Timbral Spaces Sound Labyrinths - Edizioni Suvini Zerboni
Timbral Spaces Sound Labyrinths - Edizioni Suvini Zerboni
Timbral Spaces Sound Labyrinths - Edizioni Suvini Zerboni
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Nicola Sani<br />
ESZnews<br />
<strong>Edizioni</strong> <strong>Suvini</strong> <strong>Zerboni</strong> - Fourmontly newsletter<br />
<strong>Timbral</strong> <strong>Spaces</strong><br />
T<br />
his Autumn sees four premieres for Nicola Sani. On<br />
October 19 at the Teatro Verdi in Florence, the Festival<br />
Play It! will include the first performance of Seascapes III<br />
“Caieta” for orchestra. Francesco Lanzillotta will conduct<br />
the Orchestra della Toscana, who commissioned the work,<br />
which the composer describes as follows: «The relation<br />
with the visual image is one of the dimensions that most<br />
fascinates me in my exploration of sound. Not a<br />
descriptive correspondence, but a free association of<br />
timbral and perceptual relations. In a music where the<br />
“material” aspect of the sound prevails, the communicative<br />
component of the sonic message - its “dramaturgy” - is<br />
determinant. The investigation of natural sound, the<br />
exploration of its components is the point of conjunction<br />
with the acoustic elaboration of “timbral space”. An<br />
elaboration that becomes a determinant element of the<br />
composition and the sound dramaturgy, through the<br />
analysis and articulation of the constitutive parameters of<br />
the sound. Seascapes III stems from the need to allow<br />
instrumental sound to coexist with its timbral image<br />
elaborated and projected into space, in a set of contrasts<br />
and reflections. Guiding me in this transfiguration were the<br />
photographic images of Hiroshi Sugimoto, one of today’s<br />
leading Japanese artists, and in particular his Seascapes.<br />
The images are intense, involving and brilliant in their<br />
contemplative staticity in which, similar to my work on<br />
sound, the Japanese artist captures instances of the sea<br />
photographed as far as the horizon. The water and the air<br />
define zones of colour, in their shades of greys and of<br />
black and white, which at times merge and at others are in<br />
stark contrast. In some landscapes a third almost<br />
imperceptible component appears between the two fields,<br />
<strong>Sound</strong> <strong>Labyrinths</strong><br />
rom now onwards all the new works by Aureliano<br />
Cattaneo will be acquired and distributed by ESZ along<br />
with all those withdrawn from the catalogue of his previous<br />
publisher, who has closed their activity. Cattaneo was<br />
born in 1974 and studied at the Conservatories of<br />
Piacenza and Milan. In 2003 he won the Comité de<br />
Lecture of Ircam/Ensemble Intercontemporain and in 2004<br />
was a finalist of the Gaudeamus Music Week held in<br />
Amsterdam. Formerly “Stipendiat” of the Akademie der<br />
Künste in Berlin and composer in residence of the<br />
Ensemble 2e2m, he has presented his compositions in<br />
some of the most important international Festivals and<br />
concert-halls: Münchener Biennale, Donaueschinger<br />
Musiktage, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Wien<br />
Modern, Festival Musica Strasbourg, Konzerthaus in<br />
Vienna, Konzerthaus in Berlin, Centre Pompidou in Paris,<br />
Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, as well as in Basel,<br />
Amsterdam, Munich, Madrid, New York, London,<br />
Barcelona, Rome, Milan, Stockholm, and is regularly<br />
performed by the Klangforum Wien, Quatuor Diotima,<br />
Ensemble Intercontemporain, SWR Sinfonie Orchester,<br />
Ensemble 2e2m, Nieuw Ensemble, Neue Vocalsolisten<br />
Stuttgart and the Ensemble Alter Ego. His chamber work<br />
La philosophie dans le labyrinthe, written in collaboration<br />
with Edoardo Sanguineti, was presented in 2006 at the<br />
Aureliano Cattaneo F<br />
like a line of transparent light, that of the surface of water.<br />
These are images of great emotional impact, that recall<br />
the paintings of an artist who has always deeply<br />
fascinated me, Mark Rothko, another important point of<br />
reference in my music. Seascapes III takes its starting<br />
point from the observation and the interiorization of these<br />
images, attempting to transfer them into the temporal and<br />
spatial dimension of sonic immateriality. The timbral<br />
planes of the orchestra generated by the instrumental<br />
sounds mirror each other in their similarity and contrast;<br />
within the orchestra a further element of contrast is<br />
triggered, consisting of the sounds stratifications of the<br />
wind instruments and those of the strings. The percussion<br />
instruments are very active and at times strongly emerge,<br />
emphasizing the line of conjunction and division between<br />
these fields of sound, constituting its limit, the horizon and<br />
the rough and liquid surface. The subtitle of the<br />
composition, Caieta, is affectionately linked to the ancient<br />
sea that sparked these reflections within me». On<br />
October 21 Aldo Orvieto and Alvise Vidolin will give the<br />
first performance of No Landscape for piano and live<br />
electronics (Production SaMPL, Padua), in the Sale<br />
Apollinee of the Gran Teatro La Fenice, during the series<br />
Ex Novo Musica, which commissioned the work. The<br />
concert will be repeated in December in the Auditorium<br />
“C. Pollini” in Padua. Sani tells us: «The timbral space of<br />
the piano provides the sonic material of this composition,<br />
“a sound landscape” onto which an image of itself is<br />
grafted, transposed and transfigured through electronic<br />
elaboration. The processes that determine the formation<br />
of this “other” timbral space, which distorts and transforms<br />
the real one with an alienating effect, are determined by<br />
10 th Münchener Biennale and repeated at the<br />
Museumsquartier in Vienna. In 2011 Stradivarius issued a<br />
monographic Cd dedicated to his music, featuring Petra<br />
Hoffmann, soprano, and the Ensemble Espai Sonor<br />
directed by Voro Garcia. He has received commissions<br />
from the Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Intercontemporain,<br />
Ensemble musikFabrik, Ensemble Contrechamps,<br />
Münchener Biennale, Berliner Konzerthaus,<br />
Saarländischer Rundfunk, Südwest Rundfunk (SWR),<br />
Akademie der Künste Berlin, Bayerische Staatsoper,<br />
Auditorio Nacional Madrid, CDMC Madrid, Festival Musica<br />
Strasbourg, MärzMusik Berlin, Musik im Wattens, Alois<br />
Lageder, Festival Suena in Toledo, Sligo New Music<br />
Festival, Festival Klangspuren Plus in Munich, Andalucia<br />
Region, and the French Ministry of Culture. Since 2010 he<br />
has taught analysis and composition at the Escuela<br />
Superior de Musica de Catalunya in Barcelona. In August<br />
he was awarded the prestigious Förderpreis 2013 of the<br />
Salzburg region, where the composer was described as<br />
«resolute, versatile and highly imaginative». Cattaneo will<br />
be the protagonist, together with Georg Friedrich Haas<br />
who also received the “Musikpreis”, at the award winners<br />
concert on March 1 st 2013 at the Salzburg Biennale. The<br />
coming months will see two first performances. On<br />
October 21 the Donaueschinger Musiktage will include<br />
59<br />
october2012<br />
continues on page 2<br />
continues on page 3<br />
Traditional instruments<br />
and avant-garde technology<br />
in the Italo-French<br />
commissions of this Autumn<br />
ESZ acquire a new composer<br />
with numerous recognitions<br />
to his credit and imminent<br />
international engagements
Francisco Guerrero<br />
On October 20 in Brussels the<br />
Ensemble Sturm und Klang<br />
directed by Thomas Van<br />
Haeperen will play Ariadna for<br />
ten violins, five violas and five<br />
cellos; on November 19 in the<br />
Auditorium of the Museo<br />
Nacional Centro de Arte Reina<br />
Sofía in Madrid, the Smash<br />
Ensemble will play Erótica for<br />
voice and guitar on texts by<br />
Ben Quzman<br />
Sándor Veress<br />
Hommage à Paul Klee, fantasy<br />
for two pianos and strings will<br />
be played on December 6 at<br />
the Stadthaus in Winterthur by<br />
the Musikkollegium Winterthur<br />
directed by Thomas Zehetmair,<br />
and on December 16 at the<br />
Lithuanian National<br />
Philharmonic Hall in Vilnius by<br />
Ruta Ibelhauptai and Zbignevas<br />
Ibelhauptai, pianos, with the<br />
Lithuanian National Symphony<br />
Orchestra conducted by<br />
Modestas Pitrenas.<br />
2<br />
from page 1 (Sani: <strong>Timbral</strong> <strong>Spaces</strong>)<br />
the movements of the performer, using a complex<br />
interactive system realized by the Centro SaMPL in<br />
Padua, based on the Phase Space “Impulse” device,<br />
which uses the technique of motion capture. Unlike<br />
other signal elaboration techniques that act on the<br />
processes of gestural determination of the sound, the<br />
system used for this project uses the movements of the<br />
performer to literally enter inside the constitutive<br />
parameters of the sound, structurally modifying its<br />
spectral component. No Landscape refers to the<br />
creation of a sonic plane that is virtual and<br />
etymologically “utopic”, where the instrumental plane<br />
continuously merges within a troubled and exasperated<br />
image. The two fields of sound are each the expansion<br />
of the other and their interaction occurs following a<br />
destructuring logic of their co-existence. Both insist on<br />
the same perceptual space, thus giving rise to the set of<br />
sound projections. The performers (at the piano and also<br />
directing the sound and live electronics) determine<br />
through their interaction the timbral non-place of figures<br />
that emerge from agglomerates of sound and from their<br />
three dimensional condensations, triggering the actions<br />
in a drama that each time invents and creates a different<br />
concept of space». On November 13 at the Théâtre<br />
National de Nice, during the Festival Manca, the<br />
Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain directed by Mark<br />
Foster, will present a new piece which they<br />
commissioned from Nicola Sani, Deux, le contraire de<br />
“un” for seventeen instruments. The work will be<br />
repeated by the same group, but under Daniel Kawka,<br />
on January 18 at the Théâtre Copeau - Opéra Théâtre<br />
de Saint-Etienne, and on January 23 at the Grand<br />
Théâtre de Provence in Aix-en-Provence, during the<br />
Festival Présences of Radio France. The composer<br />
explains: «My new work for the Ensemble Orchestral<br />
Contemporain of Lyon is a sequence of plots and an<br />
exploration of the sense of the double. In an article, as<br />
always very thought provoking, Erri De Luca refers to<br />
˝two˝ as the opposite, not the double of “one”. Following<br />
this notion, the two movements of the work both contrast<br />
and attract each other, as if they were each the<br />
sediment of the other, but each distinguished by a strong<br />
identity. The first lively, dense, full of contrasts and<br />
internal fragmentation and the second stratified,<br />
extended, crossed by an interrogative dialogue. The two<br />
forms create a drama “through” the sound, projecting<br />
Luigi Dallapiccola<br />
This Autumn sees numerous performances of works by<br />
Luigi Dallapiccola. Natalia Zagorinskaya and the Asko<br />
Schönberg Ensemble directed by<br />
Reinbert de Leeuw will play the Cinque<br />
frammenti di Saffo for soprano and<br />
chamber orchestra on October 27 and 28<br />
at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. The<br />
version for voice and instruments of the<br />
Quattro liriche di Antonio Machado will be<br />
given on November 2 in Zurich, at the<br />
Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, by the<br />
Ensemble Arc-en-Ciel under Simeon<br />
Pironkoff. It will be possible to see a new<br />
production of Il Prigioniero, a prologue<br />
and one act from La torture par<br />
l’espérance by Villier de L’Isle Adam and La légende<br />
d’Ulenspiegel et Lamme Goedzak by Charles de Coster,<br />
at the Teatro Real in Madrid, on November 2, 3, 4, 6, 7,<br />
8, 9, 11, 12, 13 and 15, in a co-production with the Gran<br />
Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. The cast will consist of<br />
Deborah Polaski, La Madre, Vito Priante, Il Prigioniero<br />
(November 2, 4, 7, 9, 12, 15), Georg Nigl, Il Prigioniero<br />
(November 3, 6, 8, 11, 13), Donald Kaasch, Il<br />
Carceriere/Il Grande Inquisitore, with the Coro y<br />
themselves into a space where the events that are<br />
produced “may” in turn relate to one another, in a further<br />
macro-structure of the double in opposition. From within<br />
this set of timbres emerge sonic planes suspended<br />
between light and shade, around the limits of the<br />
borders of the sounds; an instinctive exploration of the<br />
infinite made up of indeterminate energies, tensions,<br />
dynamic contrasts, rhythmic and expressive, that cross<br />
the space like lines of light that have just freed<br />
themselves from obscurity». Finally, Roberto Fabbriciani<br />
and Walter Neri will give the first performance of Un<br />
souffle le soulève, les dunes du temps for alto flute and<br />
digital support, on November 21 at the Scuola Normale<br />
Superiore in Pisa, during the series I Concerti della<br />
Normale. The composer tells us: «Les Dunes du temps<br />
is a new stage in a path that embarked upon last year in<br />
Wrocław, following a suggestion of the harpsichord<br />
player Elisabeth Chojnacka and the flutist Roberto<br />
Fabbriciani. Un souffle le soulève is the title of this path<br />
that leads through archaic sonorities and erosions of<br />
classical form using distorted electronic sounds and<br />
material. In this new version, the alto flute is suspended<br />
in solitude over the electronic sounds, which elaborate<br />
elements of timbre deriving from the flute itself and from<br />
the harpsichord, obtained through algorithms of<br />
distortion, convolution and cross synthesis. The ancient<br />
and infinitely suggestive aria of La Folia is the scheme<br />
around which the entire architecture of the variations<br />
evolve, bringing into contemporaneity a theme exploited<br />
by composers of all times. The title of the composition is<br />
taken from a poem by Giacinto Scelsi». I binari del<br />
tempo for flute and magnetic tape can be heard on<br />
October 4 in Wellington (New Zealand), and on<br />
October 18 at the Conservatory in Fermo, with Roberto<br />
Fabbriciani, and again on October 7 in the Sala<br />
Accademica of the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia, during<br />
the Emu-Fest 2012, with Gianni Trovalusci, flute, and<br />
Giorgio Nottoli, sound engineer. Finally, on October 17<br />
at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Stockholm a soloist<br />
from the KammarensembleN will play the first part of the<br />
trilogy AchaB for clarinet, during the presentation of the<br />
latest issue of the cultural journal “Cartaditalia”,<br />
published by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Stockholm<br />
directed by Dr. Paolo Grossi, an issue entirely devoted<br />
to New Italian Music and edited by Nicola Sani with the<br />
collaboration of Gianni Trovalusci.<br />
Orquesta Titulares of the Teatro Real (Coro Intermezzo<br />
and Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid) directed by Ingo<br />
Metzmacher. The director will be Lluis Pasqual.<br />
The Parole di San Paolo for mezzo-soprano and<br />
instruments can be heard on November 9 at the<br />
Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe, with the<br />
Badische Staatskapelle directed by Ulrich<br />
Wagner, while Commiato for soprano and 15<br />
players on a text formally attributed to Brunetto<br />
Latini, and Goethe-Lieder for female voice and<br />
three clarinets will be played on November 13 in<br />
Vienna, in the Brahms-Saal of the Musikverein<br />
Wien during the series Wien Modern, with Alda<br />
Caiello and the Ensemble Kontrapunkte directed<br />
by Peter Keuschnig. Finally, on December 3 at<br />
the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne (HEMU) the<br />
Société de Musique Contemporaine in Lausanne has<br />
organized a monographic concert including Sicut umbra<br />
for mezzo-soprano and four groups of instruments,<br />
Quaderno musicale di Annalibera for piano, and Dialoghi<br />
for cello and orchestra. The works will be performed by<br />
Noriko Kaneko, mezzo-soprano, Mariaclara Monetti,<br />
piano, Romain Chauvet, cello, and the Ensemble<br />
Contemporaine de l’HEMU directed by William Blank.
