(Sun and Shadow… Ghosts over the Ring) This piece could have been called “the stealer of souls” — the tape part draws heavily on the guitar sounds that I produced for Francis Dhomont during an improvisation session. When I began to compose the guitar part, I found myself face to face with my own ego — but an “altered” ego, now refracted through the discourse of the electroacoustic composer.

At the bullring, the stands are divided into sections of sun and shade, “sol y sombra.” In Sol y sombra… L’espace des spectres, the guitar and the tape confront one another as matador and bull, two faces of a single combat. The shadows of Manuel de Falla, of Spain immemorial, fall over the arena and the stands in a light-and-dark pattern that shifts as the passionate duel between the tape and the instrument unfolds.

The guitar doubles back and quotes the tape, attempting to recover its own soul and break the spell, quickened by its traverse through the mind of the Other.

— Catherine Ego, Arturo Parra [English translation: Peter Feldstein]

The electroacoustic part of Sol y sombra… L’espace des spectres comes from the acousmatic work En cuerdas (1998) by Francis Dhomont.

Preparation

• Studio 123 — Groupe de recherches musicales – Institut national de l’audiovisuel (Ina-GRM), Paris (France)

Composition

• 1998, Personal studio, Montréal (Québec)

Premiere

• May 15, 1998, Arturo Parra, guitar • FIMAV 1998: Parr(A)cousmatique, Cégep de Victoriaville, Victoriaville (Québec)