An Interview with Peter Navarro-Alonso
BY DAVID DEBOOR CANFIELD
Peter Navarro-Alonso is one versatile musician! There cannot be too many such that are gifted artists on both saxophone and organ. He has toured as a performer, having given more than 400 recitals throughout Europe and the US. If that’s not enough, he is also a composer of distinction. In this capacity, he has been recognized with several honors, including the prestigious Carl Nielsen and Anne-Marie Nielsen Honorary Award, along with others by the Danish Arts Council and Nordic Council. He also taught classical saxophone and chamber music for ten years at the Royal Danish Academy of Music but gave up academia in order to focus on his composing and concertizing. He currently resides in Copenhagen, where I caught up with this peripatetic musician in September and October of 2025 to explore various aspects of his musical activities, in particular his composition In flagrante delicto recently issued on the Danish Our Recordings label.
Peter, let’s begin with your development as a musician. At what age did you develop an interest in music? Given that you have three quite different focuses in the musical world, which of these came first, saxophone, organ, or composition?
Coming from a family with a strong musical tradition and a lot of musicians (amateurs as well as professionals) music was always present when I grew up. My first formal studies was when I began studying the classical guitar at the age of 6. Soon I added a few extra instruments studying piano, clarinet and saxophone from a quite early age and later (as a teenager) I added formal studies in organ and double bass. Music has always been my playground, the place where I am having a wonderful time with friends and family and colleagues. I cannot really tell when I began composing. It was never a big decision, it was just something I always did. My earliest extant score dates from when I was 9 years old.
Who were some of your formative influences, whether teachers or other composers or performers, and how did they help mold you as a musician?
I studied with a lot of different teachers and every one of them has in different ways been an influence. Equally important is the influence from studying scores, listening to recordings and attending concerts. I have devoted (and continue to do so) a lot of time to analyzing scores by my heroes, composers such as Josquin, Morales, Tallis, Palestrina, Gesualdo, Victoria, Bach, the Second Viennese School, the postwar modernists (Darmstadt), the French spectralists and others (this list is, of course, not complete). What all of these composers have in common is, to different degrees, a fascination with structure, a fascination that I obviously share. I will also mention the important impact my collaboration with great musicians has had on me as composer as well as performer.
Given your mixed heritage, where did you grow up and receive your musical training?
Being of a mixed Spanish-Danish descent, I grew up in Denmark but with an ever-going extensive travel schedule between Denmark (my mother’s family) and Spain (my father’s). I continued this way of living as an adult with formal music studies at both The Royal Danish Academy of Music as well as at Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid (I graduated from both academies). Today I am based in Copenhagen, Denmark, with my wife and kids. Spain and Denmark are in many ways two very different cultures. In general, Spain is an extrovert, intense and very social culture whereas Denmark is more calm and quiet. I thrive equally in both and I am especially happy about the possibility of switching back and forth between these cultures.
Do you perceive any particularly Iberian or Nordic elements in your music?
This is hard to tell. I do not deliberately include Iberian or Nordic elements in my compositions. But as a performer I have worked intensely with Iberian music (especially the marvellous Iberian renaissance music) and Nordic music (especially the music from the 20th century). Moreover, I have played a lot of folk music from both Spain and the Nordic Countries. So while I cannot tell if there are Iberian or Nordic elements in my composition I would certainly not be surprised if someone else found such elements!
When Christina Åstrand commissioned In Flagrante Delicto from you, did she specify what sort of piece she was looking for? If not, how did you come to choose Carlo Gesualdo as the subject of this work?
When Christina commissioned a new piece from me it was actually meant to be “only” a quartet for the Stralo Ensemble (i.e., for violin, cello, oboe, piano). But while I was sketching ideas we both attended a recital with the great Catalan gambist Jordi Savall in a program combining renaissance music and improvisation based folk music. This made us curious about combining Stralo with something completely different, namely the music of Gesualdo di Venosa, whose music (and person) I have been fascinated by for many years. This led to contact with Paul Hillier and his Theatre of Voices who are specialists in renaissance music and contemporary music.
Do you view, as I and others do, Gesualdo as a kind of late 16th-century forerunner of Charles Ives? In other words, some kind of musical iconoclast? Has his music influenced your own outside of the present work?