from page 1 (Cattaneo: <strong>Sound</strong> <strong>Labyrinths</strong>)<br />
Blut for trio (saxophone, percussion and piano) and<br />
orchestra, played by the Trio Accanto and the SWR<br />
Sinfonie Orchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg directed<br />
by François-Xavier Roth. The composer explains his<br />
new work: «Blut: blood that runs in the veins… a red<br />
thread that leads us inside the labyrinth... a note that<br />
runs all through the piece, a red thread that binds the<br />
structure… a liquid that takes on shape when forced<br />
into a container… material that takes on shape when<br />
placed in a structure… Three soloists, an orchestra.<br />
Intertwined dialogues. Music for orchestra that dissolves<br />
into chamber music. Chamber music that opens itself to<br />
the orchestra. Echoed instruments, echoes of<br />
instruments». On January 15 in the Studio Ernest<br />
Ansermet of the Radio de la Suisse Romande in<br />
Geneva the Saison Contrechamps will include Parole di<br />
settembre - Libro I for countertenor and ensemble on<br />
texts by Edoardo Sanguineti, commissioned by the<br />
same institution and performed by Daniel Gloger and<br />
the Ensemble Contrechamps directed by Michael<br />
Wendeberg. The concert will also include Sabbia for<br />
eleven instruments. Parole di settembre takes its<br />
inspiration from the cycle of fifteen poems dedicated in<br />
2006 by Edoardo Sanguineti to Andrea Mantegna, to<br />
mark the 5 th centenary of the artist’s death. A friend of<br />
the poet, with whom he had already collaborated,<br />
Cattaneo obtained his permission, shortly before<br />
Sanguineti’s death in May 2010, to set the poems to<br />
music. The vocal parts of this three-part cycle, of<br />
variable instrumentation, were written for Claron<br />
McFadden (soprano), Otto Katzameier (baritone) and<br />
Daniel Gloger (countertenor). The single parts of the<br />
cycle are linked by madrigal/frottola-like passages sung<br />
unaccompanied by the three soloists. At the heart of the<br />
poems lie twelve paintings by Mantegna to which<br />
Sanguineti refers, explicitly or in allusive terms.<br />
Cattaneo offers a more precise account: «In September<br />
2006, to mark the 5 th centenary of the death of Andrea<br />
Mantegna, an extensive exhibition was organized in<br />
Mantua, Padua and Verona. For the opening of the<br />
exhibition an event was organized in Piazza delle Erbe<br />
in Mantua for which Edoardo Sanguineti wrote a cycle<br />
of poems inspired by Mantegna’s paintings. During the<br />
Niccolò Castiglioni<br />
The 21 st edition of the Festival di Milano Musica,<br />
Percorsi di Musica d’Oggi 2012, will pay<br />
homage to Niccolò Castiglioni. The<br />
composer from Milan, who died<br />
prematurely in 1996, was a pupil of<br />
Ghedini and the Ferienkurse in<br />
Darmstadt, a teacher in the USA, Trento<br />
and Milan, and much appreciated by<br />
Ligeti, is attracting an ever-increasing<br />
amount of interest. The series of six<br />
concerts will feature top-class artists and<br />
will be held at prestigious venues<br />
throughout the city. On October 7 the<br />
opening concert will be held at the Teatro<br />
alla Scala and will include Tropi for<br />
chamber group, played by the Scharoun Ensemble<br />
Paolo Arcà<br />
The label VDM Records (VDM 038-55-022) has<br />
released the monographic Cd Spiel dedicated to Paolo<br />
Arcà, with the Contempoartensemble, directed by<br />
Mauro Ceccanti. The programme offers a chamber<br />
portrait of the composer, focusing on works written in<br />
spectacle Sanguineti recited his book of poems while<br />
I made a sound installation and the artist Marco Nereo<br />
Rotelli projected luminous images onto the medieval<br />
buildings of the square. Shortly afterwards I thought that<br />
Sanguineti’s text would be perfect for a large vocal cycle<br />
and I spoke about it to him, who was very happy. Then,<br />
for various reasons, the idea was set aside until our last<br />
meeting in Madrid in April 2010. After that I had no other<br />
chance to talk to him about it: Edoardo passed away<br />
and so I decided to continue the dialogue, now at a<br />
distance, by starting to work on these Parole di<br />
settembre. After much thought I decided to divide<br />
Parole di settembre into three parts. The complete work<br />
will last around an hour. In order to reflect the great<br />
variety of moods, registers and languages used by<br />
Sanguineti, this being a very important characteristic of<br />
his poetry, I thought of a structure that exploits the<br />
possibilities of the vocal and instrumental combinations<br />
to the maximum. In fact in Books I and III, the ensemble<br />
won’t be used altogether, but there will also be pieces<br />
featuring different combinations. The difficult thing about<br />
a work of this length is maintaining the tension and the<br />
direction, and at the same time a sense of unity. The<br />
choice of texts isn’t yet definitive. I’ll use all fifteen<br />
poems, some in their entirety, others only partially. The<br />
introductory madrigal and the final one will make use of<br />
the introduction and closing of the book. For the<br />
moment I’ve chosen 12 pieces for sure. Perhaps Book II<br />
will involve a visual installation by Alexander Arotin».<br />
The first complete performance of the three books of<br />
Parole di Settembre is scheduled for February 18 2014<br />
at the Konzerthaus in Vienna with the above-mentioned<br />
soloists and the Klangforum Wien. On October 1 st at<br />
the Helsinki Music, during the festival “Klang”, the Trio<br />
III for violin, viola, cello and electronics was performed<br />
by the Soloists of the Tapiola Sinfonietta. The Trio IV for<br />
clarinet, cello and piano can be heard on October 6 at<br />
the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, with the Ensemble<br />
Mosaik, and again on January 1 st 2013 at the<br />
Kestnergesellschaft in Hanover, with the Neue<br />
Ensemble, who will also play Visibile for piccolo and<br />
Seeds for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano.<br />
Berlin under Andrea Pestalozza. On October 17<br />
Massimiliano Damerini will play Cangianti for<br />
piano in the Auditorium San Fedele. On<br />
October 19 Attraverso lo specchio, a radio<br />
opera in one act on a libretto by Alberto Ca’<br />
Zorzi Noventa will be broadcast in the Spazio<br />
Sirin, in the monophonic recording of the<br />
Archivio dello Studio di Fonologia Musicale della<br />
Rai in Milan. The event will be presented by<br />
Angela Ida De Benedictis and Carlo Piccardi.<br />
On October 24 at the Sala Puccini of the<br />
Conservatorio “G. Verdi” Gymel for flute and<br />
piano will be played by the soloists of the<br />
Laboratorio di Musica Contemporanea of the<br />
Conservatory.<br />
the space of 25 years (1987-2002), and includes Light<br />
Fantasy for violin and piano, Notturno a tre for flute,<br />
cello and piano, Spiel for clarinet and string quartet,<br />
Passacaglia per Giuseppe for nine instruments and<br />
Skool for piano and quintet.<br />
Luca Mosca<br />
The Quintetto for flute, clarinet,<br />
violin, cello and piano will be<br />
played by the Mdi Ensemble,<br />
on October 31 in the Auditorium<br />
San Fedele in Milan, during the<br />
Milano Musica Festival.<br />
3
Six premieres culminating in a<br />
collaboration with Heinz Holliger<br />
and a monographic Cd featuring<br />
the composer’s piano works<br />
Camillo Togni<br />
On October 31 in the Sale<br />
Apollinee of the Gran Teatro La<br />
Fenice in Venice, during the<br />
series “Ex Novo Musica”, Aldo<br />
Orvieto will play Ricercare op.<br />
28 b for piano, in the context of<br />
a collaboration with the<br />
Fondazione Cini that foresees<br />
the recording of Camillo Togni’s<br />
piano works on the Naxos<br />
label.<br />
4<br />
Alessandro Solbiati<br />
Solo Timbres<br />
S<br />
ix premieres for Alessandro Solbiati over the coming<br />
months. Epos for oboe (cor anglais) and string trio will be<br />
given its first performance by Heinz Holliger and the Swiss<br />
Chamber soloists on January 24 at the Conservatory in<br />
Lugano, with repeat performances on January 25 at the<br />
Conservatory in Geneva, January 26 in the Grande Salle of<br />
the Hochschule der Künste in Zurich and January 27 at the<br />
Gare du Nord in Basel. The composer explains: «For<br />
several years I have had the honour of having a relation of<br />
friendship and strong syntony, both musical and personal,<br />
with Heinz Holliger, an extraordinary musician, performer<br />
and composer, but also a highly generous and open person.<br />
Three years ago he invited me to the Festival of Ittingen, for<br />
which I composed Und nun, for baritone and six instruments<br />
and it was splendid to have him as oboist of the ensemble.<br />
In successive meetings the idea was born to write a piece<br />
for oboe and string trio for him. The project stayed in my<br />
mind for a long time, then at the start of 2012 the third<br />
movement of Alfi, a piece for a total of seven instruments,<br />
but made up of three movements, each with different<br />
groupings, the last of which is for oboe and six instruments,<br />
provided me with a sort of starting point, a basic idea for<br />
Epos for oboe and string trio. The title is linked to the<br />
structure of the piece, which is strongly narrative and in<br />
some ways also “epic”. Two quite distinct parts are in strong<br />
contrast: in the first, lasting just over half the piece, very<br />
fast, at times frenetic, and highly dramatic, a very high oboe<br />
summons the three strings in the same high register, but<br />
they relentlessly fall in pitch, trying to drag down the oboe<br />
with them. The oboe tries to save itself from these dark<br />
depths by “launching” three brief situations characterized by<br />
lightness, dance and song, without succeeding and so falls<br />
into a zone of sound-noise. A sudden climax, made up of<br />
multiple sounds emitted like prolonged cries from the oboe<br />
and taken up harmonically by the strings, leads to a turning<br />
back to the heart of the register, onto an E which is the<br />
cardinal note of the whole work. The oboe becomes a cor<br />
anglais, the climate changes completely and a melodic line<br />
emerges able to involve the strings in various<br />
reverberations, until reaching a somewhat bewitching<br />
coda». In the same period, on January 20 in the Nanko<br />
Sunset Hall in Osaka, a new version of To Whom? for solo<br />
female voice, will be performed by Akiko Kozato. «The<br />
soprano», says Solbiati, «asked me for a piece for solo<br />
voice. I’m very fond of my To Whom?, which I wrote some<br />
years ago for Laura Catrani, and which Akiko herself has<br />
sung in the original version. So I thought of adding an initial<br />
movement to the piece, a sort of prologue, quite different.<br />
The original piece has substantially no text and involves a<br />
truly theatrical scene, as the singer has to move down<br />
among the audience while singing, choose a sort of “victim”,<br />
return to the stage, write a message on a sheet of paper<br />
and deliver it to the person concerned, all following a<br />
musical path that culminates with that action. In the new<br />
prologue the performer is “only singing”, stays on the stage,<br />
as if the splendid verse by Campana that slowly emerges<br />
(«...e tu seguivi nell’aria la fresca incarnazione di un<br />
mattutino sogno...») makes her want to become an actress<br />
and a message-bearing character. On December 16 at the<br />
Teatro Dal Verme in Milan Bianco, the 5th movement of<br />
Crescendo, eight short pieces in the form of a study<br />
for chamber orchestra, will be performed by Daniele<br />
Parziani conducting the Orchestra I Piccoli<br />
Pomeriggi Musicali di Milano, entirely made up of<br />
young musicians. The new work will be played in a<br />
Christmas concert and this, as always, provides a<br />
starting point. Solbiati explains: «The snow is white,<br />
candour is purity (and I’m thinking of Niccolò<br />
Castiglioni, to whom the work is dedicated), purity is,<br />
in the christian image, that of Mary, who provides<br />
the inspiration for the other pieces in the programme; but<br />
candour is light and the light is that of the crib in Bethlehem,<br />
since that message is still, today, extremely alive and deep.<br />
The polyrhythm of the descending lines of the crotales,<br />
vibraphone, celesta and violin harmonics (this is the<br />
technical hinge of the piece) gradually concentrates into a<br />
highly marked unison, which expands and then closes<br />
around the next unison, forming a vibrant sequence, which<br />
leads to a series of strokes which give rise to fast<br />
arabesques (the next technical hinge of the piece).<br />
Technical intentions and timbres unite to paint an image».<br />
On October 12, at Casa Paganini in Genoa, Le sei corde di<br />
Nicolò for guitar will be played by Luigi Attademo, part of the<br />
guitarist’s project around Paganini’s Ghiribizzi for guitar.<br />
Solbiati defines them as «album leafs with no particular<br />
common denominator, each made up of the simple<br />
statement of a musical idea; for each of Luigi’s<br />
performances I add a link to my chain of short guitar pieces.<br />
I’ve arrived at the fourth link, the fourth out of a total of six,<br />
once again decontextualizing it and making one of “my”<br />
figures an elementary motive of a Ghiribizzo». Still on<br />
October 12, in the Church of San Rocco in Piove di Sacco<br />
(PD), Lina Uinskyte and Francesco Filidei will play Déesis<br />
for violin and organ, postponed from last June on account of<br />
the earthquake that hit the Emilia region. Solbiati said this<br />
about his new work: «A charming ancient organ in a small<br />
church near Padua, a season of organ music lovingly<br />
organized by my friend the composer and organist Leonardo<br />
Polato, a very particular duo made up of my friends Lina<br />
Uinskyte and Francesco Filidei, both composer and<br />
organist: these are the starting points for a short, very<br />
personal and heartfelt piece. Déesis in ancient Greek<br />
means “prayer”. I thought I would contrast and continuously<br />
set against each other four “attitudes towards<br />
transcendence”, the obscure and tortuous sense of<br />
absence, the courageous and necessary tension, the doubt<br />
or rather the sensation of unattainability, and the ecstasy<br />
dreamed of or achieved for just an unstable instant. This,<br />
then is a confession adapted for a non “heroic” organ and a<br />
small, beautiful church». A first performance in Italy is<br />
scheduled for October 18 at the Teatro Verdi in Florence<br />
during the Festival Play It!: Sinfonia terza for orchestra will<br />
be played by the Orchestra Regionale Toscana conducted<br />
by Fabio Maestri. Among the other performances of music<br />
by Solbiati, the Festival Musique au Temple, at the Temple<br />
Protestant in Tours, included, on June 15, Sphynx for eight<br />
solo voices, with the Ensemble Vocal 2021 directed by<br />
Agnès Charles. I quattro punti for twelve cellos was played<br />
by the Nomos Ensemble on July 1 st at the Festival “Cello<br />
fan” in Callian (France), and on July 3 at the Festival<br />
D’Aujourd’hui à Demain in Cluny, and will be played again<br />
by the same group on October 6 at the Château de Blandy<br />
les Tours (Seine et Marne). On September 9 Akiko Kozato<br />
performed To Whom? for solo female voice at the Festival of<br />
Bellagio and Lake Como. On September 16 the pianist<br />
Emanuela Piemonti and the soprano Laura Catrani gave<br />
performances respectively of Fête for piano and To Whom?<br />
for solo female voice, in the park of Villa Tre Tetti in<br />
Montevecchia, during the final concert of the sculpture<br />
exhibition arranged by Giorgio Riva in the park. Luigi<br />
Attademo gave a partial performance of Le sei corde di<br />
Niccolò for guitar on September 18 in Milan during the<br />
Festival MITO and on September 29 in Cremona during the<br />
series Mondo Musica. On October 25 the Sonata Felix for<br />
violin and piano was played at the Festival Spazio Musica<br />
in Cagliari by the soloists of the New Made Ensemble<br />
(Raffaello Negri, violin, and Rossella Spinosa, piano), during<br />
a concert in collaboration with the New Made Ensemble and<br />
ESZ. Finally, on December 2 at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna<br />
in Turin, during the series Musiche in Mostra,<br />
the Trio Albatros will play Albatros for flute,<br />
violin and piano. Stradivarius have released a<br />
Cd dedicated to the piano music of Alessandro<br />
Solbiati, played by Emanuela Piemonti and<br />
Alfonso Alberti (Alessandro Solbiati, Piano<br />
Works, STR 33909). The Cd includes the<br />
Sonata seconda, the sixteen Interludi, Fête,<br />
Like as the Waves (for piano solo and duet),<br />
and Preludio. Finally, Euroarts has released<br />
a Dvd edited by Roberto Prosseda entitled Mendelssohn<br />
unknown, which will include a video of the complete<br />
performance of the Sonata Felix, played by Sonig<br />
Tchakerian and Roberto Prosseda at the Teatro Olimpico<br />
in Vicenza on June 11, 2009. From October Alessandro<br />
Solbiati will teach at the new department of Composition<br />
that will be opened at the Conservatory in Tours in<br />
collaboration with the adjacent Faculty of Musicology.
