José Iges: The work we are dealing with here today, on Ars Sonora Música Viva, Radio Nacional de España, Radio 2 Clásica, is likely to surprise many, and this is not only because of its content, which we will now discuss with its author, but also because of the fact that the author of this work is Esther Ferrer.

Esther Ferrer, a member of the Zaj Group, is widely known in Spanish circles and, of course, perhaps even more so internationally, for her work and also, obviously, for belonging, together with Walter Marchetti and Juan Hidalgo, to the Zaj Group for many years. She comes here with her first radio experience, her first, we could call it, radio-performance, which also deserves this title because the material that will be heard here comes from a performance made as a live action, with the help of the sounds included in this radio work.

J.I.: Good morning, Esther.
Esther Ferrer: Good morning.
J.I.: As a preamble to the audition of this very special work, we would like you to explain to us a little about its philosophy.
E.F.: Well, it's simple. As you said, this work is, we could say, the radio transcription of a performance. Something is always lost or gained in transcriptions as in translations. So, when I use these tapes in a performance, my fundamental idea is that people should be aware of the time that passes, I mean, we talked the other day about how, when I was a child, I used to hear grown-ups say, for example, after a concert or a play: "Pschew, it lasted three hours and I thought it lasted half an hour, it went by so quickly", or, on the contrary, "it lasted half an hour and it seems as if it lasted three hours." Then, there is a décalage, that is to say, a gap between the real time, the time of the conventional commitment, so to speak, and the internal or internalised psychological time. So, it's an idea that was apparently in my head in some way and when I started doing performance I really felt the need to tell the audience, it's your life that's happening and to be aware that what we're doing we're doing together and it's time of your life and time of my life, I mean, like it or not. So, one way to establish, to make this reality present is through a tape or a time-marking element.
J.I.: In this case, in addition, they overlap, as we also said the other day, when we mounted this work in the Música 2 studio, with the help of the technicians Manuel Álvarez and Juan Manuel Pérez Morales. We commented on how they existed in our culture in which the concept of time is so important. However, two aspects or two meanings of the word time that were strangely under the same term but were something so absolutely different, that is, the time, as you have mentioned, of the chronometer, of the clock, which is omnipresent in the work from beginning to end and also measured by the voice at regular intervals and, on the other hand, what you have mentioned now of the musical experience in this case. The time of aesthetic fruition or the time of pure life fruition, that is, the time of one's personal experience and, in a way, we call both of these things time. One is a time that has to be filled with experiences, then the experiences are also called time. Well, it's something very strange, it's a bit dizzying, isn't it? And this is part of this work, obviously.
E.F.: Yes, what interests me above all is that the play is not a dramatised play, that is, if you want the drama, the jouissance, the pleasure, etc., it is the auditor, the listener who will add it.
J.I.: The one who has to fill it. Because it is his/her time that is being measured there.
E.F.: If he/she wants.
J.I.: Of course.
E.F.: That is to say, you can perfectly turn off the radio by pressing the button or you can go out in a performance.
J.I.: Or many things can happen, for example, as the radio reaches many places in a broadcast, you can be measuring the time of a traffic jam in your car, or you can be at home...
E.F.: It can be useful.
J.I.: I don't know, doing anything else while this sounds in the background and that's measuring a time too and it's full of lots of actions of your own, real ones, which, in this case, give it a different dimension to the action that you, with these sounds, can do on a stage, that is, you do your own action on stage and it's one, but the rest of the people in their house when they hear it, or in their car or wherever, are doing an action that is not a premeditated action, it's their own natural action and also the performance, in this case, measures a multitude of actions as it is broadcast.
E.F.: Perfectly.
J.I.: It's something quite curious, in any case. Yes, well, there will be another aspect that also measures in an unequivocal way the time, which you haven't mentioned yet, which is the time of the clock, of the telephone clock, which gives you the real time, not the time of the editing studio but another time, which in this case is also that of the radio, which is the time of the live show.
E.F.: What I mean is that normally, as you know, I use the radio clock, but previously recorded, right? I normally use 0, it starts recording from 0 hour because that way it can be applied at any time if you want, but your idea and the possibility that the radio offers me, which I don't have in a performance, of being able to connect directly to the clock and do it in real time is like you were telling me the other day and I find it very interesting that it's a performance that can be done many times and will always be different than when it's done live.
J.I.: Of course, because each time it's a different time. It's the time of the moment, I don't know, 13 hours, 5 minutes, 10 seconds...
E.F.: So, this is the advantage... Maybe it's what gives more radio specificity to this work, right? Actually, I have to say, this work is only a radio work because when I use the tapes, I use them with, as you said, an action, there is a visual element that happens, etc. And at this point, I can say that with your help I have created a radio work.
J.I.: And the visual element is what each person brings to the place where they are listening to it, and it is an absolutely natural element of everyday life.
E.F.: These enormous possibilities that radio opens up are very interesting.
J.I.: Yes, they are certainly curious when you think about it. Very good, Esther, because we are now going to listen to this work in its absolute premiere, of which we have not said its title, by the way.
E.F.: Oh! It's obvious: To the Rhythm of Time. As Valcárcel Medina would say: "It's Perogrullo art", in a certain way.