Santiago Veros wrote Almas de Barro at the age of 19, dedicating it to a young woman who at the time was shy and with whom he rarely talked. This piece intimately describes the moments during music theory classes when the two would look at each other continuously, youthfully, and silently, as if unable to do anything else.
The piece, written as a counterpoint assignment, was intended to be performed during music theory class as a declaration of love. The idea was to make a musical representation of those moments. The piece begins without words, the voices representing youthful looks. They come together and occasionally dodge each other to highlight the discomfort of the situation, only to come back together within a few seconds. The poem conveys that all this is a fantasy, a dream state in which, upon awakening, will be lost. As the work progresses, the voices begin to detach from each other. When they awaken, they realize that they are lost and in complete solitude, this being the only thing they have in common. Last comes the coda, longing to return to sleep and to the fantasy dream.
Difficulty: Medium / Hard
Instrumentation: SSAA or TTBB
Text language: Spanish
Duration: 3:50 min
