical action such as place objects on the stage during the performance. Capdeville was also an active performer (both as a pianist and percussionist) performing on her own ensembles and ensembles created by other musicians. She performed often with the Lisbon’s Contemporary Music Ensemble (Grupo de Música Contemporânea de Lisboa) an Ensemble founded by the composer Jorge Peixinho in 1970. This was one of the first and more important ensembles devoted to contemporary music in Portugal. Capdeville also created and took part in several other projects such as the chamber music ensemble Convivium Musicum; the theatre-music group ColecViva (1985), devoted to the performance of her own theatre-music works; the group OPUS SIC (1988), created with the composer António Sousa Dias devoted to film music; as well as a theatre group created together with Manuel Cintra and called Palavras por dentro. The composer also developed important work on the fields of musicology and pedagogy. 

Even though the performer has to complete all of these actions, the audience will only be able to see a part of them: during actions 1, 2 and 4 the stage must be pitch black. It is as if there was a dissonance between action and light. First the audience sees the empty chair on the stage. Afterwards, when the light turns on again the performer is already seated on the chair. At last, when the performer moves towards the piano, the stage is pitch black once again. When the lights turn on again, the pianist is ready to play the temple blocks placed next to the piano. Despite of the simplicity of the scene, this “game” between presence and absence gives the action a strong poetic and expressive impact; to use an expression by music theatre director Heiner Goebbels, they create "blank spaces for the spectator’s imagination”.¹

There are two distinct scores for Avec Picasso, ce matin.... One belongs to the Portuguese pianist Madalena Soveral and the other one was donated to the Portuguese National Library together with all the other Capdeville’s pieces in 2012. It is believed that the version of the score later donated to the Portuguese National Library belonged to the Portuguese pianist and composer Jorge Peixinho (1940-1995). The first score I had access to was Madalena Soveral’s score and only later I learnt about the second manuscript, through the musicologist Mónica Chambel. Even though the score at the Portuguese National Library is available for public consult, none of these scores are published. To better understand the manuscripts, I transcribed both scores with the aid of the music notation software Sibelius. The examples presented below, are a part of this transcription work. I’ll be referring to Madalena Soveral’s score as “MS score” and to the Portuguese National Library’s score as “PNL score”.¹

In their core, these scores are very similar. However, they show some small differences.

For instance:

The general structure of the piece is slightly different. On MS score the piece is divided in recitativo, 3 cubes² (A, B and C) and a cadence. On the other hand, PNL score is divided in recitativo and 5 cubes (A, B, C, D and E). The last one of these cubes is described has the cadence of the piece. What is labeled as cube D in PNL score doesn’t exist in the exact same form in MS score. In this last one, the material of PNL score cube D appears fragmented and intertwined with cube B. The composer calls this part “tank to B”³.

The last section of the piece, labeled as “cadence” in MS score and cube E in PNL score also exhibits some variations. In MS score the performer must hit the piano soundboard with the hand while playing the written notes on the keyboard and in the end strike the bamboo chimes. In the Portuguese National Library’s score, this last section doesn’t have the percussion on the piano soundboard and the bamboo chimes’ interventions are scattered throughout the end.

The "scraps effects (Picasso)"¹ are a collection of varied audio fragments recorded by the composer. In these recordings we may find:

• An opera singer singing “Mascaron, mírade el mascaron…” and other vocal effects

• Improvisations on a marimba

• Chords played on a guitar

• Some dance like motives played on a piano and on a guitar

• Chimes, bells, Tibetan Singing Bowls

• Motives on a prepared piano

• A music box

• A Cuckoo’s clock

• Random electronic sounds

• Birds singing

Although these are minor, cube C in each score present some differences in terms of pitches and rhythm:

The only copy of the tape known at the time this research is being written is the one on Madalena Soveral's archive. This tape was kept on the orgininal cassette tape and ended up being transfered to digital format in 2019 by Helena Marinho. 

Avec Picasso's ce matin...'s tape lasts 4'30'' and was made by superimposing and sequencing recordings of:

• The singer António Wagner Diniz reading part of a surrealist text
• The piece’s recitativo played in wood blocks and other sequences played in percussion instruments 
• A vocal effect (that the performer as to impersonate in the beginning of the piece) 

The text is the main material of the tape. Before any of the other elements appear, the text runs alone for about 1’30’’. Even though it stops at some point, this break lasts less than 1'30''. This way the text sounds continuous and incessant. The composer also resorted to certain words / expressions on the text to cue certain actions during the theatrical prelude. This text is an excerpt of a text writen by Pablo Picasso and can be found on the book La poésie surréaliste - anthologuie edited by Jean-Louis Bédouin:

"(...) met son chapeau et cherche son parapluie et compte les cartes du jeu de 2 à 4 et de 50 à 28 s’il assassine et serre de toute sa méchanceté contre les lèvres du citron du miroir flambant comme un fou et se brûle la bouche la cruche fifre et demande à l’aveugle de lui indiquer le chemin le plus court qui fendille sa couleur dans la cape la corne torse tu sais déjà par qui la lumière qui tombe et vole en éclats dans sa figure sonne la cloche qui effraye de ses gestes d’adieu la cathédrale que l’air qui poursuit à coups de fouet le lion qui se déguise en torero défaille entre ses bras sans un bravo et maintenant si éclatant et dans son regard la radio éveillée par l’aube avec tant de comptes arriérés sur le dos retenant son haleine et portant dans le plat en équilibre la tranche de lune l’ombre que le silence éboule fait que l’accent continue à photographier dans le baiser une punaise de soleil si la fa ré si mi fa do si la do fa mange l’arôme de l’heure qui tombe et traverse la page qui vole et si après avoir fait son baluchon défait le bouquet qu’emporte fourré entre l’aile dont je sais déjà pourquoi elle soupire et la peur que lui fait son image vue dans le lac si la pointe du poème sourit tire le rideau et le couteau qui bondit de plaisir n’a pas d’autre ressource que mourir de plaisir quand le sang même aujourd’hui flottant à sa guise et n’importe comment au moment précis et nécessaire seulement pour moi voit passer comme un éclair en haut du puits le cri du rose que la main lui jette comme une petite aumône (...)"

We can find the surrealists influences of the text materialized on the tape. One feature that can be found on surrealist works is the juxtaposition of unexpected elements. Reflecting on the content of the tape we can perceive the juxtaposition of the recited text, read in a very serious way, and the vocal effect that can be somehow perceived as silly as an unexpected justaposition. The same vocal effect is impersonated  by the performer during the scenic prelude. This is the third action undertaken by the performer and occurs after a blackout moment. During we can hear the poem being recited. Once again, in this somehow serious context, the act of impersonating the vocal effect may be seen also as an unexpected justaposition.

The script containing the light scheme and theatrical scene’s indications can be found at the Portuguese National Library. The scene starts once the tape starts and the timing for each action is cued by certain words / expressions on the text played in it. The theatrical action is quite simple:

1. The performer takes a chair into the stage and leaves
2. The performer goes back to the stage and sits on the chair
3. The performer, sitting on the chair, starts impersonating the vocal effect heard on the tape
4. The performer, now silent, stands up and walks towards the piano where she/he’ll start playing the recitativo

The last indication on the lighting takes place at the end of the piece. This indication, however, does not appear on the script. We can only find this information on the last cube of PNL score. This indication is not part of MS score.