Omaramor for solo cello (1991)

Of the many facets of Golijov’s cultural background – he was born in La Plata of Jewish parents whose own parents had emigrated to Argentina from Russia and Romania in the 1920s – the Argentinian prevails in Omaramor. Commissioned by the Omar del Carlos Tanglewood Fellowship, it is a tribute to the playwright Omar del Carlos but more in the title, which is a fanciful contraction of Omar and amor, than in the music itself. The work is actually a fantasy on the most popular song Mi Buenos Aires Querido of the composer and tango singer, Carlos Gardel, who died in a plane crash at the height of his fame in 1935. Goljov puts it this way: “The cello walks, melancholy at times and rough at others, over the harmonic progression of the song as if the chords were the streets of the city. In the midst of this wandering the melody of the immortal song is unveiled."

Like virtually all works for solo cello, Omaramor is also a tribute to J.S. Bach, many of whose stylistic features are clearly recognisable. Kodaly had an influence on it too: consciously following the precedent of the Hungarian composer’s Sonata Op.8 (which actually applies scordatura to two of the four strings), Golijov asks the cellist to tune the C string down a semitone, giving the piece a distinct feeling of B minor. Although tango rhythms are frequently to be heard, sometimes in aggressively percussive articulation, Mi Buenos Aires Querido never emerges as Gardel sang it. The nearest approach to it comes about three quarters of the way through where, after a dramatically passionate discourse, it emerges in an expressive melodic line sustained on the A-string over a left-hand pizzicato accompaniment.