Of the bean I sing
Ten years ago, Venezuelan musician and composer Paul Desenne was teaching cello — his primary instrument — in an old tin-roofed studio atop a building in Caracas. One day he noticed a dot of sunlight on the floor between his legs. There was a new bullet hole in the roof. In 2002, Desenne left teaching, concert tours, and solo playing behind for the solitude of the jungle-clad mountains south of Caracas. He composed in peace, got by on rice and beans, and — in the leanest years — made only a few hundred dollars. Desenne, a 2010-2011 Radcliffe Fellow, lived on an old shade coffee plantation. The jungle helped inspire what he calls his “tropical baroque” work, including “Jaguar Songs” (2002) and “The Two Seasons” (2003), which overlays snippets from a Vivaldi concerto with violins mimicking nocturnal Caribbean frogs. At the same time, Desenne became even more interested in fusing classical European...