Gesualdo’s madrigals are in many ways traditional Italian madrigals from the beginning of the 17th century. You could say that he does not do anything that his contemporary colleagues would not have done. Gesualdo just does everything to a much more extreme and intense extent. When his contemporary composers add a little color to the music by adding accidentals now and then in chromatic fashion, Gesualdo adds so many accidentals that the music not only gets a little color but is completely drowned in paint! You could argue that Ives sometimes does the same. Other composers from that aesthetic (as I see it) would be composers such as Scriabin, Nancarrow, Langgaard, Scelsi, Stockhausen, and Cage.
I note your usage of madrigal-like writing in certain portions of Flagrante. May I, as someone who does not know the madrigals of Gesualdo well, assume that these are quotes from his actual music? If so, you seem to use a certain amount of deconstruction of these; are there other techniques you use in regard to them?
In movements 1-4 the singers only sing Gesualdo-material, but the material is always highly manipulated. The manipulation could be slowing down the tempo and changing the register (1st movement), extensive use of cut-up techniques (2nd movement), looping shorter sections (3rd movement), “orchestrating” the audio effect delay (4th movement), etc. The first 4 movements are followed by “PART TWO” which is basically one long 5th movement lasting 30’. For practical reasons, on the CD “PART TWO” is divided into five parts. This movement does not use any Gesualdo material at all.
In what ways in this work, if any, have you referenced the lurid aspects of Gesualdo’s life, including the event to which the title refers?
Gesualdo’s mind was dark and unpleasant. I have tried to imagine how it would sound if his music was processed once again through his mind, that is through a dark and unpleasant processor. The result is of course music that is dark and unpleasant but also fragmented and almost meaningless. It is known that through his life Gesualdo’s mind became gradually darker and more gruesome. This development is also the main structure of my composition, where the movements get gradually darker.
If the first four sections of this work are based on particular madrigals, what are the texts of the final five sections drawn from? There is a text given in the booklet only for the first movement of these. I’m also curious as to why only the final movements all bear a designation of part two, while none of the preceding is described as part one?
A.The lyrics of “PART TWO” are from madrigals by Gesualdo (the music is not) except the short Spanish cry out (“Llegamos a la follia”) and the concluding prayer in Latin. The lyrics of “PART TWO” are all in the booklet under the “V”. Unfortunately, this can easily lead to the conclusion that these are the lyrics for only track 5, while it is the lyrics to the entire “PART TWO” (track 5-9). You could say that “PART TWO” is a kind of second act to the drama. Besides the difference in duration and in not using musical material by Gesualdo, there is another key difference: In the first four movement Gesualdos words are kind of trustworthy. They are manic and extreme, but still, we believe his words. In “PART TWO” this changes. The mental state of the music becomes gradually bizarre to a point, where Gesualdo’s words do not make sense. The bass singer turns into Gesualdo and proclaims “Llegamos a la follia” (we arrive at madness!) This continues until the music dissolves to make room for a coda that includes the return of the initial material from the first movement but with the addition of a quiet prayer.
How did you become acquainted with Paul Hillier and the wonderful artists in the instrumental quartet and vocal quintet? These pieces seem both musically and technically very demanding, but your performers bring them off in most brilliant fashion.
I have listened to Paul Hillier’s recitals and recordings for many years with great admiration. So, when the possibility came to include a vocal ensemble in this project I did not hesitate to ask Paul if they would be interested. Collaborating with Paul on this project has had a decisive impact on the final result. We had a close dialogue while I composed the piece. I wanted to use the ensemble in some extreme and very demanding ways. Paul was a wonderful supervisor in this quest. Having collaborated with Ensemble Stralo previously I was lucky to even have a close dialogue with them from the beginning. This too had an important impact on the final result.
What challenges do you face in balancing your time between performing and composing? Do you have a set amount of time you reserve for each activity? Is your activity as organist primarily restricted to Sundays as organist in Our Savior’s Church in Copenhagen?
Being very active as both composer and performer comes with some challenges. The biggest challenge is to keep the continuity with both composing and performing. I compose seven days a week and I perform (and/or practice) on the same schedule. This is of course challenging but also very rewarding. Working in Our Savior’s Church is not restricted to Sundays. Luckily, we have two organists in the church which gives me a lot of flexibility.
Have you written much music for the two (or more) instruments you play?
I have only composed a very few pieces for my own instruments and I have never performed them myself. This I would not find appealing in any way. I would instinctively find it too narcissistic! I do plan to compose an organ symphony within the next couple of years, but it will definitely not be played by me!
