As in so many other titles, the composer enjoys playing with the onomatopoetical sound, and the meanings of words in one word. “Oi In Lov”, is an anagram of "violino" (“violin”) and an echo of the verse, “All you need is love”. Yet, whether it has something to do with the music is another matter. The soulful, the lyrical and the vitality of sound coexist as the centre of the musical objects. The flow of time and harmony, structured on several intervallic structures around an axis sound, blend with the angularity of the melodic line, the virtual polyphony, loudness, modes of sound production. However, the violin does not exist: there is only the sound. It reads, acrobatically, “Oi In Lov”, but the rhythm of three syllables (phonemes) indicates the emotional world of the verse of John Lennon, the sound of the composer, the performer and the listener. The work is dedicated to all lovers, real or abstract (“à l’amour sous toutes ses formes”, said one day Xenakis about “Anaktoria” dedicated to Sapho), and to friends who are in the origin of the score, Radu Ungureanu who asked me to compose the piece, and Suzanna Lidegran who made me finish it, and who gave its first performance and has been presenting it in Portugal and several other countries.
September 27, 2012
Cândido Lima