CD1:
1. PIANO WHICH ISN'T HAIL-MARY BUT IS FULL OF GRACE, BELIEVING TO BE THE KING OF THE HILL (20:23)
andante-vivace-lento
2. PIANO THINKING ABOUT THE DEATH OF THE YOUNG COW (27:05)
largo
3. PIANO SPANKED BY 1860 HANDS, TO EXORCIZE THE F MINOR (11:32)
presto vivacissimo
CD2:
4. PIANO TREATED WITH MARZIPAN (25:47)
allegro - andante maestoso - allegro
5. PIANO ON HOLIDAY IN BERLIN (46:22)
andante-allegretto-lento-allegro molto vivace
total time: 2:11:10

dedicated to Gustav Mahler and Conrad Schnitzler

The synthetic piano provides many possbilities of sound creation. For five years I've been exploring these possibilities, and this work is a result of these explorations.

The music was instantly composed, which means the movements were composed during the performance. There are no overdubs, all the material was recorded at one go, in five different moments between September/2004 and May/2005. All sounds are from a single synthetic classic piano, electronically treated. The last movement features a delay box which was in bad conditions, so it rendered marvellous distorted sounds.

This work was created parallel to the development of the second album. Some of the ideas presented here might also appear on the follow-up to Round Mi.

The Symphony nº1 is dedicated to Gustav Mahler, because his nine symphonies are nine worlds I always visit. It is dedicated also to Conrad Schnitzler, one of the biggest inventors of electronic music, whose unique style of experimental and atonal sounds is another influence in this work.

Recording dates:
1st movement: April 24th, 2005
2nd movement: September 9th, 2004
3rd movement: May 22nd, 2005
4th movement: September 19th, 2004
5th movement: January 23rd, 2005

notes for non-Portuguese speakers:
the titles of the two first movements are usual sayings in Brazil, and are a bit difficult to translate; I tried my best.
the title of mvmt.1 refer to the catholic prayer, of course; when someone is acting funny, doing jokes all the time, someone can say they “não é ave-maria mas está cheio de graça”. in fact, you know, this is a very rough explanation; it’s quite more subtle than that. but the space here is limited.. the second part of the title (”se achando o rei da cocada preta”) directly translates are “believing to be the king of the black coconut sweet”. “cocada”, a sweet made of coconut, is usually white, never black. coconut is white, how to make a black “cocada”? so, let’s say, a black “cocada” would be something rare. so I thought “king of the hill” would be kind of equivalent to that saying.
mvmt.2, “pensando na morte da bezerra”, is directly translated here; when someone is very distracted, not focused on anything, having random thoughts - or not thinking about anything - you can say they’re “thinking about the death of the young cow”, or “thinking about yesterday”. I guess that’s it.

Music by Gustavo Jobim (piano solo)
First release: Fronha Records (frec030), 06.2005
Cover and back cover: Gustavo Jobim
Digital inlay graphics: MMeNDES
Thanks to Daniel Rosenthal and MMeNDES