Stefano Gervasoni<br />
Invitation au voyage<br />
T<br />
his Autumn opens with a chamber premiere for Stefano<br />
Gervasoni: on October 25 the Incontri di Musica<br />
Contemporanea of the Festival Pontino will include, in the<br />
Palazzo della Cultura in Latina, Folia (Omaggio a Aldo<br />
Clementi) for violin, played by Lina Uinskyte, during a<br />
concert dedicated to the memory of Clementi. The<br />
composer introduces his new work as «a spiral wandering<br />
with an assured return home (therefore, a wandering<br />
without adventure), but a home that is always a little<br />
foreign (never completely felt as one’s “own”). A<br />
wandering that is “domestic” and ambiguous at the same<br />
time, in which the possibility of discovery – typical, and<br />
declared, of the adventure trip – is not excluded, but is<br />
reserved for the usual objects of a usual wandering, to<br />
which, with the surprise of a rediscovery or the<br />
deciphering of an enigma ever to be unveiled, the<br />
curiosity of the traveller is subjected. A traveller who is not<br />
adventurous but alert. In a play of repetitions, variants,<br />
micro structural development of an initial cell and of<br />
appearances of new elements to broaden the “walking<br />
radius” of the wayfaring composer, like that of two objects<br />
crystallized around the notes A and C that become<br />
increasingly more important, almost as if being<br />
transformed into a person encountered on a walk and in a<br />
moment of dialogue with her. A typical situation of<br />
pilgrimage or climbing a mountain, in which history or<br />
nature break off from everyday reality and allow us to<br />
build a deep relationship with a fellow traveller<br />
encountered momentarily perhaps by chance and that<br />
one is certain to meet again». After its first performance<br />
last September at the Festival Musica in Strasbourg on<br />
commission of Les Percussions de Strasbourg, the opera<br />
Limbus-Limbo, “apéro bouffe” in seven scenes for six<br />
percussionists, three soloists, three singers, three actors<br />
and live electronics, on a libretto by Patrick Hahn and<br />
directed by Ingrid von Wantoch Rekowski, now goes on<br />
tour. It can be seen on November 29 in Vernon, during<br />
the Automne en Normandie, on December 3 and 4 in<br />
Paris, at the Opéra Comique, and on December 15 at the<br />
Opéra de Reims during the festival Scène d’Europe.<br />
It will be performed by Juliet Fraser (Tina), soprano,<br />
Christopher Field (Bruno), countertenor, Gareth John<br />
(Carl), baritone, Corinne Frimas, Luc Schillinger and<br />
Charles Zevaco, actors, Olivier Darbellay, horn and alpine<br />
horn, Antonio Politano, flutes, Luigi Gaggero, cymbalom,<br />
Les Percussions de Strasbourg and Carmine Emanuele<br />
Cella, computer music designer and live electronics.<br />
On December 16 the series Ex Novo Musica in the Sale<br />
Apollinee of the Gran Teatro La Fenice, will include an<br />
evening entitled “Wanderung mit Stefano Gervasoni”. The<br />
violinist Lina Uinskyte and the pianist Aldo Orvieto play in<br />
a concert that features – with deliberate symmetry – three<br />
instrumental works by Stefano Gervasoni: the very recent<br />
Folia for violin, a triptych of piano pieces (Précieux for toy<br />
piano, Pré paré and Pré épuré, the latter two in their first<br />
performance) from the series Prés, work in progress,<br />
begun in 2008 that is now enriched by two new pieces,<br />
and the very recent Sonatinexpressive for violin and<br />
piano, commissioned by Ex Novo Musica 2012, this<br />
too in its first performance. The theme of the evening<br />
represents an invitation to move, to wander, to travel the<br />
way together. In a famous interview, the Hungarian<br />
composer György Ligeti, one of the important points of<br />
reference for Gervasoni, affirmed with an exemplary<br />
sense of irony that, if they really wanted to name a street<br />
in Budapest after him, it should be called: “wrong way<br />
street György Ligeti”. One of the recurring themes in the<br />
music of Gervasoni is precisely the idea of a “street”<br />
taken in a problematic sense: the “strada non presa” (“the<br />
street not taken”) (which is also a title of a work of his<br />
from 2001) or the street that “has nothing in front of it”.<br />
«The street», Gervasoni observes, «is also a labyrinth<br />
and proceeding without any goal: a metaphor of our times<br />
that is reflected in art with the collapse of aestheticideological<br />
paradigms». As far as his new works are<br />
concerned, Gervasoni describes his project for a book of<br />
Prés as being «divided into groups of three pieces (from<br />
one to three pages), thematically and/or musically related.<br />
Pré paré and Pré épuré, which should be separated by a<br />
Pré carré, constitute another of the triptychs of the<br />
second book. Pré paré (embellished meadow) and Pré<br />
épuré (denuded, treated, cleaned meadow) represent two<br />
antithetic and complementary views of the meadow taken<br />
metaphorically. One in which the grass species live<br />
together unchecked (by man) with other wild species, in a<br />
regime of luxurious happiness, anarchic or democratically<br />
natural (green as an image of multiple unity). The other, in<br />
which the hand of man has left its mark: in the selection<br />
of the grass species, reduced to one, and in the care of<br />
the surfaces, perfectly regular, uniform and monochrome,<br />
on the one hand; or in its impoverishment: the<br />
artificialization of the meadow, reduced to urban decor,<br />
until becoming arid due to drought (a “natural” meadow<br />
finds it increasingly difficult to survive by itself), dramatic<br />
evidence of climate change in which humans are certainly<br />
not without responsibility. In any case, an unhappy<br />
meadow, neither anarchic nor democratic. An image of<br />
externally imposed unity, depriving the green of its natural<br />
and joyful complexity». Regarding Sonatinexpressive<br />
(Inexpressive sonata – Expressive sonatina?), Gervasoni<br />
tells us: «The architectural development of the Sonata<br />
that sterilizes or dominates the expressive impulse of the<br />
small form; the intimacy of the album leaf, the most<br />
recurrent confession – and the desire to share it – for the<br />
impromptu, the romanza, the prelude; the strength or<br />
fragility of the emotions or the need for consolation in the<br />
intermezzo, the berceuse, the nocturne... Or else the<br />
fullness of emotion and elusiveness of the grammars that<br />
move the imagination and are inscribed in the charm and<br />
the discretion of a Sonatina? To allow oneself to “say”,<br />
but only microscopically, as from behind a veil, muted, so<br />
that the temptation to express and lyricize are not<br />
absolved but only averted, made to live alongside the<br />
desire to hold them back, to protect them, to allow them<br />
to renew themselves with even greater force. An<br />
indomitable force, not possible to crystallize, to sterilize<br />
into forms and manners that would show them in full,<br />
openly, reducing them for ever into discourse, emblem,<br />
surrogate of an active listening, for ever, which that force<br />
must each time seek out and rediscover... The dilemma,<br />
evoked by the title chosen for this piece, remains<br />
deliberately unresolved...». At the beginning of the new<br />
year Geneva will be a vital centre for the music of<br />
Gervasoni. The centenary of the Comédie de Genève will<br />
be celebrated with a series entitled “Constellation<br />
Musique Autour de 1913”, which interprets the year of<br />
foundation of the institution as a year emblematic of the<br />
start of modernity in all the arts, which in the field of music<br />
coincides with the historical premieres of the Sacre du<br />
Printemps and Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire, Debussy’s<br />
Jeux, and Webern’s Bagatelles op. 9. This consideration<br />
has led to the creation of a programme that, keeping<br />
Stravinsky in the background, investigates the mature<br />
20 th Century through two composers that in many ways<br />
are distant from each other (anagraphically and<br />
stylistically): Pierre Boulez and Stefano Gervasoni,<br />
exponents of different generations able to offer «a<br />
different interpretation of this legacy and of contemporary<br />
sensibility». In this context the cycle of Poesie francesi<br />
reaches its conclusion and is completed by the Due<br />
poesie francesi di Luca for female voice and ensemble on<br />
texts by Ghérasim Luca and the world premiere of Due<br />
poesie francesi di Cheng for female voice and ensemble<br />
on texts by François Cheng, on February 4 at the<br />
Comédie in Geneva, with Barbara Zanichelli and the<br />
Ensemble Namascae, directed by William Blank.<br />
Gervasoni’s cycle of Poesie francesi based on texts<br />
written by authors whose mother tongue is not French,<br />
texts which the composer interprets by capturing all the<br />
semantic and sensitive wealth. Finally, Geneva again will<br />
feature in the tour taken by Dir - In dir for vocal sextet and<br />
string sextet, with the Ensemble L’Instant Donné and the<br />
vocal group Exaudi directed by James Week, on January<br />
24 in Toulouse, January 27 in the Salle du Conservatoire<br />
in Geneva, January 28 in Lausanne, Utopia 1, and on<br />
January 29 in Berne.<br />
Travel as a source of inspiration<br />
for a new work, underlying<br />
metaphor for a monographic<br />
portrait, and a real itinerary of<br />
two important tours<br />
Matteo Franceschini<br />
On December 2 in the Sala<br />
Casella of the Accademia<br />
Filarmonica Romana, the<br />
Festival di Nuova Consonanza,<br />
in co-production with the<br />
Accademia Filarmonica, will<br />
include Sine qua non for piano<br />
and ensemble, with the Freon<br />
Ensemble directed by Stefano<br />
Cardi.<br />
5
Chamber premiere at the<br />
Fundación BBVA in Bilbao<br />
and start of a four-year period<br />
as director of the Biennale<br />
Musica di Venezia<br />
Luciano Berio<br />
Roberto Fabbriciani will play<br />
Sequenza I for flute on October<br />
10 in Wellington (New<br />
Zealand), during the concertconference<br />
“Maderna e i nuovi<br />
percorsi del flauto nel secondo<br />
‘900”, and on October 18 at the<br />
Conservatory in Fermo.<br />
6<br />
Ivan Fedele<br />
The Unveiling of the Form<br />
O<br />
n December 11 in Bilbao the world premiere will be<br />
given of Fünfzehn Bagatellen for violin, cello and piano,<br />
commissioned by the Fundación BBVA for the Trio<br />
Arbós. The composer explains: «The<br />
Fünfzehn Bagatellen are a series of<br />
five musical ideas with three<br />
variations of each one. The idea of a<br />
small form seen as a “genetic code”<br />
of a macro form is a compositional<br />
option that has accompanied me for<br />
some time now, having almost totally<br />
abandoned the option of “narrative<br />
time” in favour of an idea of “frozen”<br />
time in the presentation of the<br />
intimate nature of the musical idea.<br />
That is to say, it is no longer the<br />
sound that “relates” a plot, but the<br />
sound that unveils its most intimate<br />
nature like a sculpture that, while remaining the same,<br />
reveals its more or less dense matter and/or<br />
transparency, its shadows cast into space, the<br />
smoothness or roughness of its surfaces, in different<br />
ways depending on the perspective or the light intensity<br />
that strikes the musical object. This is an approach that<br />
also requires the listener to perceive the sound event in<br />
a different manner». Peformances of Ivan Fedele’s work<br />
include Immagini da Escher for ensemble on September<br />
28 at the Shoe Factory in Nicosia (Cyprus), during the 4th International Pharos Contemporary Music Festival, with<br />
the Ensemble El Perro Andaluz; Études australes No. 4<br />
(Aptenodytes) and No. 1 (Tierra del fuego) for piano, on<br />
October 4 at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Paris, with<br />
the pianist Alfonso Alberti; Elettra for viola and live<br />
electronics on October 10 at the Festival di Nuova<br />
Consonanza in Rome, in the final concert of the<br />
Concorso Internazionale di Composizione “F.<br />
Evangelisti”, with the soloist Luca Sanzò; Paroles y<br />
palabras, four pieces for soprano and cello, in a partial<br />
performance, on October 25 at the Festival Spazio<br />
Musica in Cagliari, with the New Made Ensemble (Akiko<br />
Kozato, soprano, and Guido Boselli, cello), during a<br />
Biennale di Venezia<br />
The 56 th Festival Internazionale di Musica<br />
Contemporanea, in Venice, from October 6 to 13, will<br />
inaugurate Ivan Fedele’s mandate as director of the<br />
music sector of the Biennale di Venezia, directed by<br />
Paolo Baratta, for the four-year period 2012-2015.<br />
The Festival, entitled “+EXTREME–, ovvero<br />
minimalismi e massimalismi musicali del nostro<br />
tempo” will include the awarding of the Leone d’Oro to<br />
Pierre Boulez for lifetime achievement and the Leone<br />
d’Argento to the Quartetto Prometeo. The eight rich<br />
days will offer three daily appointments including<br />
concerts, sound installations, ateliers, audio-visual<br />
performances and musical theatre, presenting the<br />
public with 51 new works, 28 of which in world<br />
Luis de Pablo<br />
On September 27 at the Conservatorio Superior de<br />
Música, the 28 th Festival de Música de Alicante included<br />
Dibujos for flute, clarinet, violin and cello, played by the<br />
Sax Ensemble directed by José Luis Temes. On<br />
October 10 in Wellington (New Zealand) Roberto<br />
Fabbriciani will play Per flauto for flute solo, during the<br />
Concert-conference “Maderna e i nuovi percorsi del<br />
flauto nel secondo ‘900”. A concert dedicated to the<br />
piano music of Luis de Pablo will be given by Francisco<br />
concert in collaboration with the New Made Ensemble<br />
and ESZ; Palimpsest, 4 th string Quartet on October 27 at<br />
the Associazione Chromas in Trieste with the Quartetto<br />
Prometeo; Morolòja kè erotikà for soprano and string<br />
quartet on October 28 during the Milano Musica Festival<br />
in the Auditorium San Fedele in Milan, with Valentina<br />
Coladonato and the Quartetto Prometeo. On October 29<br />
at the Limen Music & Arts centre in Milan, a presentation<br />
will be given, with the participation of the Quartetto<br />
Prometeo, of the new Limenmusic Cd/Dvd featuring the<br />
music of Ivan Fedele and the book Ali di Cantor. The<br />
Music of Ivan Fedele, edited by Cesare Fertonani and<br />
published by <strong>Edizioni</strong> <strong>Suvini</strong> <strong>Zerboni</strong> in 2011. The<br />
Cd/Dvd contains Palimpsest, Morolòja kè erotikà and<br />
Paroles y Palabras, performed by Valentina Coladonato,<br />
soprano, Francesco Dillon, cello and the Quartetto<br />
Prometeo. Imaginary Islands for flute, bass clarinet and<br />
piano will be played in November by the Trio Luxa 21 in<br />
Mexico at the Museo Iconografico in Guanajuato and in<br />
Orlando (Florida) during the Accidental Music Festival.<br />
Ritrovari (Suite francese VI) for viola can be heard at the<br />
Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Paris on November 19,<br />
played by Christophe Desjardins, while the Suite<br />
francese III for cello will be played by Christophe Beau,<br />
soloist of the Ensemble Accroche Note, at the Istituto<br />
Italiano di Cultura in Budapest. On December 1 st in the<br />
Abbazia di San Clemente in Casauria (Pescara)<br />
Fernando Caida Greco will play the Suite francese III for<br />
cello. The violinist Francesco D’Orazio and Daniel<br />
Kawka directing the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain<br />
will perform Mosaïque for violin and chamber orchestra<br />
on January 17 at the Conservatoire Massenet in Saint-<br />
Étienne, during the “Concert-lecture autour de<br />
Mosaïque”, on January 18 at the Théâtre Copeau -<br />
Opéra Théâtre de Saint-Étienne, and on January 23 at<br />
the Grand Théâtre de Provence in Aix-en-Provence,<br />
during the Festival Présences of Radio France. Finally,<br />
the Quartetto Prometeo will play Palimpsest, 4 th string<br />
Quartet, at the 5 th Festival of the Ned Ensemble, Concert<br />
Season “Città di Desenzano”, in the Auditorium Celesti of<br />
Desenzano on January 27.<br />
premiere. The neo-director describes the<br />
characteristic of this year’s edition: «What strikes one<br />
most about today’s musical panorama is the presence<br />
of extreme orientations: minimalisms and<br />
maximalisms that wish to inhabit the same regions of<br />
the frontier of musical language, approaches that are<br />
apparently antithetic that instead share the radicality<br />
of their aesthetic-poetic intent, abandoning as such<br />
the “politically correctness” of the piece that “works”<br />
or “sounds right”». The Festival presents some<br />
important protagonists of these practices “of excess”,<br />
contextualized and set side by side with the “classics”<br />
of radicalism.<br />
Escoda on November 14 at the Instituto Cervantes in<br />
Hamburg, in collaboration with the NDR das neue werk,<br />
and will include Retratos y Transcripciones, 2 nd series,<br />
and Acrobacias. Finally, the Auditorio del Museo<br />
Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía will host, on<br />
January 21, a performance of Federico Mompou in<br />
memoriam for violin, cello and piano, with the Grupo<br />
Cosmos 21.
