Spinoza in Cuzco

While composing this work for string quartet and orchestra, I was reading about the Inca empire, the ancient civilisation of Tiahuanaco on the banks of Lake Titicaca in the Andean Cordilliera; at the same time, I was reading Robert Misrahi’s books about Spinoza. My thoughts began to wander: what profound commotion would have broken out in a confrontation between the 'prince of philosophers' who viewed nature and freedom of will rationally within the context of a self-creating cosmos and the mythical religious concepts of the Incas in the 16th Century? How would it have been if, a hundred years before his birth, Spinoza had been able to visit the Incan empire just prior to its downfall, and had experienced the sun festivals of the Inti Raymi in the capital city of Cuzco? He would then have become acquainted with the pantheon of the Inca gods and their functional relationship with nature, for example Inti the sun god or Viracocha, the god of creation and civilisation, or Inti Illapa who was responsible for the dispersion of rain and floods. Would Spinoza’s philosophy not have received a positive impulse from the intellectual world of the Incas and simultaneously have been overturned and fortified by their concepts?

Spinoza in Cuzco conveys this inconceivable commotion in the form of a musical myth, almost like an invisible truth assuming the form of sounds. A minor chord permeates the entire piece, appearing as a symbol of philosophical worlds of ideas, constantly in flux in its registers, orchestration and dynamics.

The great expanse of the Andes with its colourful festivals celebrating the sun god are reflected in the sounds of the massive chords of the sikus (Andean panpipes) and the inexorably forward-thrusting percussion rhythms of a procession in a state of trance.

The principle of duality which permeated all pre-Columbian civilisations is represented in the dialogue between the solo string quartet and the orchestra. The luxuriant mass of orchestral sound is interwoven by the virtuoso concertante quartet acting as the core driving force of musical progression. Thierry Pécou