Well, I surely hope to hear more of your music, including that organ symphony, as it appears on CD!

NAVARRO-ALONSO In Flagrante Delicto.  Paul Hillier, cond; Ensemble Strato; Theatre of Voices  OUR RECORDINGS 8.226933 (65:03)
Danish-Spanish composer Peter Navarro-Alonso was born in 1973, commencing studies at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid and upon receiving his degree there, continued continued them in the Soloist Class at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. Since his graduation, he has received numerous commissions from ensembles, orchestras, choruses, and opera companies, including the Danish National Opera, the Copenhagen Philharmonic, and the Danish National Vocal Ensemble, among others.
Lasting more than an hour, In Flagrante Delicto must be considered a major work, although it is scored for small forces comprising an instrumental quartet and a vocal quintet. The piece was commissioned by the violinist of Ensemble Strato, Christina Åstrand, who is joined by her colleagues, oboist Radi Åstrand Radev, cellist Therese Åstrand Radev, and pianist Per Salo. In flagrante delicto, as its composer puts it, “embarks on a journey into a sick and darkened mind heading toward dissolution and decay.” The title and inspiration of the work comes from the the avant-gardist of his day Carlo Gesualo coming upon his wife in bed with another man in flagrante delicto, leading him to murder both her and her lover. Composers can be quirky, to be sure, but seldom (as far as I am aware) do they commit such an act, despite the cries of “bloody murder” by critics of most of the great innovators throughout music history. Innovator though he may have been, however, Gesualdo has nothing on Navarro-Alonso, as the present work demonstrates from its outset.
The work is divided into five movements, with the fifth itself containing five sections. First heard is “Moro, lasso,” based on Gesualdo’s well-known madrigal from his Sixth Book. Like its progenitor, Navarro-Alonso’s work opens darkly with isolated pitches—in this case, played on the piano—as he wordlessly expresses in music the gist of the poem that examines grief leading to death. At around the three-minute mark, the singers enter almost imperceptibly with near tone clusters as they sing the actual text of the poem. The effect is truly mesmerizing, and leaves the auditor with a sense that time has almost ceased flowing. I also find the interweaving of the various instrumental lines masterfully accomplished as this composer combines elements from some of the composers (especially the French Spectralists) that he cites into his very personal compositional voice. Just before the eight-minute mark, both singers and instrumentalists break out into a fortissimo passage that produces an aural equivalent to the sun coming out after a period of unrelenting cloudiness. The latter portion of this movement features much use of seemingly aleatoric figuration in the upper registers of piano and violin.
The second movement, “Beltà, poi che t’assenti,” employs the eponymous madrigal (also drawn from that same harmonically adventurous Book) in more overt fashion, but this is heard only after an introduction consisting of quite unrecognizable sounds from the instruments. The composer explains his approach to the use of the madrigals in the above interview. After the entrance of the vocal ensemble, the madrigal is embellished by the instrumental quartet in the most ear-intriguing ways to produce a sound quite unlike that of any other composer I’ve heard. Following these opening two movements are two others, apparently based to a greater or lesser degree on actual madrigals of Gesualdo, the first, “Che sì picciol pianto,” opening in rather amusing pointillistic fashion, while the second is initiated with a surprisingly tonal—considering what has preceded it—piano part over which the voices sing equally tonal overlapping parts. This fourth movement also closes with a dolorous and extended a capella section.
The last movement is labeled PART TWO, and eschews the use of any of Gesualdo’s music, but does set a text that he employed. Its five sections are designated only by tempo markings. “Energico” begins in a forceful and moderately dissonant manner in the instruments that keeps the two string instruments in their upper registers, not quite an octave apart (I hear some microtonal intervals here) until the voices enter equally powerfully. These final sections are quite tonally obscure until the last one: “Tranquillo” features a beautiful soprano solo, some Messiaen-like harmonies, and a moving fading away into nothingness, serving to close the work in a breath-taking manner.
Peter Navarro-Alonso writes arresting and innovative music that will surely secure him a prominent place in the pantheon of composers of our time. His powerful and gripping work has made quite a profound impression on me, as I’m sure it will on many other listeners. The performers, both instrumentalists and vocalists, are true virtuosos and masters of their art, and together they provide a musical experience that will reverberate in the memory of the listener for quite some time. My highest recommendation attends this release.