The Devil’s Sentry Box

Synopsis

Since today is Halloween, how about a supernatural legend in music?

The second of three Fábulas — fables or fantastic stories — for violin and piano by Puerto Rican composer Dan Román is titled La Garita del Diablo or The Devil’s Sentry Box.

The old port city of San Juan is surrounded by a fortified stone wall built by the Spaniards to protect it from their enemies, dotted with stone sentry boxes at strategic locations where soldiers could gain an advantageous view of any attack arriving by sea.

Mystery and myth surrounding one of these lonely sentry boxes built high above the sea began after several soldiers disappeared during their watch, leaving no trace behind. Despite a number of rational explanations, popular imagination blamed the disappearances on evil and supernatural forces.

In his chamber work, Román said, “The piano and the violin form aural impressions of the echoes and distant reverberations that take shape in the old passages leading to the sentry box and of the darkness and impersonality of the ocean during the night, until the observer gets to the sentry box and hears the breaking of the sea waves against the rocks and city wall.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Dan Román (b. 1974): La Garita del Diabolo from Fabulas; Katalin Viszmeg, violin; Pi-Hsun Shih, piano; Innova 904