Metaverse III

(E)

"Metaverse III," commissioned by the SGAE Foundation and AEOS for the Orquesta de Córdoba, is a 20-minute piece for a large orchestra that continues the series of musical compositions for different instrumentations (Metaverse I, Metaverse II) that question the relationship between humans and technology.

It draws inspiration from the obsessive world of video games, which is the origin of the Metaverse. Simultaneously blending repetitive cells and hypnotic counterpoints with a lyricism of harmony and color, it transports you to an almost liturgical plane, imbued with deep spirituality.

The work is structured in four movements of different durations:
In the brief introduction (Game Start, 1 min.), the orchestra speaks to us, inviting the audience to enter the Metaverse. The text recited by the musicians is based on recent events (2022) in which an artificial intelligence named LaMDA made an engineer believe it had developed its own consciousness.
In the second movement (Side A: Coupling, 9 min.), an organic and floating anthem of perfection and calm elevates us to the fascinating world of virtual reality, the visible face of the Metaverse. It culminates with a hypnotic Hindu mantra ("I am infinity, I belong to it and contain it. I am you"), used here as a paradoxical metaphor for the absolute surrender of human collective consciousness to the machine. A chromatic three-tone Motif is glimpsed between the french horns, anticipating the next movement.
In the third movement (Side B: world on a wire, 7 min.), we dive into the hidden side of the Metaverse: the real world of obsessive data transfer. The title refers to the TV miniseries "Welt am Draht" by German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, which in 1973 already predicted simulated reality. The entire movement is structured on a chromatic three-note Motif (anticipated in the previous movement) that travels through all the instruments of the orchestra, passing through an interlude featuring a string quartet (a meta-quote to the work "Metaverse I"), and leading to a perverse and satanic climax.
In the last movement ("Game over," 3 min.), the orchestra speaks to us again to deliver a final message, and we also find a new reference to the work "Metaverse I."

Performers are asked to use techniques typical of Cruixent's sound imagery, such as effects and harmonies inspired by the technological world (synthesizers, vocoders, harmonizers, robotic voices), and above all, the "Cyber singing" technique (premiered in 2010 with the symphonic work "Cyborg"), where performers use their own mobile phones (a metaphor of virtual communication) to play audio files, thus defining a new possibility of interaction between performer and composer beyond the score. In this case, in "Game over," electronic sounds imitating previous motifs of the work are played back, intertwining with traditional instruments, creating a poetic galaxy of sounds that blurs the line between what is real and what is synthesic.