A la busca del más allá

‘In search of the beyond’ is the English title of Joaquín Rodrigo’s symphonic poem composed in 1977. During a trip to the USA, Rodrigo visited the headquarters of the US space agency NASA in Texas. When he was subsequently commissioned by the Houston Symphony Orchestra for the US bicentenary, he decided to write a piece about the human exploration of space. The work begins and ends with a long roll on suspended cymbals; it emerges from nowhere and disappears, comments Rodrigo, ‘as if lost somewhere in space – in the other world’.