Aldo Clementi<br />
Canonic Mosaic<br />
O<br />
n October 25 the Incontri di Musica Contemporanea<br />
of the Festival Pontino, in the Palazzo della Cultura in<br />
Latina, will dedicate a monographic concert to Aldo<br />
Clementi, whose programme will include – alongside<br />
the Fantasia on fragments from Michelangelo Galilei for<br />
lute and the first Italian performance of Aria (Dowland)<br />
for female voice, viola da gamba and lute – the first<br />
complete performance of the definitive version of the<br />
Otto Frammenti, canons on a ballade by Charles<br />
d’Orléans on the theme of L’homme armé for soprano,<br />
countertenor, viola da gamba, lute and organ. The<br />
concert, a co-production between the Festival di Nuova<br />
Consonanza in Rome and L’Arsenale in Treviso, aims to<br />
feature works by Clementi that involve the use of<br />
ancient instruments and that take their material from<br />
preclassical sources. The performers will be Livia Rado,<br />
soprano, Alessandro Giangrande, countertenor, Silvia<br />
De Maria, viola da gamba, Elena Casoli, lute, and<br />
Filippo Perocco, organ, directed by Marco Angius.<br />
Two replicas of the concert will be given in November,<br />
on November 23 at the Arsenale in Treviso, and on<br />
November 28 in the Sala Casella of the Accademia<br />
Filarmonica Romana during the Festival of Nuova<br />
Consonanza, which in the 2012 edition will feature<br />
various works by Aldo Clementi: on November 18 the<br />
Quintetto for strings, on December 2 the Serenata for<br />
guitar and four instruments, played by the Freon<br />
Ensemble directed by Stefano Cardi, and finally on<br />
December 5 Cantilena for voice and doublebass,<br />
Blues and Blues 2 (Fantasie su frammenti di Thelonious<br />
Monk) and Vom Himmel hoch, both in Manuele<br />
Morbidini’s transcription for saxophone quartet, and En<br />
liten svensk rapsodi for female voice, bass clarinet and<br />
piano, with the LatinaEnsemble under Francesco Belli.<br />
The Otto Frammenti, to be given their first complete<br />
performance at the Festival Pontino, were written in<br />
1978, and have passed through two successive<br />
versions in two distinct phases: a new version of<br />
Frammenti III, IV, V and VI, performable also separately,<br />
was prepared in 1979 for a performance by the Five<br />
Centuries Ensemble directed by Carol Plantamura.<br />
These Frammenti, which constitute the central nucleus<br />
of the work and involve both voices and instruments,<br />
are preceded and followed by two series of purely<br />
instrumental canons whose definitive version was<br />
completed in 1997 for a performance in Borås<br />
(Sweden) organized by Björn Nilsson. Even then<br />
Clementi still forgot one canon, No. 29. Overall,<br />
the structure of the composition is in a mirror<br />
form, or rather a palindrome, built through the<br />
progressive thickening of the instrumental parts<br />
starting from a solo lute, to which two voices are<br />
added at the culminating point of the four central<br />
Frammenti, then decreasing mirror-like until<br />
concluding, again with solo lute, at the point from<br />
which it had started. The mirror form is reflected<br />
in the canonic and contrapuntal handling of the<br />
musical material, which sets the text of the<br />
Ballade by Charles d’Orléans Je meurs de soif en<br />
couste la fontaine using the famous theme from<br />
L’homme armé, highly popular in the 15th Century,<br />
especially thanks to its structural clarity, perfect for<br />
Goffredo Petrassi<br />
The series of performances of music by Petrassi this<br />
Autumn opens with a recital by Alfonso Alberti on<br />
October 4 at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Paris,<br />
which will include Invenzioni nn. 4, 5, 6, 8 for piano.<br />
On October 5 the Teatro Monumental will propose<br />
Ritratto di Don Chisciotte, ballet in one act, with the<br />
Orquesta Sinfónica de RTVE conducted by Jordi<br />
Bernacer. Daniele Ruggieri and Caterina Pavan will<br />
contrapuntal use. In line with his habit of adopting well<br />
known melodies as the starting points for his canonic<br />
explorations, Clementi presents the original material<br />
with extreme clarity, submitting it to all four mirror forms<br />
and in three different rhythmic values, without ever<br />
forsaking the recognizability of the theme, played in<br />
different tonalities simultaneously, in that canonic<br />
polytonal counterpoint typical of Clementi. What we<br />
hear, then, are 40 canons arranged/organized in eight<br />
fragments, in turn set within a perfectly symmetrical<br />
arch form. The entire contrapuntal construction then<br />
undergoes continuous time changes, from the sprightly<br />
paces of youth and the start of Summer, to the Winter<br />
when the rigid joints are almost immobile; in the end the<br />
music is so slow that it almost stops and decomposes.<br />
Although the composer chose instruments<br />
contemporary to the musical material presented, he<br />
nevertheless specified that the instrumentation is only<br />
«a suggestion – as if Bach had suggested an<br />
instrumentation for the Art of Fugue or for the Musical<br />
Offering». The Otto Frammenti are effectively a grand<br />
exercise in counterpoint that leaves many questions<br />
open as regards their performance. As Björn Nilsson<br />
wrote, maybe, on the basis of what Clementi theorized<br />
already in the ’70s, his works should be considered like<br />
epitaphs for an art already disappeared. And yet, they<br />
are resplendent with love for music and history. Within<br />
the mesh of parts we feel the great joy for the small<br />
snatches of melody, the wonder for the symmetry of the<br />
notes, for the beauty enclosed inside even the feeblest<br />
of them. In no other composition by Clementi is the<br />
sensation of a culture reaching its end so profound.<br />
«The end derives naturally from saturation and<br />
tiredness», said Clementi of his own poetics, «but it is<br />
never definitive: through a desolate familiarity we<br />
suddenly plunge into the infinite and the eternal».<br />
Roberto Fabbriciani will include music by Aldo Clementi<br />
in his tour in New Zealand and in Italy: on October 10<br />
in Wellington, during the Concert-conference “Maderna<br />
e i nuovi percorsi del flauto nel secondo ’900” Fantasia<br />
su roBErto FABbriCiAni and Parafrasi II, both for flute<br />
and magnetic tape, and on October 11 Duetto for flute,<br />
clarinet and two instruments in echo, with the Stroma<br />
Ensemble; on October 18 both works will be repeated<br />
at the Conservatory in Fermo, with<br />
students of the conservatory directed by<br />
Luisa Curinga. An exceptional tool for<br />
studying Clementi’s works is now available<br />
in the double monographic issue of the<br />
“Contemporary Music Review” (XXX, 3-4,<br />
Taylor & Francis, 2011) entitled Aldo<br />
Clementi: Mirror of Time I and II. A vast<br />
platoon of musicologists and performers,<br />
Italian and Anglo-Saxon (including Maria<br />
Rosa De Luca, Roberto Fabbriciani,<br />
Gianluigi Mattietti, David Osmond-Smith,<br />
Roberto Prosseda and Graziella Seminara)<br />
examine in over 300 pages the works of<br />
Clementi from many different perspectives, published in<br />
a set of essays edited by Dan Albertson.<br />
play Dialogo angelico for two flutes on October 14 in<br />
the Sale Apollinee of the Gran Teatro La Fenice in<br />
Venice during the series “Ex Novo Musica”. Finally,<br />
Romanzetta for flute and piano will be included in the 5 th<br />
Festival of the Ned Ensemble, Concert Season “Città di<br />
Desenzano”, on November 18, with Roberto Fabriciani<br />
and Massimiliano Damerini.<br />
A thirty-year project comes to<br />
fruition, the composer is celebrated<br />
at the Pontino and Nuova<br />
Consonanza, publication of a<br />
double volume of critical studies<br />
Ennio Morricone<br />
Rag in frantumi for piano can<br />
be heard on October 25 at the<br />
Festival Spazio Musica in<br />
Cagliari, during a concert in<br />
collaboration with the New<br />
Made Ensemble and ESZ,<br />
which will be repeated on<br />
November 12 at the Teatro Dal<br />
Verme in Milan during the<br />
Festival Rebus, with Rossella<br />
Spinosa, soloist of the New<br />
Made Ensemble.<br />
7
New ESZ composer makes<br />
his debut at the Biennale with<br />
a study focusing on rhythm<br />
Posthumous chamber<br />
premiere at the Biennale di<br />
Venezia, avoiding Debussy<br />
8<br />
Raffaele Grimaldi<br />
Land of Crossing<br />
T<br />
his year ESZ begin their collaboration with Raffaele<br />
Grimaldi. Born in 1980, Italian but raised in<br />
Switzerland, he gained a diploma in<br />
composition at the Conservatory in Salerno<br />
with Lucia Ronchetti and furthered his studies<br />
at the Accademia Nazionale Santa Cecilia in<br />
Rome with Ivan Fedele. He has won<br />
numerous international recognitions for both<br />
composition and piano – including Valentino<br />
Bucchi (Rome) 2005, Progetto Giovani<br />
Compositori (Forlì - Milan) 2007, International<br />
Composition Competition Toru Takemitsu<br />
(Tokyo) 2009, Gaudeamus Music Week<br />
(Amsterdam) 2011, Wiener Konzerthaus’s<br />
International Composing Competition (Vienna) 2012 –,<br />
and has attended masterclasses held, among others, by<br />
Salvatore Sciarrino, Brian Ferneyhough, Hugues<br />
Doufourt, Georges Aperghis and Michael Jarrell. His<br />
works have been performed in Europe, Russia, the USA<br />
and Japan, as well as being broadcast by many radio<br />
stations and performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic<br />
Orchestra and by groups such as the Neue Vocal<br />
Solisten, the Ensemble Algoritmo, the Quartetto<br />
Prometeo, and by conductors such as Zsolt Nagy,<br />
Tetsuji Honna, Marco Angius, Jacques Mercier, Flavio<br />
Emilio Scogna, Frank Wörner and Philippe Nahon. He<br />
was selected by Ircam (Paris) for the Cursus 1 in<br />
composition and electronic music for 2008/ 09, and<br />
obtained the artistic residence at the Cité Internationale<br />
des Arts. On October 9 the 56th Festival Internazionale<br />
di Musica Contemporanea of the Biennale di Venezia<br />
will present, at the Teatro alle Tese, the first performance<br />
of Primal (Hypnagogical Extended Space) for one<br />
percussionist, with Simone Beneventi. The composer<br />
introduces his new work: «Primal (Hypnagogical<br />
Extended Space) is the first piece I have ever written<br />
just for percussion instruments. While I was working<br />
various new, vivid and unexpected horizons gradually<br />
opened up before me. My initial approach was extremely<br />
playful, detached, maybe unscrupulous, but little by little<br />
I was led automatically towards a much deeper terrain,<br />
of study dare I say. Immersing oneself in unknown<br />
environments often brings about a turning point, a<br />
change. Or a vanishing point. The metamorphoses of<br />
thought, hand, heart, are necessary for our creative<br />
Christophe Bertrand<br />
A Harp Against Time<br />
I<br />
mportant presence of Christophe Bertrand’s music at<br />
the Biennale di Venezia, with a posthumous premiere<br />
and the first Italian performance of his last work for<br />
orchestra. On October 10 at the Teatro Piccolo Arsenale<br />
Dall’inferno for flute, viola and harp will be played by the<br />
Ex Novo Ensemble. Then, on October 12 Michel<br />
Tabachnik will conduct the Radio-Sinfonieorchester<br />
Stuttgart des SWR in a performance of Okhtor for<br />
orchestra. This is how Bertrand introduced his new<br />
work: «Dall’inferno is a sort of race against time, in<br />
which all is speed, falls, and transformations. As in most<br />
of my works, I first created myself some “prisons of<br />
invention”, to take up the expression used by Brian<br />
Ferneyhough. The “prison” that I self imposed was<br />
tempered by the “rhapsodic” freedom which, in a certain<br />
sense, resides in the cells. The general architecture of<br />
the piece responds to very precise formal and<br />
proportional criteria: I chose in fact to link the Fibonacci<br />
series to the wave model. The music is structurally<br />
fragmentary, but processual at an ideal level. In addition,<br />
some easily identifiable markers are scattered<br />
throughout the piece to give it unity, despite the<br />
heterogeneity of the ideas set in action. The main<br />
difficulty of this instrumentation is the presence of the<br />
consciences never to have moments of arrest, of empty<br />
repose. This work represented for me a veritable<br />
dividing line. A kind of “land of crossing”. My attention<br />
focused in a somewhat general way on a sort of<br />
“cleansing”, in the sense of clarity, linearity,<br />
comprehensibility. The need for the essential. For form,<br />
sound, pulsation. Only later, “because of” my wish to<br />
involve secondary poetic information (typical of my<br />
works), conceptual sparks began to emerge which then<br />
exploded into the musical context. On this matter, the<br />
subtitle Hypnagogical Extended Space already says<br />
much about the work at a conceptual level. The<br />
“hypnagogical” state (also called hypnagogical illusion or<br />
hallucination) is an experience that occurs at the initial<br />
phase of sound, where the senses and the perception of<br />
the external world are totally upset, since the subject<br />
has difficulty in distinguishing hallucination from reality.<br />
Having a set of around 50 percussion instruments<br />
available but only one player, I tried to imagine a<br />
“doubled” performer, capable of a performance at the<br />
limit of human possibilities and of dialoguing with his<br />
“double” in a swirling and energetic dance, at the centre<br />
of a thousand resonances. The piece is a constant and<br />
frenetic alternation between moments of highly pulsating<br />
movement and others of extreme platitude. Contrast<br />
plays a fundamental role and obviously the intention is<br />
strongly focalized on the rhythmic aspect, on that<br />
primitive (or primary) relation that exists between each<br />
musical object and a “beating”, a vital gesture for all<br />
percussion instruments. Primal in fact means “original”.<br />
A few months before starting this work I began reading<br />
some philosophical texts on the question of rhythm that<br />
particularly struck me: Bergson, Bachelard, Bayer and<br />
Raymond Court, from whom I will make a quotation that<br />
considerably moved me at the time: Rhythm, in its<br />
harmonicity, is not however rest or abandon but rather,<br />
ever more so, “poieticity”, active “musicality”. Rhythm,<br />
the “articulation experienced between two primordial<br />
opposites, Dionysus and Apollo”, whose musicality<br />
pervades all works of art, is the very sense of our time<br />
and of the creativity which shapes it into the objectivity<br />
of art (Le Musical, Paris, Klincksieck, 1976). Primal<br />
(Hypnagogical Extended Space) was commissioned by<br />
the Biennale di Venezia 2012».<br />
harp and its basic functioning: its diatonicism and<br />
resonance. To get round the problem without untuning<br />
the harp, I tried to create the illusion of it playing quartertones<br />
through the microtonal environment of the other<br />
two instruments that can play them without difficulty.<br />
Moreover, the harp often plays in a dry fashion,<br />
staccato, as if a huge string instrument were playing<br />
pizzicato. Impossible not to evoke Debussy, who is a<br />
formidable monster: the instrumentation of his Sonata is<br />
so referenced, ingrained in the musical unconscious that<br />
it was necessary to avoid at all costs anything that might<br />
have recalled that work, all the Debussyian topoi.<br />
I therefore banned any glissandos and ethereal<br />
atmospheres, the gracious harp. But it would have been<br />
just another cliché to use the harp in an aggressive or<br />
percussive manner; so I had to find the right<br />
compromise, and try to open up a path that would make<br />
the piece my own and distance it from its famous<br />
model». Christophe Bertrand’s Virya for flute, clarinet,<br />
piano and percussion can be heard on October 25 at<br />
the Teatro Vittoria in Turin, during the series “In Scena!”,<br />
Rassegna di Musica Contemporanea of the<br />
Associazione Fiarì Ensemble, when the group will be<br />
directed by Marilena Solavagione.
Giovanni Verrando<br />
Rethinking Grammar<br />
T<br />
he Associazione Gli Amici di Musica/Realtà, on the<br />
occasion of the concert celebrating the 80th birthday of<br />
Giacomo Manzoni, commissioned Giovanni Verrando to<br />
write Grammatica dell’inarmonico for amplified ensemble<br />
and electronics, which will be given its first performance<br />
on October 11 at the Conservatorio “G. Verdi” in Milan,<br />
and repeated on October 12 at the Teatro Piccolo<br />
Arsenale in Venice, during the 56th Festival Internazionale<br />
di Musica Contemporanea of the Biennale, with the<br />
Ensemble Risognanze conducted by Tito Ceccherini. The<br />
composer explains: «The elements that generated the<br />
structure of Grammatica dell’inarmonico, that make up its<br />
genetic code, are multiple and various: the use of<br />
psychoacoustics as a discipline that offers grammatical<br />
elements ready for composition; a rethinking of the<br />
concept of music grammar, also on the basis of the<br />
studies on syntactic structures carried out by Noam<br />
Chomsky. Grammar thus becomes a discipline that is<br />
more dynamic and creative, less assertive and static,<br />
also due to the complex proprieties of inharmonics;<br />
inharmonics is in fact the reign of multiplicity of data and<br />
of points of view. As such, it doesn’t give rise to a single,<br />
or any case a main grammatical solution, a single corpus<br />
of adequate elements, but opens up the assessment of<br />
the grammaticality of the components by moving it in<br />
relation to the purpose, the technical side or sides being<br />
taken into consideration each time. In Grammatica<br />
dell’inarmonico the grammatical element is judged as<br />
adequate when it presents itself as such only in relation<br />
to a finite and particular purpose. “Grammatical” is<br />
therefore what corresponds to the technical data I am<br />
pursuing and is coherent with the compositional<br />
purposes declared for a specific section of the piece (for<br />
example, a threshold of brilliance of sound, or a threshold<br />
of inharmonicity), all the rest is “agrammatical”.<br />
Fundamental too is the distinction into four families of<br />
sound: 1) homogeneous inharmonics, those noises that<br />
Marco Momi<br />
Revelation Completed<br />
O<br />
n January 13, in the Espace de Projection of Ircam,<br />
the cycle Iconica will be given its first complete<br />
performance by the Solistes XXI and the Ensemble<br />
L’Itinéraire directed by Rachid Safir. In its definitive form,<br />
the cycle is made up of Iconica for soprano and<br />
ensemble, Iconica II for ensemble, Iconica III for six<br />
voices on a text by Filippo Farinelli and Iconica IV for<br />
string trio, flute, clarinet, prepared piano and live<br />
electronics. The musical informatics at Ircam will be<br />
realized by the composer, who speaks about his project:<br />
«I think the most suitable term to define the series of<br />
pieces entitled Iconica is “involuntary cycle”. It consists of<br />
pieces for instrumental ensemble and/or voices, with and<br />
without electronics (present only in the last piece). Each<br />
piece is a collection of miniatures, and all of them (except<br />
for Iconica III which is for six unaccompanied voices) end<br />
with a cadenza for piano (an instrument central to all of<br />
my output). The unity, then, is not to be found in any<br />
programmed plan, but in the sharing of formal elements<br />
and of sections that actually return in different shapes<br />
throughout the cycle. I started writing the cycle in 2006,<br />
at the end of my studies at the Conservatories and<br />
finished it in 2010 during my last period of training at<br />
Ircam. To complete the first part (Iconica) it took me a<br />
whole year, a period particularly full of questions, of a<br />
sense of detachment and challenge in redefining certain<br />
categories of my compositional thought which until then<br />
I had simply shared, comforted by the fact that I had<br />
learned them. The cycle exhausted itself when I became<br />
aware that I was formalizing something that until a short<br />
time before was unknown to me. To define without<br />
formalizing and therefore, if necessary, repeating rather<br />
than replicating structures. To sculpt an audacious<br />
perceptual dimension, dry and powerful through<br />
present wide bands of frequencies homogeneously<br />
occupied and which are given particular names (white<br />
noise, pink noise, brownian noise, blue noise and so on);<br />
2) heterogeneous inharmonics, those sounds that<br />
present spectral components not proportional to one<br />
another (Hz), distributed with different spectral densities,<br />
so as to produce neither perceivable fundamental<br />
frequencies (notes), nor wide homogeneous bands that<br />
prevail over the other components; 3) distorted<br />
harmonics, those sounds in which harmonic and<br />
inharmonic frequencies are perceptible to the same<br />
