"Cuaderno de Viaje" Mario Lavista(Mexican composer)

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Mario Lavista is one of the most actives contemporary Mexican composers, he was born in 1943. Lavista studied in the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico with Carlos Chávez and Hector Quintanar, furthermore, he studied in the Schola Cantorum in France from 1967 to 1969. He is a member of the Art's Academy, he received the National Price for Science and Arts in 1991 and the Mozart Medal, since 1998 he belongs to the National College. Frequently maestro Lavista is invited for international universities to give classes and conferences. 

His works include different instrumentations, we can find works for symphonic orchestra and works for solo instruments, i.e. he composed the opera Aura, based on the book of Carlos Fuentes. His compositions have been played for the main orchestras in Mexico and abroad.

Cuaderno de Viaje (Journey Notebook) is one of the most representatives works for viola in the contemporary repertoire of Mexican composers. Maestro Lavista composed it in 1988 while he was traveling in Italy with his daughter, it is dedicated to Maurizio Barbetti, an Italian violist. This work has two movements: I-Come un canto en lontananza-flesible, II-Volatil, sempre delicato e come da lontano. In this work the composer explores the natural harmonics of the viola; originally it was written for the viola but now there is a version for cello. It has been published for Ediciones Mexicana de Musica A.C. 

It should be noted the performance of the young violist Valeria Valentina and this is one of the late recordings of the piece, in the video, we can watch the technic characteristics for playing this work. In the same way, the objective of this blog is to spread the work of the composers and the violists from Mexico.

In the next link, we can listen to the version of Barbetti, the violist who was dedicated this work: https://soundcloud.com/maurizio-barbetti/mario-lavista-cuaderno-de-viaje-i-maurizio-barbetti-viola

Thanks for reading and see you next Monday.

Luis Chab

https://musicaenmexico.com.mx/musica-mexicana/mario-lavista/

https://www.historiadelasinfonia.es/naciones/la-sinfonia-en-mexico/lavista/