"Platero y yo for speaking percussionist / para narrador y percusión"
XII. “El Loco / The Crazy Man"
A collection of percussion arrangements derived from Juan Ramón Jiménez’s seminal work of prose, "Platero y yo," as well as Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s guitar melologue of the same name.
The Work:
With his “long brown beard, and narrow-brimmed black hat," the narrator and Platero take a stroll through the village. Meanwhile, the children of the town run after them, shouting, “The crazy man! The crazy man!”
TRANSLATION
Dressed in mourning, with my long brown beard and my narrow-brimmed black hat, I must look odd riding on Platero’s grey softness.
When, on my way to the vineyards, I cross the last streets, whitewashed and bright in the sunlight, oily shaggy-haired gypsy children, with sleek tanned bellies peeping out their green, red and yellow rags, run after us shouting in their shrill voices:
“The crazy man! The crazy man! The crazy man!”
...Before us lies the open country, green already. Facing the vast, pure sky of burning indigo, my eyes - so distant from my ears - open, nobly, receiving into their calm that nameless peace, that harmonious and divine serenity which lies in the infinity of the horizon.
And there, far behind us, where the threshing-floors are, a few sharp cries linger, finely muffled, broken, painting and wearisome: “The cra-zy man! The cra-zy man!”