extent; 4) harmonic sounds. Finally, the work on new<br />
string instruments is essential. To obtain all this (that is,<br />
to be able to work on the inharmonic spectral details) the<br />
instruments in the ensemble are amplified and their<br />
performing technique is somewhat upset. The string<br />
players play with different kinds of bows, prepared with<br />
strips of card or polyethylene, which are rubbed directly<br />
onto the strings in place of the horsehair. This is to<br />
increase the quota of inharmonic elements within the<br />
sounds produced by the strings. The electronics are<br />
entrusted with the fate of the generally inharmonic sound<br />
of the whole piece». In September ESZ officially<br />
published the book La nuova liuteria: orchestrazione,<br />
grammatica, estetica, an important publication prepared<br />
by Giovanni Verrando in collaboration with the students<br />
of the classes of orchestration and theory of composition<br />
at the Conservatory in Lugano, directed and supervised<br />
by the composer himself, with a preface by Pierre Albert<br />
Castanet. Born of a collaboration with the Divisione<br />
Ricerca e Sviluppo of the Scuola Universitaria di Musica -<br />
SUPSI of the Conservatory of Svizzera Italiana in<br />
Lugano, the book, presented in the last issue of ESZ<br />
News, represents the final outcome of a research project<br />
lasting two years carried out by Verrando. An English<br />
edition of the work is currently being prepared.<br />
chiselling, the nuance that reveals the detail and the<br />
same that becomes the mainstay of the listening. The<br />
balance between the perception of the form through<br />
macro-figures and the creation of a time that becomes<br />
salient in every instant is achieved by renouncing the<br />
process. The attempt is to create a mechanism of<br />
continuous revelation, not to give in to the consolatory<br />
reconstruction of the listening. The sensation of a tactile<br />
discovery. The material that I hold in my hands is in itself<br />
neutral and fixed: each miniature that makes up the<br />
pieces presents itself as unequivocal and somewhat<br />
anonymous in its DNA: scales, multiphonics, distorted<br />
sounds, objects deprived of their common use<br />
(megaphones), glissandos... each sound is nonetheless<br />
“exposed”: the performer is expected to act without a<br />
safety net, is obliged to interpret, to consider each action<br />
as determinant, in respect of the most ruthless<br />
fundamentals of chamber music». The premiere of the<br />
complete project, to be performed during a concert that<br />
will take place as a co-production between Ircam-Centre<br />
Pompidou, L’Itinéraire and Les Solistes XXI, will be<br />
broadcast live by France Musique and will be coupled<br />
with music by Gesualdo. In October it is possible to hear<br />
the music of Marco Momi at the Fondazione Prometeo in<br />
Parma, during the Festival Traiettorie: on October 9<br />
Mario Caroli will play Reloading vanishing for flute;<br />
Iconica IV will be given its first Italian performance on<br />
October 10 at the Teatro Piccolo Arsenale in Venice<br />
during the 56 th Festival Internazionale di Musica<br />
Contemporanea of the Biennale, by the Ex Novo<br />
Ensemble. Finally, on October 18 Cinque nudi for<br />
saxophone and Midi controller will be recorded by David<br />
Brutti at Radio France, who commissioned the work for<br />
the series of transmissions “Alla breve”,<br />
The concept of “inharmonic”<br />
at the centre of a new work to<br />
be presented in Milan and at<br />
the Biennale in Venice<br />
La lirica di Mario Luzi<br />
accompagna e ispira la ricerca<br />
di confine cara al compositore<br />
Ircam presents the complete<br />
cycle that accompanied the<br />
composer’s final years of study<br />
9
The series of quartets is<br />
continued for Milano Musica, a<br />
new chamber work celebrates<br />
the Contempoartensemble<br />
Roberto Fabbriciani<br />
Roberto Fabbriciani plays two<br />
of his own compositions: Suoni<br />
per Gigi for flute and magnetic<br />
tape on October 4 in Wellington<br />
(New Zealand) and on October<br />
18 at the Conservatory of<br />
Fermo; Motion capture for<br />
hyperbass flute elaborated<br />
through motion capture and live<br />
electronics on November 21 at<br />
the Scuola Normale in Pisa,<br />
with Walter Neri as sound<br />
engineer.<br />
10<br />
Michele dall’Ongaro<br />
For Sixteen Strings<br />
O<br />
n October 10 in the Auditorium San Fedele in Milan,<br />
during the Milano Musica Festival, Michele dall’Ongaro’s<br />
Quartetto n. 6 will be presented by the Quartetto di<br />
Cremona. The composer describes the work: «The<br />
Quartetto n. 6 is quite a short work that nevertheless<br />
took longer to write than what it might seem when<br />
listening to it. It all starts from a chorale (often the rough<br />
copy of my work is simply a page with 3 or 4 chords<br />
linked by criteria of harmonic tension that I have<br />
elaborated over the years). This basic grid is<br />
continuously interrupted, disturbed by processes that<br />
assume figures that are apparently secondary (an<br />
integral part of the vertical aspect) which are then<br />
developed horizontally. The texture becomes elastic and<br />
even marred by large flaws that put stress on its<br />
integrity, setting its resistance to a hard test. And this is<br />
why in the end everything gathers around a type of black<br />
hole, a whirlwind that transports the material into<br />
another dimension where everything changes, floats in a<br />
limbo dense with amniotic liquid where the temptation to<br />
sing and its negation cohabit in an apparent<br />
complementary way until the final dissolution. This is the<br />
only zone where the roles of the four instruments are<br />
specialized within a writing that, unlike my other<br />
quartets, transforms the group into a single 16-string<br />
instrument». Paolo Petazzi comments: «The composer<br />
does not feel the weight of the history of the most<br />
illustrious genre in chamber music as limiting or<br />
conditioning, also because he has no intention of<br />
revisiting the genre in its historical formal characteristics,<br />
but rather wishes to exploit the infinite and extraordinary<br />
possibilities of writing for four strings. In the subdued<br />
opening we immediately meet a determinant “character”:<br />
after a few bars with held notes and isolated pizzicatos,<br />
we hear notes rapidly repeated using a bowing<br />
technique called jeté (thrown) in this case col legno,<br />
because it involves making the bow bounce by<br />
“throwing” it onto the string (in this case using the<br />
wooden tip of the bow). Even without the jeté the<br />
potentials of the figures based on repeated notes are<br />
explored by changing such elements as registers,<br />
thicknesses and lengths. After the subdued opening the<br />
music builds up with tension until reaching a breaking<br />
point. Other elements come into play, the discourse<br />
opens up to strong contrasts and dramatic peaks. I won’t<br />
try to describe every detail, but I would like to draw<br />
attention at least to the final sections, where the<br />
consequential logic of what goes before seems to make<br />
way for surprising turns for the listener. Broad<br />
arpeggiated figures invade the sonic space, often<br />
involving all four players in virtuoso gestures which little<br />
by little become out of phase, through the introduction of<br />
divergent rhythms and meters and the use of harmonic<br />
sounds. And while the machine breaks up, an intense<br />
yearning for canto emerges. The second violin removes<br />
itself from the vortex of the others, and is followed by the<br />
Jean-Luc Hervé<br />
On September 21 in Bilbao Amplitude for cello solo<br />
was played by Séverine Ballon, soloist of the Ensemble<br />
Sillages. The Ex Novo Ensemble will give the first<br />
Italian performance of Réplique for five players and<br />
electronics on October 10 at the Teatro Piccolo<br />
Arsenale in Venice during the 56 th Festival<br />
viola. The viola proposes a new cantabile idea (amid the<br />
harmonic sounds of the other instruments); but this too<br />
and the other successive attempts are blocked and<br />
interrupted: there is no room for a prolonged melos like<br />
that of the viola from which the Quartetto n. 5 took its<br />
starting point». The Quartetto n. 5 for strings will be<br />
played this Autumn by the Quartetto Bernini in<br />
collaboration with the Associazione Roma Sinfonietta.<br />
Vingt ans après... for flute, clarinet, piano, violin, viola<br />
and cello, commissioned by the Contempoartensemble,<br />
will also be played this Autumn during the<br />
Contempoartefestival in Florence when the group will be<br />
directed by Mauro Ceccanti. Dall’Ongaro explains: «The<br />
title explicitly refers to the second episode of the exploits<br />
of the three, or rather four, musketeers. And the<br />
musicians of the ensemble too are actually heroes<br />
because, like the musketeers, they defend the colours<br />
not of their cousins beyond the Alps but rather the more<br />
fragile banner of ars nova and especially of ars<br />
novissima at the cost of sacrifices that only they, their<br />
friends and families can really know in detail. A work,<br />
then, that intends to offer thanks and best wishes for a<br />
bright future. It is impossible then to write for the<br />
Contempoartensemble (never did a name cause the<br />
automatic corrector so much trouble!) without imagining<br />
the protagonists in flesh and blood, without thinking of<br />
the smiles, the enthusiasm and the musicality of the<br />
members of the Ceccanti family and their partners. So<br />
writing this short piece was a way of passing time in<br />
their company and thus expressing my deepest<br />
gratitude for their worthy mission». Michele dall’Ongaro<br />
is the composer featured in the 2012 season of the<br />
Ensemble Musagète during the series “Pomeriggio tra<br />
le Muse”, held in the Gallerie d’Italia in Palazzo Leoni<br />
Montanari in Vicenza. The programme includes on<br />
September 9 the Invenzione a due voci n. 2 for flute<br />
and clarinet, September 30 Trenodia for flute, clarinet<br />
and violin, October 7 the Notturno n. 1 for violin, cello<br />
and piano, and on December 9 Berceuse in frantumi for<br />
two violins. On September 12 the Festival MITO<br />
Settembre Musica in Turin included Ad libitum for flute,<br />
clarinet, violin, cello, piano and vibraphone, with the<br />
Ensemble Antidogma. On October 19 at the Teatro<br />
Verdi during the Festival Play It! the Orchestra della<br />
Toscana conducted by Fabio Maestri will play Festschrift<br />
for fourteen instruments. The Ex Novo Ensemble will<br />
perform Zero for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano on<br />
November 15 in Macerata, during the Stagione<br />
Concertistica Associazione Musicale Appassionata, and<br />
on November 25 in Pordenone, during the Festival<br />
Internazionale di Musica Sacra. Finally, on December 2<br />
Stefano Cardi will direct the Freon Ensemble in a<br />
performance of Danni collaterali for cello and small<br />
ensemble, in the Sala Casella of the Accademia<br />
Filarmonica Romana, during the Festival di Nuova<br />
Consonanza in Rome.<br />
Internazionale di Musica Contemporanea. On October<br />
25 in Vilnius (Lithuania) the Ensemble L’Itinéraire will<br />
play Intérieur rouge for piccolo, clarinet, violin, cello and<br />
piano. Finally, on December 8 at the Musik-Akademie<br />
Basel Ein/aus for ensemble will be played by the<br />
Ensemble Diagonale directed by Marcus Weiss.<br />
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program notes, calendar of concerts and world premieres.
Giorgio Colombo Taccani<br />
Solitary Voices<br />
The first performance of L’image oubliée<br />
for piano is scheduled for October 1 st at<br />
the Teatro di Marcello in Rome, during the<br />
Festival delle Nazioni; it will be played by<br />
Adele D’Aronzo, to whom the piece is<br />
dedicated. The composer explains: «To<br />
mark the 150 th anniversary of the birth of<br />
Claude Debussy I was asked to write this<br />
new short piece for piano which, with the<br />
greatest of respect, takes it starting point<br />
from the first two bars of Hommage à<br />
Rameau from Images. These become the<br />
structural basis of the entire work,<br />
expanding to cover the whole length, the<br />
basic material for countless local<br />
elaborations. Excluding a priori any direct<br />
stylistic reference and, even more so, any<br />
explicit quotation, a harmonic colour diatonically linked<br />
to the starting point is nevertheless often determined,<br />
within a piano writing that privileges resonance and<br />
liquidity». Restless White for flute will be premiered on<br />
October 4 in Wellington (New Zealand) by its<br />
prestigious dedicatee Roberto Fabbriciani, who will also<br />
give the piece its first Italian performance on November<br />
18 in the Auditorium Celesti in Desenzano during the 5 th<br />
Festival of the Ned Ensemble. The composer tells us:<br />
«As can be deduced from the title, the work is<br />
characterized by a constantly anxious and restless<br />
pace; there is no melodic-cantabile tendency, the<br />
course of the piece being guided by minimal ideas<br />
repeated with a regularity that is almost obsessive and<br />
in this prospective highly expressive; the timbral<br />
resources, whether traditional or of more recent origin,<br />
are used with decision in the flute writing. The narrative<br />
course therefore does not follow a straight line, even<br />
though its climax comes towards the end, but rather<br />
has a spiral tendency, within which the elements turn<br />
without any real evolution of the discourse. Beneath it<br />
all, to give the work coherence, is the kaleidoscopic<br />
presence of a short fragment of seven notes, a<br />
fundamental element throughout the work». On 19<br />
October, during the second edition of the Festival Play<br />
It!, at the Teatro Verdi in Florence, the first performance<br />
will be given of Dura roccia for bassoon and string<br />
orchestra; the soloist will be Paolo Carlini, dedicatee of<br />
the piece along with the Orchestra della Toscana,<br />
conducted on this occasion by Francesco Lanzillotta.<br />
Colombo Taccani says: «Dura roccia represents a new<br />
step in my long fascination with low instruments. The<br />
title (think of it in English…) refers to the roughness and<br />
aggression that characterize much of the piece. Two<br />
contrasting situations are developed in alternation: the<br />
first is based on the cadential and violent mood of the<br />
solo part, which contrasts with the resonant and<br />
tendentially lyrical nature – though always undermined<br />
by more or less subterraneous drives towards<br />
disgregation – of the second. This goes on for the<br />
whole length of the piece, in which the strings are<br />
always ready to expand and exploit what the bassoon<br />
has proposed. The closing bars feature the paradoxical<br />
dwelling of the soloist on the final high note, below<br />
which the strings offer their last utterances, now unable<br />
Maurilio Cacciatore<br />
From October 6 to 13 the Biennale di Venezia, 56 th<br />
Festival Internazionale di Musica Contemporanea, will<br />
host for the first time in Italy the interactive<br />
electroacoustic installation Apparaître, disparaître, se<br />
cacher, realized by Simone Conforti. Impuro minimo for<br />
violin, cello and piano can be heard on October 25 at<br />
the Festival Spazio Musica in Cagliari, during a concert<br />
in collaboration with the New Made Ensemble and ESZ,<br />
featuring the New Made Ensemble: Raffaello Negri,<br />
to force the path elsewhere». A very<br />
unusual instrumentation can be found in<br />
Lybra, which will be premiered on<br />
October 20 at the Palazzo Chigi in<br />
Ariccia (Rome) by Jessica Horsley: the<br />
work, commissioned by the Ars Braemia<br />
(Switzerland), is in fact written for<br />
baryton, an instrument similar to the<br />
viola da gamba and characterized by the<br />
presence of a variable number of strings<br />
on the back of the instrument, which, as<br />
well as vibrating sympathetically, can<br />
also be plucked by the thumb of the left<br />
hand; many works for this instrument,<br />
much loved by prince Esterházy but<br />
soon fallen into disuse, were written by<br />
Haydn and Tomasini. The composer<br />
explains: «Taking its cursory inspiration from Haydn, the<br />
course of Lybra is guided by the constant return of<br />
certain main figures, especially chosen to highlight the<br />
surprising characteristics of the baryton; a decisive role<br />
is thus assumed by the broad arpeggios played on an<br />
almost regular basis at the start of the piece, and the<br />
falling figures shared between the front and back<br />
strings. Local digressions interrupt the path, in a climate<br />
that is constantly mobile and vital». Recent<br />
performances of the composer’s works include: Soleil<br />
levant, from the Due pezzi for bass flute, played by<br />
Laura Chislett-Jones at Sydney Grammar School on<br />
June 2; then on June 16, at the Hochschule für Musik<br />
in Basel, Stojan Krkuleski on the clarinet, Elia<br />
Portabales on viola and Gaelle Levevre on cello played<br />
Eco; on July 1 st Avvoltoi for voice and four instruments<br />
was performed during the Festival of Bellagio and Lake<br />
Como by Akiko Kozato and the New Made Ensemble<br />
directed by Alessandro Calcagnile; during the same<br />
Festival, on September 9, a performance was given of<br />
Nox, Tellus for solo voice, again by Akiko Kozato;<br />
L’àgnili for voice and piano on two poems in Sardinian<br />
by Pompeo Calvia was performed on July 12 during<br />
the series Suono Immagine at the Conservatory in<br />
Milan; on September 5 Antilia for piccolo and guitar<br />
was played by the Antilia Duo in the context of the<br />
project Irid. Visual Concert, in the Auditorium Lattuada<br />
in Milan; Eco celata entro braci ardenti for flute and<br />
harpsichord was played on September 7 by the Duo<br />
Novecembalo in Porretta Terme, during the Festival<br />
Nuovi Orizzonti Sonori; on September 23 at the Tokyo<br />
Opera City the instrumentalists of the Nomad Ensemble<br />
played Richiamo da lontano for flute and clarinet; on<br />
September 24, in the church of St. Martin-within-<br />
Ludgate in London, Laura Chislett-Jones and Thomas<br />
Jones played Luz for flute and violin. On October 25<br />
Avvoltoi for voice and four instruments on a poem by<br />
Simon Pederek will be performed at the Festival Spazio<br />
Musica in Cagliari by Akiko Kozato and the New Made<br />
Ensemble directed by Alessandro Calcagnile, during a<br />
concert in collaboration with the New Made Ensemble<br />
and ESZ. Finally, on October 27, the Duo Alterno will<br />
play L’àgnili for voice and piano at the Museo di Santa<br />
Caterina in Treviso during the Festival Finestre sul<br />
Novecento.<br />
violin, Guido Boselli, cello, and Rossella Spinosa,<br />
piano. Finally, on December 7 the Opéra de Lille will<br />
host Tamonontamo for amplified vocal quartet, 24 voice<br />
choir and live-electronics, with Adèle Carlier, soprano,<br />
Marie-Paule Bonnemason, contralto, Stephan Olry,<br />
tenor, Jean-Michel Durang, bass and Les Cris de Paris<br />
directed by Geoffroy Jourdain. The live electronics will<br />
be realized by Ircam.<br />
Three premieres for solo<br />
instruments, a fourth for<br />
soloist and orchestra<br />
Giacomo Manzoni<br />
On November 7 in the Auditorio<br />
Nacional de Música in Madrid,<br />
Fabián Panisello will conduct<br />
the Plural Ensemble in a<br />
performance of Musica notturna<br />
for five wind instruments, piano<br />
and percussion.<br />
Pagina da camera in prima<br />
assoluta, quasi un intermezzo<br />
11
Three premières conclude<br />
the composer’s residence<br />
at the Philharmonisches<br />
Orchester Cottbus<br />
The relation between “voices” at<br />
the centre of research, while an<br />
opera project takes shape linked<br />
to a double residence in France<br />
12<br />
Valerio Sannicandro<br />
Interior Tempos<br />
V<br />
alerio Sannicandro’s residence at the<br />
Philharmonisches Orchester Cottbus ends with the rich<br />
array of three new works. In order, the orchestra will<br />
present, at the Staatstheater Cottbus, Sutra for<br />
ensemble and electronic sounds, on November 30 and<br />
December 2, conducted by Will Humburg and with the<br />
composer in charge of the sound projection; then a<br />
diptych for orchestra: Windströme on January 11 and<br />
13, conducted by Marc Niemann, and Seelenströme, on<br />
February 22 and 24, conductor Evan Christ. The<br />
composer talks about his new works: «In Sutra the<br />
three “sutras” sung by the Japanese Tone Akemi,<br />
whom I met by chance in a monastery in Kyoto,<br />
are transformed electronically and projected so<br />
as to constitute a “soloist” accompanied by an<br />
instrumental ensemble. The latter, consisting of thirteen<br />
wind instruments (mostly brass), percussion and<br />
doublebasses, arranged around the audience, expands<br />
and amplifies the vocal sounds, producing an<br />
“immersive” sound effect. The singing without place or<br />
