I. Arrival: The Plains of Alentejo represents the feelings at the beginning of a road trip; the excitement of leaving the city and entering a new landscape of rolling plains and fields. Alentejo has a wealth of history—the medieval villages, the Roman temple in Évora, and the many Neolithic sites hidden in the countryside: cromlechs, menhirs, and dolmens (whose shape always reminds me of the number π).

II. The Village, at Nightfall, when the sun has disappeared, the evening bells have finished pealing, and the streets are silent. Walking home from the village bar, you are alone with your thoughts, and the only sounds are your footsteps on the cobblestones and the wind whistling through the alleyways.

III. The Castle of Marvão stands majestically over the hilltop village of Marvão. First founded by the Moors in the 9th century (and named after ibn Marwân), it boasts sweeping views of the entire region from its perch in the mountains.

The Clouds that Walk in the Air

Originally, the first movement of this suite included folksongs from Alentejo as thematic material, but I had to remove them and completely rewrite the movement for submission in the Franco Composition Contest. I consider those little tunes to be the real genesis of this work, and so it only feels right to recognize them somehow.

Rather than altering the first movement again, I have written an arrangement of one of the folksongs, 'As nuvens que andam no ar,' and included it as a 'bonus' movement. It is a fairly straightforward, diatonic arrangement, representing the simplicity of the original folksong.

The performer is welcome to program movements separately or to play the original three scenes as a suite. If they wish to include The Clouds, I suggest the following presentation:

• I. Arrival: The Plains of Alentejo
• II. The Village, at Nightfall
• Intermezzo: The Clouds that Walk in the Air (traditional folksong)
• III. The Castle of Marvão

—Daniel Guo