Cuatro gatos locos [piano] Piano Solo - Digital Sheet Music

SKU: A0.1850711

Juan María Solare: Cuatro gatos locos
for piano


1 - Gato con guantes no caza ratones 1:35

2 - Gato panza arriba 2:00

3 - De noche todos los gatos son pardos 1:50

4 - Gato encerrado 2:00

Total duration: 7:25


The gato (Spanish for cat) is a folkloric music and a dance typical of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay, shaped by picaresque rhythms that radiated from Peru to almost the entire area of South America under Spanish influence.

While there are several kinds of gato (gato cuyano, gato encadenado, gato patriótico, gato polqueado, gato cordobés, gato correntino, gato norteño), its basic structure is as follows:

Musical introduction (without dance): (8 or 10 bars).

"ADENTRO" (spoken)

1: whole turn (8 bars, often 4+4, the second group usually repeating the first).

2: half turn (4 bars, musically related to the previous phrase).

3: "zapateo y zarandeo" (tapping and shaking) (8 bars, musically a second theme).

4: half turn (4 bars, related to the half turn "no. 2" but with a more conclusive character).

5: "zapateo y zarandeo" (8 bars, identical to the previous zapateo y zarandeo in "no. 3").

"AURA" (spoken) [i.e. Ahora, 'Now']

6: final turn (4 bars, almost identical to the previous half turn "no. 4" but even more conclusive)


After this (called "primera", first one), the whole structure is repeated as "[se va la] segunda" (second one), danced from opposite positions. Musically, the "segunda" is essentially identical to the "primera".


As for this cycle of gatos, there are three elements that can be pointed out:

1 - The structure of all four pieces is identical (and it follows the description above - or did you think that I wrote that for musicologists?

2 - The harmony starts in a fairly traditional way (mostly tonic and dominant) and gradually becomes increasingly complex, with seventh chords in the third piece and whole-tone scales in the fourth one (practically a diatonic non-tonality).

3 - All four titles are Spanish idioms involving the word "gato":

* "Cuatro gatos locos" (Four Crazy Cats); said when very few people attended an event: "en ese concierto éramos cuatro gatos locos" (at that concert we were [only] four crazy cats).


* "Gato con guantes no caza ratones" (A cat in gloves catches no mice), meaning that you have to use the correct method or means to achieve your goal, and also that you cannot avoid getting fully involved in order to do something.

* "Gato panza arriba" (literally 'Cat with its belly upwards', i.e. Cat lying on its back). Since the belly is the most sensitive part of a cat, exposing the most vulnerable part implies trust. A second meaning, in the expression "defenderse como gato panza arriba" implies defending oneself from a clearly disadvantaged position.

* "De noche todos los gatos son pardos" (At night all cats are gray). Basically it means that, under certain conditions, details, subtleties or particularities are not perceived.

* "Gato encerrado" (Locked cat, Hidden cat), usually in a sentence such as "aquí hay gato encerrado", meaning 'here is an unseen trick', a secret, something hidden which is extremely important, something strange or suspicious about an issue, something is off, something concealed. An English equivalent would be 'it sounds fishy' or 'I smell a rat', two idioms interestingly related to cats anyway.


These four pieces were composed in Bremen, Germany, from 18 to 24 May 2020 (with the inevitable corrections and afterthoughts in the days that followed). Total duration: 7:25.

Juan María Solare.