time, and with a religiosity that is extremely human<br />
because it is passionate, takes possession of the space<br />
within and around us: the instruments (thanks to<br />
various types of mute) imitate the sounds of the singing<br />
and extend and enrich it with a wide range of sonorities,<br />
almost as if to simulate listening in an unusual, wide<br />
space, open to the outside. The percussion<br />
instruments, with their continuous impulses, underline<br />
the character of a ritual with a constant osmosis<br />
between the present and memory, a moment that is<br />
loud and marked, but at the same time dreamlike».<br />
Regarding the diptych for orchestra<br />
Windströme/Seelenströme, the composer says it is<br />
«made up of two short (approx. 6 minutes each) but<br />
extremely characterized pieces for orchestra. In the<br />
wake of an idea of a composition that transcends the<br />
Federico Gardella<br />
simple hic et nunc (as in Ius Lucis) these two pieces<br />
were born almost as an experiment: might I perhaps in<br />
the future, with the aid of electronic techniques, create,<br />
between the two orchestras far from each other playing<br />
in synchrony each of their own pieces, a third<br />
composition that combines and reinterprets the musical<br />
elements in a different musical perspective? For now,<br />
though, I will describe these two precise musical ideas:<br />
the first (Windströme) presents sonorities that recall the<br />
wind (with just a few recognizable pitches), the second<br />
(Seelenströme) consists of melodic lines, microtonal<br />
and tightly packed, often fragmented, which aggregate<br />
and disperse, always ppp. In keeping with the idea that<br />
the soul is identifiable with breath, the conception of this<br />
diptych with its capacity for introspection of the<br />
orchestral apparatus, transfers the expressive accent<br />
into an anti-rhetorical dimension (just a few dynamic<br />
flares, an expanse of particles moving microscopically<br />
and uniformly at the limits of audibility), fixes on an<br />
idea, on a space but also on a multitude of tempi...».<br />
Opportunities to hear the music of Valerio Sannicandro<br />
this Autumn include a performance of Lasco for four<br />
strings, piano (with assistant) and percussion on<br />
September 21 at the Folkwang Museum in Essen, with<br />
the E-mex Ensemble directed by Ch.M. Wagner;<br />
Sonnet X for tuba and live electronics on September<br />
24 at the Mon-naka Tenjo Hall in Tokyo, with Shinya<br />
Hashimoto and Simihisa Arima; Renga for voice and<br />
four instruments, with Akiko Kozato and the New Made<br />
Ensemble directed by Alessandro Calcagnile on 25<br />
October at the Festival Spazio Musica in Cagliari,<br />
during a concert in collaboration with the New Made<br />
Ensemble and ESZ; finally, Epistolae III for bass flute,<br />
percussion and live electronics on October 27 at the<br />
Jayu Theater of the Seoul Arts Center, with the E-mex<br />
Ensemble.<br />
Instrumental Resonances<br />
T<br />
his Autumn sees two premieres for Federico Gardella.<br />
On November 3 in Riva presso Chieri (Turin), during<br />
the series Rive Gauche Concerti, Annamaria Morini will<br />
play Cinque cori notturni sotto la costa for alto flute. The<br />
composer tells us: «The evolution of monodic<br />
instruments is not infrequently linked to the<br />
history of counterpoint: real or virtual,<br />
counterpoint represents for these<br />
instruments a condition to aspire towards<br />
during the definition of their own sonic<br />
personality; I wondered, then, whether it was<br />
possible to imagine a choral writing for these<br />
instruments in which I could include this idea<br />
of counterpoint. To think of an instrument in<br />
analogy with a choir means reflecting on its<br />
complexity of timbres, but also learning to think of the<br />
“solo” as a potential of a “multitude”; in these Cinque<br />
cori notturni sotto la costa for alto flute the progressive<br />
definition of a choral sound coincides with the unveiling<br />
of the form: the “story” of each of these short<br />
compositions proceeds through the construction of a<br />
choral identity, expressed by a single instrument».<br />
On December 3, Sirènes, a chamber opera in one act<br />
on a libretto by Emmanuel Darley from a fragment by<br />
Lycophron, will be presented at the Compagnie<br />
Nationale de Théâtre Lyrique et Musical Arcal in Paris,<br />
in the form of an introductory sketch limited to the I and<br />
III scene, with a replica on December 4 at the Grand<br />
Atelier of the Abbaye de Royaumont. It will be<br />
performed by Dorothée Lorthiois, Sirène 1, Chantal<br />
Santon, Sirène 2, Caroline Meng, Sirène 3, Benjamin<br />
Alunni, Ulysses and the Ensemble Cairn conducted by<br />
Guillaume Bourgogne; the director will be Jean De<br />
Pange. Gardella explains: «In a short extract from<br />
Alexandra, the Greek poet Lycophron, who lived in the<br />
4 th Century B.C., tells of the death of the sirens: the ship<br />
of Ulysses moves away from the cliffs<br />
occupied by the sirens and the three bird<br />
women, according to classical mythology,<br />
decide to kill themselves by throwing<br />
themselves onto the rocks without opening<br />
their wings. This is the starting point for<br />
Sirènes, which is at the centre of a project of<br />
my residence at the Compagnie Nationale de<br />
Théâtre Lyrique et Musical Arcal in Paris and<br />
at the Fondation Royaumont. The solitude of<br />
the sirens and the horror in the face of a destiny in<br />
which everything is already written are amplified by the<br />
immobility and indifference of nature: so I imagined an<br />
instrumental writing independent from the web of<br />
voices, a place of resonance into which the characters<br />
are dropped and have to react». In the meantime it is<br />
possible to hear Federico Gardella’s Tre studi per<br />
riscoprire l’alba for piano on October 4 at the Istituto<br />
Italiano di Cultura in Paris, with Alfonso Alberti, and the<br />
Hofmannsthal-Mikro-Lieder for female voice, violin and<br />
cello on October 25 at the Festival Spazio Musica in<br />
Cagliari, during a concert in collaboration with the New<br />
Made Ensemble and ESZ, played by the New Made<br />
Ensemble: Akiko Kozato, voice, Raffaello Negri, violin<br />
and Guido Boselli, cello.
Malika Kishino<br />
Sonic Garden<br />
A<br />
first performance for Malika Kishino on November 3<br />
at the Tokyo-shohken Hall. Shuretsu Miyashita II will<br />
play Monochromer Garten IV for 30-string koto. The<br />
composer tells us: «Monochromer Garten IV is part of<br />
my series Monochromer Garten in which I concentrate<br />
on small instrumental groups, from one to three<br />
musicians. In this series I am trying to represent the<br />
characters and aesthetics of a Japanese garden, as<br />
well as the process of its architecture. A silvery world,<br />
night, black tiles covered with snow, reflected-light,<br />
space, silence ... I wanted to represent with sound such<br />
image of a garden, that I once saw through the window<br />
behind a temple in Kyoto. The night scene of the<br />
garden was like an India-ink painting, a work of art in<br />
black and white. I found there an epitome of beauty, at<br />
the same time it made me reflect on the appreciation of<br />
beauty. According to Shinichi Hisamatsu (1889-1980), a<br />
Japanese philosopher and scholar of Zen Buddhism,<br />
the general features of Japanese cultural expressions<br />
in the fine arts can be described in terms of seven<br />
interrelated characteristics: Asymmetry, Simplicity,<br />
Austere Sublimity, Naturalness, Subtle Profundity,<br />
Freedom from attachment, Tranquility. All fine art,<br />
landscape architecture included, may be found to<br />
possess all of these seven characteristics, which in<br />
Pasquale Corrado<br />
their inseparability form a perfect whole. In my<br />
Monochromer Garden series, I consider the<br />
composition of music like the composition of landscape<br />
architecture. Instead of materials like rocks, water<br />
features, moss, pruned trees, bushes, sand and space<br />
used to compose a Japanese garden, I use sound<br />
materials and time to create my piece. Especially in my<br />
piece Monochromer Garten IV, I tried to bring out the<br />
peculiarities of the 30-string Koto, such as the spell of<br />
its deep sound, rich timbres, vibration and resonance<br />
from its thick strings, intensity etc. as sound materials.<br />
I wanted to create a universe of beauty with these<br />
materials and to reach the deep reserve of my<br />
sensibility. Monochromer Garden IV was<br />
commissioned by the 30-string koto master, Shuretsu<br />
Miyashita II and it is dedicated to her». On August 3<br />
and 4 in Stuttgart a performance was given of Dukkha<br />
for electronics, a three-channel composition for the<br />
interactive performing installation Attitude directed by<br />
Sebastian Klemm with the collaboration of numerous<br />
guest artists. On September 24 in the Mon-naka Tenjo<br />
Hall in Tokyo Lebensfunke for bass drum and<br />
electronics was performed by Yoshiko Kanda and<br />
Sumihisa Arima.<br />
The Light and the Shade<br />
T<br />
wo premieres for Pasquale Corrado. On September<br />
15 during the 4th International Pharos Contemporary<br />
Music Festival in Delikipos (Cyprus), the first<br />
performance was given of Lux Day for string quartet,<br />
which will be repeated on October 15 in the Auditorium<br />
San Fedele in Milan for the Milano Musica Festival in<br />
collaboration with the Centro Culturale San Fedele.<br />
Both concerts feature the Quartetto Prometeo. Then, on<br />
October 19 Lux Day Off for violin, cello, doublebass<br />
and piano will be played in the Auditorium Montemezzi<br />
of the “E.F. Dall’Abaco” Conservatory in Verona, during<br />
a workshop on performing practices in Contemporary<br />
Music. Lucia Zanela, violin, Eleuteria Arena, cello,<br />
Claudio Borolomai, doublebass, and Adriano Ambrosini,<br />
piano, will be directed by Andrea Mannucci.<br />
The composer describes the double work: «Lux Day is<br />
part of the programme for the Premio San Fedele which<br />
this year requires a piece for quartet to be played by the<br />
Quartetto Prometeo. The piece pays homage to canto<br />
XXXIII of Paradiso from Dante’s Divina Commedia (in<br />
particular the lines «O Somma Luce…»), the latter<br />
being the guide for the imagination set for the 2012<br />
Martino Traversa<br />
Crystalline <strong>Sound</strong><br />
O<br />
n October 31, at the Casa della Musica in Parma,<br />
the Festival Traiettorie will include the first performance<br />
of a new work by Martino Traversa: Red for violin,<br />
played by Hae-sun Kang, to whom the piece is<br />
dedicated. The composer tells us: «When you find<br />
yourself having to write a piece for Hae-Sun Kang, you<br />
have the impression of living a unique, unrepeatable<br />
experience. Just mentioning the violinist’s name makes<br />
you imagine a dimension and quality of sound quite out<br />
of the ordinary, with the clarity of a crystal, the fruit of a<br />
masterful technique and an intelligent performing<br />
sensitivity. And it was precisely with this in mind that the<br />
resulting piece was conceived and written. And I make<br />
no pretence at hiding a certain enthusiasm at having<br />
given in to the idea, in some passages, of tending<br />
towards a sort of extreme writing, fully aware of the fact<br />
edition of the Prize. Lux Day is characterized by a rapid<br />
succession of extremes. In other words the piece is<br />
built on the repeated passage of extreme sonorities:<br />
from thin to thick, from high to low, from imperceptible<br />
to evident. The piece composed for the workshop on<br />
performing practices in Contemporary Music at the<br />
Conservatory in Verona consists of a rewriting of Lux<br />
Day, with the addition of the piano. It is a sort of<br />
negative reading of the original Lux Day, which upsets<br />
its perspective and creates a surface of shade that<br />
traces the luminous borders of previous version».<br />
Finally, two more performances should be mentioned:<br />
Pulse for six instruments was played on September 14<br />
in the Bohemian National Hall at the Czech Center in<br />
New York, during the Moving <strong>Sound</strong>s Festival, with the<br />
Ensemble Mise-en; Raise Voice for female voice and<br />
four instruments can be heard on October 25 in the<br />
Festival Spazio Musica in Cagliari, during a concert in<br />
collaboration with the New Made Ensemble and ESZ,<br />
with Akiko Kozato and the New Made Ensemble<br />
directed by Alessandro Calcagnile.<br />
that, thanks to the presence of Hae-Sun, the result<br />
would be exceptional. The structure in sections of Red<br />
alternates very rapid movements with others that are<br />
more calm, reflexive, played almost always in the<br />
middle register of the violin, since it is precisely in this<br />
area that the sound is able to flourish in a pure and<br />
transparent manner. What finally emerged was a piece<br />
for violin using traditional writing, able to arouse wonder<br />
in the listener on account of the extreme energy, the<br />
beauty of the sound and the charm of a virtuosity<br />
beyond one’s expectations». On November 14 at the<br />
University of California in Santa Barbara, during the<br />
UCSB’s Festival of Contemporary Arts and Digital<br />
Media, it will be possible to hear Critical Path and<br />
NGC253, both for synthesis sounds.<br />
A new work for koto, part of a<br />
wider project, takes its aesthetic<br />
inspiration from the architecture<br />
of Japanese landscapes<br />
Two “twin” pieces for the San Fedele<br />
Prize at Milano Musica and for the<br />
Conservatory in Verona<br />
Premiere of a work for soloist<br />
at the Festival Traiettorie,<br />
with Hae-Sun Kang<br />
Pagina da camera in prima<br />
assoluta, quasi un intermezzo<br />
13
A single inspiration for<br />
two French premieres<br />
Two new works whose<br />
sound exploration is inspired<br />
by Dante and by Borges<br />
14<br />
Eric Maestri<br />
Associations of Ideas<br />
T<br />
wo French premieres for Eric Maestri. On September<br />
22 the first performance of Due parole (Endeared III) for<br />
female vocal quartet and string quartet was given in the<br />
Abbaye de Royaumont, during the series Voix<br />
Nouvelles 2012. Commissioned by the Fondation<br />
Royaumont, the new work was played by the soloists of<br />
the Atelier Vocale de Royaumont/Les Cris de Paris<br />
directed by Geoffroy Jourdain and the Quartetto<br />
Diotima. The composer tells us: «Due parole is based<br />
on the association of ideas. One pair of words leads to<br />
others and the composition of the text is parallel to the<br />
composition of the music, until almost being the same<br />
thing. The piece presents masses and contrasts based<br />
on harmonies created by the distortion, through<br />
frequency modulation, of a handful of pitches that<br />
successive counterpoints form into outlines. To describe<br />
the piece in just a few words, the construction is related<br />
to pure form: the sound source, the dynamic violence<br />
and the harmonic construction bring me increasingly<br />
closer to the world of Edgard Varèse». On October 19<br />
in Strasbourg, during the event Without Cage -<br />
Manifeste de Musique de Demain, La visione delle cose<br />
for ensemble and electronics will be performed by the<br />
composer on electronics and the Ensemble Vortex, who<br />
commissioned the work, and will be repeated on<br />
October 31 in Geneva, Radio de la Suisse Romande,<br />
and on November 1st at the Gare du Nord in Basel.<br />
Maestri speaks of the inspiration behind the new work:<br />
«The idea of putting oneself in front of a musical object<br />
and drying it up, placing it in time and space. The<br />
Vittorio Montalti<br />
The Poet Resound<br />
T<br />
wo premieres for Vittorio Montalti. On September 15<br />
the 4th International Pharos Contemporary Music<br />
Festival in Delikipos (Cyprus) presented<br />
the first performance of Cinque studi<br />
sulla dinamica della luce for string<br />
quartet, which will be repeated on 15<br />
October in the Auditorium San Fedele in<br />
Milan during the Milano Musica Festival,<br />
in collaboration with the Centro Culturale<br />
San Fedele. Both concerts will feature<br />
the Quartetto Prometeo. The composer<br />
introduces his new work: «The Cinque<br />
studi sulla dinamica della luce are a<br />
series of pieces that explore the concept<br />
of luminosity in different ways. In<br />
particular the light examined in these<br />
studies is that of Dante’s Paradiso; each<br />
piece is inspired by an extract from the third canto of<br />
the Divina Commedia: I. ... più dolci in voce che in vista<br />
lucenti ... II. ... silenzio puose a quella dolce lira, / e fece<br />
quietar le sante corde / che la destra del cielo allenta e<br />
tira. III. ... così si veggion qui diritte e torte, / veloci e<br />
tarde, rinovando vista, / le minuzie de’ corpi, lunghe e<br />
corte, / moversi per lo raggio ... IV. ... e moto a moto e<br />
canto a canto colse ... V. ... così da’ lumi che lì<br />
m’apparinno / s’accogliea per la croce una melode / che<br />
mi rapiva, sanza intender l’inno». On October 21 in the<br />
Sale Apollinee of the Gran Teatro La Fenice in Venice<br />
the series Ex Novo Musica will present Labyrinthes for<br />
bass flute and electronics, a commission of the Ex<br />
Donatoni - Fedele - Solbiati<br />
Limen Classic & Contemporary has released a Cd<br />
(CDE11-C012) dedicated to three contemporary Italian<br />
composers, featuring the Limen Ensemble directed by<br />
Yoichi Sugiyama. The programme covers a period of<br />
more than half a century and includes Franco<br />
writing seen as objectivation and an investigation of the<br />
psychological resonances that the constitutive elements<br />
of the music provoke in the association of ideas. The<br />
basic logic of this new piece consists of taking the<br />
instruments as objects, putting and placing the music<br />
before composing it. For the first time the electronics<br />
has no anonymous source, as happens in most<br />
electronic pieces, where the categories of enrichment<br />
of the instrumental material or acoustic counterpoint<br />
to the score prevail. In this case the electronics is an<br />
instrument. Since the electronic sound is defective, in<br />
the piece I try to eliminate the defect by balancing the<br />
acoustic aspect and the instrumental one. In this sense<br />
a solution can be found, I believe, to the discourse<br />
started by Nono, in Sofferte onde serene, and then<br />
continued by Stroppa and the development of the<br />
timée, a loudspeaker that projects the sound spherically<br />
and localizes the source. La visione delle cose is a<br />
piece for this strange new object, similar to an<br />
instrument without being one, which encloses the<br />
electronics in a box. This step gives rise to other<br />
aspects, a modular loudspeaker divided between<br />
magnet and membrane. In this way La visione delle<br />
cose experiments with this new approach which I<br />
arrived at after passing through many experiences in<br />
electronic diffusion and composition». In the same<br />
days, on October 28, the Milano Musica Festival in the<br />
Auditorium San Fedele in Milan will include<br />
Celestografia for soprano and string quartet, performed<br />
by Valentina Coladonato and the Quartetto Prometeo.<br />
Novo Ensemble who will play the work (Daniele<br />
Ruggieri, flute, and Alvise Vidolin, sound engineer). The<br />
composer explains: «In the composition a<br />
description is made of a hypothetical labyrinth<br />
and of possible itineraries in which to lose<br />
oneself. The journey within this network builds<br />
a narration in which the musical elements are<br />
alternated, overlapped and transformed one<br />
into the other with returns to places already<br />
visited. The electronics amplifies the<br />
instrumental route, becoming its extension.<br />
Parallel labyrinths are thus created, deviations<br />
that open the door to other dimensions. The<br />
piece is also a homage to the writer and poet<br />
Jorge Luis Borges, and to his labyrinths, who<br />
wrote: “I dream obsessively of a small, clean<br />
labyrinth, in the centre of which is an urn that<br />
I almost touched with my hands, that I saw with my<br />
eyes, but the paths were so contorted, so confused,<br />
that one thing seemed clear to me: I would die before<br />
I arrived there”». Two more works by Montalti are<br />
featured during this festival season: Ghiribizzo for guitar<br />
was played on September 18 in the Church of San<br />
Maurizio at the Monastero Maggiore in Milan during the<br />
Festival MITO Settembre Musica, with Luigi Attademo.<br />
And Don’t Shoot the Piano Players can be heard on<br />
October 12 during the Biennale di Venezia, 56 th<br />
Festival Internazionale di Musica Contemporanea, in<br />
the Sala delle Colonne of Ca’ Giustinian, with the<br />
pianist Ciro Longobardi.<br />
Donatoni’s Asar (1964) and Solo (1969), both for ten<br />
string instruments, Ivan Fedele’s Nohtar (2009) for<br />
string orchestra and Alessandro Solbiati’s Sette pezzi<br />
(1999), in the version for string orchestra.
Andrea Mannucci<br />
Melologues of Solitude<br />
T<br />
wo first performances for Andrea Mannucci within the<br />
space of a month. Solo for flute, the sixth episode of<br />
Homunculus for reciting voice and wind quintet, will be<br />
played by Roberto Fabbriciani on October 4 in<br />
Wellington (New Zealand). The composer tells us:<br />
«While I was working on the composition of the<br />
melologue Homunculus on a text by Marco Ongaro,<br />
I received a commission from Roberto Fabbriciani for a<br />
piece for solo flute. This prompted me to write the sixth<br />
episode of the melologue, whose atmosphere is defined<br />
in the libretto as “solitary” and “tense”, for solo flute».<br />
On November 4 the 5th Festival of the Ned Ensemble,<br />
in the Auditorium Celesti in Desenzano, will include the<br />
premiere of Novembre dei vivi, melologue for reciting<br />
voice and piano on a text by Marco Ongaro, with Paolo<br />
Valerio, reciting voice, and Maurizio Baglini, piano.<br />
Mannucci speaks about the new piece: «The curse of<br />
the Sibyl, immortal and forever aging, is the photograph<br />
of the new western era, that of forced survival, of<br />
resistance to diseases that are increasingly less<br />
definitive, always possible to postpone in the illusion of<br />
an eternity that must not pass through death. The<br />
November of the dead, with its fog deceived by a sun<br />
that protracts the fine season beyond its time, becomes<br />
that of the living and reflects the uncertain condition of<br />
the long-living now precluded from the splendour of a<br />
youth pushed beyond its usual term. The essential<br />
dilemma between procreation and sterility, between<br />
balance and imbalance, having arrived at the age of<br />
consumption after all the preventive measures have<br />
played out their period of competence, now explodes,<br />
to the amazement of the survivor who clings to a<br />
longevity protracted in polemic with the natural period of<br />
fertility assigned to the living. The wish to reflect on the<br />
ascent of an agony, or the descent into hell of a<br />
persistence that begs to end in the necessary rebirth,<br />
necessary for death just as death is for a new<br />
beginning. The bodies move away and are replaced by<br />
5 th Festival of the Ned Ensemble<br />
The 5 th Festival of the Ned Ensemble will take place<br />
between November 2012 and March 2013 in<br />
collaboration with the Concert Season “Città di<br />
Desenzano”, of which Mannucci is the artistic director.<br />
The current edition will be more ambitious and<br />
purposeful, thanks to the well-disposed support of the<br />
Cultural director of the municipality of Desenzano<br />
Antonella Soccini and the mayor Rosa Leso. The<br />
peculiarity of the Festival is that each concert will<br />
include the work of a contemporary composer in order<br />
to help the public to extend their knowledge of new<br />
Ivan Vandor<br />
With an Extra Theme<br />
I<br />
van Vandor’s new chamber work will be premiered on<br />
November 12 at the Teatro Olimpico, during the<br />
season of the Accademia Filarmonica Romana. The<br />
new Klavierquartett for violin, viola, cello and piano was<br />
written in 2011 for the Quartetto Klimt, dedicatees of the<br />
piece, who will give the work its premiere in Rome.<br />
The composer tells us: «The formal structure follows<br />
tradition for it is based on the two-themed “Sonata form”<br />
(the second theme taking its inspiration from a Jewish<br />
melody), but with the addition of a summarizing coda<br />
that also contains a third element». This Autumn<br />
Vandor’s In memoriam Tadeusz Moll can be heard in<br />
two versions: for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello and<br />
piano on October 26 in the Palazzo della Cultura in<br />
Latina during the Festival Pontino di Musica, Incontri<br />
others that are ever less pertinent, the<br />
organic structures and the spectres are<br />
subjected to repair while the balance of a<br />
life clashes with the uncertainty of its<br />
length, with the mirage of an infiniteness<br />
permeated with the probability of a lottery.<br />
Those who are missing from the roll-call<br />
in the new season, who abandon the<br />
stage willingly or unwillingly, suggest a<br />
sense of prematurity in those that remain,<br />
a vain impulse to move the frontier of a<br />
nature that instead imposes deadlines, sonorous and<br />
sudden like the proverbial tolling of the bell. The<br />
recreative landscape echoes with the empty spaces left<br />
by the departed, like a cemetery camouflaged as the<br />
rented space of a Summer bar, and the new resilient<br />
question themselves about the perimeter of the prison,<br />
about its extension and its true field, between the<br />
perceivable and the remote beyond. Even love has the<br />
ephemeral taste of an aperitif repeated without<br />
enthusiasm, without the inebriation of one time.<br />
Composed between the end of 2011 and the start of<br />
2012, fruit of a lively association with Marco Ongaro<br />
now confirmed through a lasting collaboration,<br />
Novembre dei vivi is a contemporary melologue, an<br />
artistic reflection that, between poetic and musical<br />
creation, attempts to intensify reciprocally the sense of<br />
the one and the other towards a deeper existential<br />
meditative dimension. The act of composition triggers<br />
an indissoluble bond with the text through the<br />
interaction of a double dramaturgy, musical and scenic,<br />
a bond organized metrically by the rhythmic<br />
architecture provided by the word which generates<br />
sounds, harmonic fields, agglomerates of rhythms and<br />
timbres. Meaning and sound thus lead a “double life” in<br />
a horizontal and vertical duet traversing a spectrum of<br />
an event that is at once concrete and abstract, emotive<br />
and intellectual».<br />
music. The featured artists will include names such as<br />
I Virtuosi Italiani, the duo Silvia Chiesa and Maurizio<br />
Baglini, the duo Roberto Fabbriciani and Massimiliano<br />
Damerini, the Quartetto Prometeo, Giorgio Gaslini<br />
with Laura Conti and the Ned Ensemble. The<br />
contemporary works will include, among others,<br />
Giorgio Colombo Taccani’s Restless White, Goffredo<br />
Petrassi’s Romanzetta, Ivan Fedele’s Palimpsest, 4 th<br />
string Quartet, and a monographic concert focusing<br />
on Giorgio Gaslini’s Recital Song Book.<br />
Internazionali di Musica Contemporanea, with the<br />
Divertimento Ensemble directed by Sandro Gorli; and<br />
for flute, clarinet, horn, violin, viola and cello on<br />
December 2 in the Sala Casella of the Accademia<br />
Filarmonica Romana, who co-produces the concert<br />
together with the Festival di Nuova Consonanza.<br />
Stefano Cardi will conduct the Freon Ensemble.<br />
Finally, Silences Horizons Espaces - Parte 1 for<br />
orchestra will be given its first performance in its<br />
definitive version on November 22 and 23 at the Teatro<br />
Savoia in Campobasso, with the Orchestra Stabile del<br />
Molise conducted by Franco Piersanti. The piece is the<br />
first part of a longer composition for orchestra in three<br />
movements still to be completed.<br />
Two melologues, one finished,<br />
the other in progress, at the<br />
centre of the composer’s creativity<br />
New chamber work at the<br />
Accademia Filarmonica Romana,<br />
performances at the Pontino and<br />
Nuova Consonanza Festivals<br />
Pagina da camera in prima<br />
assoluta, quasi<br />
15
A new critical edition and three<br />
close performances, in Germany<br />
and Italy, of a work for ensemble<br />
Monographic concert in<br />
Lugano featuring works<br />
of the last twenty years<br />
16<br />
Bruno Maderna<br />
A Rediscovery<br />
A<br />
new title, edited by Angela Ida De Benedictis, has<br />
been added to the project for the critical re-edition of<br />
the works of Bruno Maderna, directed by Mario Baroni<br />
and Rossana Dalmonte. The Concerto per pianoforte<br />
ed orchestra, long considered lost, belongs to the group<br />
of early works by Maderna involved in the series of<br />
(re)discoveries and surprising findings that have taken<br />
place in recent years. Until a few years<br />
ago our knowledge of the Concerto,<br />
written in 1942, was limited to a handful<br />
of documents and some instrumental<br />
parts, reputed to be the only traces<br />
remaining of the work. The lack of<br />
sufficient documentation therefore made<br />
it impossible to piece together a score.<br />
However, the discovery, over the last five<br />
years, of as many as three different<br />
examples of the score and a large<br />
number of instrumental parts, in different<br />
archives and places, progressively helped shed light on<br />
the genesis and fate of this work, today complete in all<br />
its parts. These findings have finally made it possible to<br />
prepare a critical edition, based on a quantity of<br />
exceptionally rich documents which, not uncommonly,<br />
offer unexpected variants. The editor writes: «The<br />
Concerto per pianoforte ed orchestra is a short but<br />
intense work, made up of three macro sections (Adagio<br />
- Allegro - Adagio) which follow each other without a<br />
Francesco Hoch<br />
Feminine Portrait<br />
T<br />
hree occasions to hear the music of Francesco Hoch<br />
in these months. On August 12, during the<br />
inauguration of an exhibition of Klaus Prior, the<br />
Municipality of Hagnau (Germany) hosted the Duo<br />
Hendrick Blumenroth in a performance of Su gentile<br />
invito for violin and cello. On September 22 in the<br />
Church of Santo Stefano in Tesserete (Switzerland)<br />
L’isola dell’amore for plucked string orchestra was<br />
played by the Orchestra a plettro M. e C. Terroni from<br />
Brescia, directed by Dorina Frati. Finally, on October<br />
11 in the Sala Metrò in Lugano and October 16 at the<br />
Teatro Studio Foce, in the same town, the monographic<br />
concert “…di gentile e femminile…” will take place,<br />
conceived as a meeting between Francesco Hoch’s<br />
music and the poetry of Maria Rosaria Valentini, the<br />
artwork of Samuele Gabai and the dance of Manuela<br />
Bernasconi and Francesca Sproccati. The concert will<br />
include a performance of Bicordo for voices and<br />
instruments; Imago, seven female self-portraits for<br />
female six-part vocal group and string quartet, on a text<br />
by Maria Rosaria Valentini in collaboration with the<br />
composer, played by the vocal ensemble Vox Altera<br />
and the string quartet I Ribelli directed by Massimiliano<br />
Pascucci; Su gentile invito, fourteen small invitations<br />
separated in space alternating between seven<br />
“melodies” and seven “accompaniments” for violin and<br />
cello, with the duo Piotr Nikiforoff and Màtyàs Major;<br />
Hommage - Omaggio all’amore (from the opera The<br />
Magic Ring) for female three-part vocal group, again<br />
with Vox Altera directed by Massimiliano Pascucci;<br />
Carlos Roqué Alsina<br />
Themen II for one percussionist and string orchestra<br />
can be heard on October 4 in the Auditorio Stelio<br />
Molo of the Radio Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, in<br />
collaboration with the Conservatorio della Svizzera<br />
Italiana, featuring Sakiko Yasui, percussion, and the<br />
break. The style and harmonic language show a strong<br />
influence of the post-romantics, of the study of Bartók<br />
and of Maderna’s early interest in the harmonic and<br />
post-tonal experiments of Stravinsky, Hindemith and<br />
Malipiero. Maderna’s attachment to tradition – and at<br />
the same time his desire to undermine its very roots –<br />
have rarely been so evident and analyzable as in this<br />
youthful work». This Autumn it is possible to hear<br />
Bruno Maderna’s Musica su due dimensioni for<br />
flute and magnetic tape during the Concertconference<br />
“Maderna e i nuovi percorsi del flauto<br />
nel secondo ’900” held by Roberto Fabbriciani on<br />
October 10 in Wellington (New Zealand), a<br />
performance that will be repeated by the same<br />
artist on October 18 at the Conservatory in<br />
Fermo. Three performances of Serenata n. 2 for<br />
eleven instruments will be given within a short<br />
space of time: on November 3 at the Mozart Saal<br />
of the Alte Oper Frankfurt, with the Ensemble<br />
Modern directed by Jean Deroyer, on November 9 at<br />
the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe, with the<br />
Badischen Staatskapelle directed by Ulrich Wagner,<br />
and again on December 5 in the Sala Santa Cecilia of<br />
the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, with<br />
Michael Boder directing the Ensemble Modern. Finally,<br />
on December 16 in the Sale Apollinee of the Gran<br />
Teatro La Fenice, Lina Uinskyte will play Widmung for<br />
violin.<br />
Musica per Samuele Gabai (from Frammento<br />
d’epitaffio) for cello solo, with dance and projections of<br />
paintings by Samuele Gabai, performed by Matyas<br />
Major, cello, and the dancers Manuela Bernasconi and<br />
Francesca Sproccati; Stra… dire (from Dire, due<br />
briciole da “Oltre il postmoderno” ) for soprano, with<br />
dance, performed by Barbara Zanichelli, soprano,<br />
Manuela Bernasconi and Francesca Sproccati. The<br />
composer introduces the programme of this concert:<br />
«Theatrical gesture, scenic movements, projected<br />
images, poetic texts and dance all dialogue in the<br />
various moments of the programme with the music of<br />
my pieces written over the last twenty years. The<br />
musical part is permeated by two main aspects,<br />
“kindness” and the “feminine”: the drama of the image<br />
of women used for advertising in Imago, stimulated by<br />
the poetic text of the writer Maria Rosaria Valentini; the<br />
kindness of the mutual invitations between the two<br />
protagonists to play together, to dialogue or frolic in Su<br />
gentile invito; the discerning attempt of a group of<br />
women to suggest love as the last chance for a<br />
therapeutic route in Hommage - Omaggio all’amore; the<br />
mysterious solidity of women in maternity in Musica per<br />
Samuele Gabai, inspired by some paintings of the artist<br />
Gabai and reinforced by the addition of dance; the<br />
linguistic-scenic play of the female voice in Stra... dire,<br />
in a tight dialogue with the two jubilant dancers. The<br />
Bicordo, F.H., at the start and again at the end of the<br />
programme, should be considered the composer’s<br />
musical signature, in “diabolus”».<br />
Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana directed by Marc<br />
Kissoczy. The Klavierstück 7 (Trois Études) for piano<br />
will be played on October 27 in Moscow by Michel<br />
Bourdoncle.
Giorgio Gaslini<br />
Leaps and Dances<br />
O<br />
n September 9, in the Basilica of Bagno di Romagna,<br />
during the series “Natura in Concerto”, Roberto<br />
Fabbriciani, with the Orchestra Filarmonica di Roma<br />
conducted by Ezio Monti, played the Concerto for flute,<br />
strings, harp and percussion. The concerto is dedicated<br />
to Roberto Fabbriciani and will be added to a Cd, now<br />
being prepared by the label Tactus, featuring Giorgio<br />
Gaslini’s complete works for flute. The composer<br />
describes his new work: «The work is in three<br />
movements: the first starts in a mood marked “Solenne”<br />
and then suddenly frees itself and leaps into a<br />
“Moderato” that plays on the dialogue and contrast<br />
between the flute and the orchestra, not without<br />
moments of lyricism. The first movement ends with an<br />
arioso-like “Largo” which alludes to the opening<br />
“Solenne”. The second movement is a “Larghetto” in<br />
which an arioso, intimate mood prevails, finally evolving<br />
into an ethereal sonic space. The third movement is a<br />
“Vivace”. The orchestra is highly active and offers<br />
surprising harmonic and polyphonic solutions which<br />
involve the flute in fast virtuoso passages of<br />
convergence/divergence, conceding it an aria and then<br />
a solo cadenza. All comes back together in an “Allegro<br />
giocoso” that unexpectedly leaps into a neo-baroque<br />
Henri Pousseur<br />
Esprit de Géométrie<br />
A<br />
posthumous premiere for Henri Pousseur. This<br />
Autumn in Florence, during the Contempoartefestival,<br />
Huit petites géométries for an ensemble of seven<br />
players will be given its first performance by the<br />
Contempoartensemble directed by Mauro Ceccanti.<br />
It is the first official concert performance of one of the<br />
last pieces written by the Belgian Maestro. Originally<br />
conceived for the New York ensemble The Miniaturists,<br />
who commissioned pieces with no more than 100 notes,<br />
the score is accompanied by an introduction in which the<br />
composer on the one hand justifies his infraction of the<br />
rules of the commission, and on the other describes the<br />
architectonic plan of the new work. He explains: «Since<br />
these Huit petites géométries are made up of 4 pairs,<br />
each constituted in the same way (2 solos, 2 duos, 2<br />
quartets and 2 tutti) and since these 4 pairs are all<br />
distributed within the two halves of the long sequence<br />
(but in a different order), the whole could be considered<br />
like a cube: two opposing faces (for example the lower<br />
and upper) are “explored” in such a way that, if<br />
superimposed into a single face, all the sides and all the<br />
diagonals are expressed. One of the latter is also<br />
doubled into a three-dimensional diagonal that crosses<br />
the cube and joins the two opposing faces. The<br />
Marco Quagliarini<br />
Space and Time<br />
A<br />
new chamber work by Marco Quagliarini, will be<br />
presented during the Contempoartefestival in Florence<br />
this Autumn, with the Contempoartensemble directed by<br />
Mauro Ceccanti. Zone I for flute, clarinet, violin, cello<br />
and piano is described as follows by the composer:<br />
«This work was born from a reflection on compositional<br />
materials and structures which are associated with<br />
musical characters and figures ideally generated from<br />
the idiom of the four instruments (flute, clarinet, violin,<br />
cello – excluding the piano) of which the work makes<br />
use. Each of these materials generates a determined<br />
harmonic space, so that when the musical events<br />
change, the environments in which these events take<br />
place also change. The role of the piano in this context<br />
is almost concertante. At times it stands apart, openly<br />
contrasting the behaviour of the others, while at others<br />
it participates by inserting itself within the general<br />
discourse. This superimposition of characters and of<br />
theme in a finale of playful irony». A second new work,<br />
commissioned by the Ex Novo Ensemble, who will give<br />
the piece its premiere, can be heard on October 27 in<br />
the Sale Apollinee of the Gran Teatro La Fenice in<br />
Venice during the series “Ex Novo Musica”: Circular<br />
Dances for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and<br />
percussion. Gaslini explains: «The composition,<br />
dedicated to Claudio Ambrosini’s Ex Novo Ensemble, is<br />
in five movements of dances that, in character, come<br />
from distant and diverse cultures. The pieces are not<br />
separated, but are set in a single circular flow of music<br />
where each of the six instruments in the ensemble is<br />
highlighted. Habanera, Rumba, English Waltz, Blue<br />
Dance: five linked dances that lead, all together, into the<br />
circular and lively finale of a Circle Polka. A carousel ride<br />
that could start over again and repeat itself ad infinitum…<br />
at least in our imagination». Finally, on February 3 in the<br />
Auditorium Celesti in Desenzano, during the Concert<br />
Season “Città di Desenzano”, the 5 th Festival of the Ned<br />
Ensemble will include the Recital Song Book, sixteen<br />
songs on texts by the composer for female voice and six<br />
instruments. They will be performed by Laura Conti and<br />
the Ned Ensemble directed by Andrea Mannucci.<br />
instrumental ensemble consists of only seven players<br />
grouped into three families: two winds, three strings and<br />
two “keyboards”. But the above mentioned groupings –<br />
(1 + 2 + 4 = 7) x 2 + 2 tutti = 4 x 7 – is exploited in a way<br />
that allows each musician to participate in 4 pieces,<br />
bringing about the maximum of contrasts between these<br />
brief sections. As regards the “squares” referred to in the<br />
titles of the pieces (carrés), these should be taken<br />
somewhat metaphorically, since they are made up of<br />
sides that correspond to intervals of “pitch” (that is,<br />
of frequency) of different sizes». The Huit petites<br />
géométries are presented in this order: 1. Quadruple<br />
carré de 5 for cello or bass clarinet; 2. Double carré de 7,<br />
hélicoïdal for ensemble; 3. Triangles engrenés for<br />
piccolo, vibraphone, Bb clarinet or cello, and marimba;<br />
4. Sextuple et quintuple carrés de 3 for violin and<br />
marimba; 5. Cube de 5 moins cube de 3 for clarinet and<br />
string trio; 6. Hypercubes de 2 et 3, imbriqués for<br />
vibraphone; 7. Tétraèdres en famille(s) for flute in G and<br />
viola; 8. Bloc heptagonal en expansion for ensemble.<br />
Finally, Zeus joueur de flûtes for flute and electronics will<br />
be performed on October 4 in Wellington (New Zealand)<br />
by Roberto Fabbriciani, co-author of the piece with Henri<br />
Pousseur.<br />
environments leads, in the finale (after a paroxysmal<br />
crescendo and a brief piano cadenza), to an annulment<br />
of the sound and a consequent silence. The coda, in<br />
fact, like a sort of farewell, summarizes in just a few<br />
entries all the characters that make up the whole work.<br />
Any technical or aesthetic consideration on this work<br />
cannot but mention the aspect of time. All the elements<br />
of the music are free forms in transition from one<br />
temporal state to another. This allows me to project onto<br />
the time-screen two types of temporal qualities: the socalled<br />
“measure time” resulting from the succession of<br />
always equal rhythmic segments and the “subjective<br />
duration” which expresses itself freely and elusively<br />
through polyrhythms. The composition thus becomes a<br />
counterpoint of these two temporal experiences, as well<br />
as a continuous play of moods that alternate in an ever<br />
new and unpredictable way».<br />
Two instrumental premieres<br />
revisit illustrious forms of<br />
western music<br />
The Contempoartefestival<br />
presents a “miniaturist” work<br />
for ensemble three years after<br />
the composer’s death<br />
“Counterpoint of<br />
temporal experiences”<br />
in a new chamber work<br />
Pagina da<br />
camera in<br />
17
Multimediality at the centre<br />
of the composer’s research<br />
Prestigious recognition with an<br />
international award for the<br />
composer’s orchestral work<br />
First edition in modern times<br />
of a significant anthology of<br />
studies by one of the most<br />
eminent teachers of the 19 th<br />
Century<br />
18<br />
Michele Tadini<br />
Technology and Multimedia<br />
O<br />
n September 16 at the Théâtre des Arbalétriers in<br />
Mous (Belgium) the first performance was given of<br />
Ripples Never Come Back for violin, cello, karlax and<br />
electronics, commissioned by the Studio Art Zoyd et La<br />
Grande Fabrique. On October 11, 12 and 13 in<br />
Grenoble it will be possible to hear La terza luce (Phase<br />
1), a perception test in which Tadini and Angelo Guiga of<br />
the CEA Leti will exhibit their research for Experimenta<br />
2012, during the “Salon Arts, Sciences, Design” and in<br />
prevision of the concert scheduled for the “Rencontres”<br />
of the Biennale Arts-Sciences 2013. This year’s event<br />
foresees the elaboration of experiments on the relation<br />
between phenomena of light and sound, treating the<br />
former as if they were elements of the composing.<br />
The tests will be carried out in the form of rhythmic<br />
sequences of increasing complexity, allowing the<br />
experimentation of the various possible relations of<br />
synchronization and development. The two sides of the<br />
research: firstly, the search for a dictionary, for a<br />
grammar of the possible synaesthesias, for a “manual of<br />
counterpoint”. How and to what extent is it possible to<br />
cross the principles of musical counterpoint? And how<br />
freely? Secondly: the search for effects of “light beats”,<br />
with the vibrations of light and the frequencies of<br />
stroboscopic pulsation. La Terza Luce can open up new<br />
ways in our perception of listening and seeing, where<br />
light becomes sound, and sound light. A new state in<br />
which the eyes create their sound illusions and the ears<br />
vibrate to the shining of light. The audience is invited to<br />
test their perception with regards to different<br />
compositional principles applied to the relation between<br />
sound and light. On November 8 and 9 in Glasgow a<br />
performance of Justò Janulytò’s Sandglasses will be<br />
given, for which Tadini prepared the electronic part.<br />
Javier Torres Maldonado<br />
Brandenburg Prize<br />
I<br />
n June Javier Torres Maldonado was awarded the<br />
prestigious “Da Capo” International Prize of the<br />
Brandenburger Biennale. The composer prevailed over<br />
245 participants from 38 different countries with his<br />
Esferal for six orchestral groups and electronics,<br />
Obscuro etiantum lumine for violin and three orchestral<br />
groups and Ex abrupto for three instrumental groups, a<br />
pianist and a percussionist. One of these three large<br />
orchestral works will be played by the Brandenburger<br />
Symphoniker during the next edition of the Festival.<br />
On August 30 the Radio programme Itinerarios (City<br />
of Mexico), presented by the poet and music critic José<br />
Manuel Recillas, dedicated a retrospective to the<br />
composer following his winning of the “Da Capo” prize.<br />
Recent performances of his music include Alborada for<br />
soprano saxophone, played by Jorge Hoyo on August<br />
Matteo Carcassi<br />
From November 20 to 25 the Teatro Studio in Milan will<br />
be the venue for Turing, a Staged Case History, a<br />
multimedia action on a project and with the direction of<br />
Maria Elisabetta Marelli, an AGON production, with video<br />
by Claudio Sinatti, music by Michele Tadini, Sandro<br />
Mussida, Pietro Pirelli and Giorgio Sancristoforo,<br />
informatic-technological implementation and live<br />
electronics by Massimo Marchi, sound engineer Hubert<br />
Westkemper and scientific consultant Giulio Giorello.<br />
This year in fact is the centenary of the birth of Alan<br />
Turing, a British genius of mathematics, logic and<br />
cryptanalysis, considered one of the fathers of<br />
informatics. His thought, the underlying development and<br />
logic and his research principles, are combined in a<br />
multimedia spectacle. The actor, an ensemble of<br />
computers, and the video are the characters on stage.<br />
There is no plot or classical interplay, no linear narration,<br />
just sound, music, images, movement, technology,<br />
informatics, in continuous live interaction: languages<br />
equally, or more valid than the actual word to<br />
communicate what according to Turing was the essence<br />
of mathematical thought: «a combination of two skills:<br />
intuition and invention». On December 5 the Sala<br />
Sinopoli of the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome<br />
will host a performance of K_446, concerto for 60 guitars<br />
and 20 basses, with the guitar soloist Stef Burns. In<br />
August, for the inauguration of the exhibition of musical<br />
instruments at the Palazzo Comunale in Pampanato<br />
(CN), during the Festival dei Saraceni, Tadini created the<br />
sound installation named Quartetto. Finally, the Festival<br />
MITO Settembre Musica in Milan included, on<br />
September 18 in the Church of San Maurizio at the<br />
Monastero Maggiore, a performance of Hands for guitar,<br />
with Luigi Attademo.<br />
8 at the Escuela de Artes Musicales of the University of<br />
Costa Rica in San José, and Huayra Yana for bass<br />
flute, a new version of the work for bass flute and<br />
electronics of 2003, played by Ine Vanoereven on July<br />
2 in the Auditorium of the Conservatory in Lugano.<br />
Espira IV for recorder, bass clarinet, violin and cello<br />
was given its first performance on May 18 at Villa<br />
Elisabeth in Berlin by the XelmYa Ensemble (Sylvia<br />
Hinz, recorder, Alexa Renger, violin, Marika Gejrot,<br />
cello, and Antonio Rosales, bass clarinet), who<br />
commissioned the piece, in a programme that also<br />
included the Art of the fugue; finally on May 25 the<br />
Festival “DI_stanze” in Catania included a preliminary<br />
version of Toglie alle stelle gli splendori acquisiti e<br />
accidentali, an acousmatic composition in progress.<br />
The Rossini of the Guitar<br />
E<br />
SZ is publishing a Scelta di studi per chitarra by<br />
Matteo Carcassi (Florence 1792 - Paris 1853) edited by<br />
Fabio Ardino, responsible for the selection, revision and<br />
fingering of this collection. In 1810 Carcassi, who with<br />
Carulli was among the most distinguished guitar<br />
virtuosos of the early 19th Century, he embarked, like his<br />
contemporary Rossini, on an international career as a<br />
concert artist, which he combined with his work as<br />
composer, teacher and researcher: among other things<br />
he was central to establishing the correct position for<br />
playing the guitar, which is still acknowledged today in all<br />
academic circles. Similarly to Rossini, Carcassi too<br />
moved to Paris, where he stayed till his death. Until<br />
today the modern editions of his work were limited to the<br />
Method Op. 59 and the collection of 25 Studies Op. 60;<br />
this new publication aims to bridge this serious gap in the<br />
guitar repertory by proposing a collection of studies<br />
taken from several sources, not only for teaching<br />
purposes. The choice of pieces has taken into account<br />
both their didactic and aesthetic value, taking full<br />
advantage of the teaching background of the editor, who<br />
has arranged the selected pieces in order of increasing<br />
difficulty. The collection is aimed in particular at students<br />
in their first years of study, a fundamental period in their<br />
instrumental training. Studying the work of Carcassi<br />
therefore makes it possible to gain a complete overview<br />
of the repertory from a technical and musical point of<br />
view. The revision remains faithful to the original text, the<br />
only addition being that of the fingering.
First First World Perform Per<br />
First Prime First World esecuzioni World Performances<br />
assolute<br />
OCTOBER<br />
Giorgio Colombo Taccani<br />
L’IMAGE OUBLIÉE<br />
for piano<br />
Rome, Teatro di Marcello, Festival delle Nazioni,<br />
October 1<br />
Adele D’Aronzo, piano<br />
Giorgio Colombo Taccani<br />
RESTLESS WHITE<br />
for solo flute<br />
Wellington (Nuova Zelanda), October 4<br />
Roberto Fabbriciani, flute<br />
Andrea Mannucci<br />
SOLO<br />
for solo flute<br />
Wellington (Nuova Zelanda), October 4<br />
Roberto Fabbriciani, flute<br />
Luigi Manfrin<br />
SURFACES... ALWAYS ELUDING<br />
for cello and baritone saxophone<br />
Olgiate Olona (Varese), Spazio Danseei, October 5<br />
Guido Boselli, cello<br />
Marco Bonetti, baritone saxophone<br />
Raffaele Grimaldi<br />
PRIMAL (Hypnagogical Extended Space)<br />
for one percussionist<br />
(Commission by La Biennale di Venezia)<br />
Venice, La Biennale, 56° Festival Internazionale di<br />
Musica Contemporanea, Teatro alle Tese,<br />
October 9<br />
Simone Beneventi, percussions<br />
Michele dall’Ongaro<br />
QUARTETTO N. 6<br />
(Commission by Milano Musica)<br />
Milan, Festival di Milano Musica, Auditorium San<br />
Fedele, October 10<br />
Quartetto di Cremona<br />
Marco Momi<br />
ICONICA IV<br />
for string trio, flute, clarinet, prepared piano<br />
and live electronics<br />
(First Italian performance)<br />
Venice, La Biennale, 56° Festival Internazionale di<br />
Musica Contemporanea, Teatro Piccolo Arsenale,<br />
October 10<br />
Ex Novo Ensemble<br />
Christophe Bertrand<br />
DALL’INFERNO<br />
for flute, viola and harp<br />
Venice, La Biennale, 56° Festival Internazionale di<br />
Musica Contemporanea, Teatro Piccolo Arsenale,<br />
October 10<br />
Ex Novo Ensemble<br />
Giovanni Verrando<br />
GRAMMATICA DELL’INARMONICO<br />
for amplified ensemble and electronics<br />
Milan, Associazione Musica/Realtà, Conservatorio<br />
G. Verdi, October 11<br />
Ensemble Risognanze<br />
conductor: Tito Ceccherini<br />
Christophe Bertrand<br />
OKHTOR<br />
for orchestra<br />
(First Italian performance)<br />
Venice, La Biennale, 56° Festival Internazionale di<br />
Musica Contemporanea, Teatro alle Tese,<br />
October 12<br />
Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR<br />
conductor: Michel Tabachnik<br />
Alessandro Solbiati<br />
LE SEI CORDE DI NICOLÒ<br />
for guitar<br />
(First performance of the IV Movement)<br />
Genoa, Casa Paganini, October 12<br />
Luigi Attademo, guitar<br />
Alessandro Solbiati<br />
DÉESIS<br />
for violin and organ<br />
Piove di Sacco (Padova), Chiesa di San Rocco,<br />
October 12<br />
Lina Uinskyte, violin<br />
Francesco Filidei, organ<br />
Marco Momi<br />
CINQUE NUDI<br />
for saxophone and Midi controller<br />
(Recording session - Commission by Radio France<br />
for the series of transmissions “Alla breve”)<br />
Paris, Radio France, October 18<br />
David Brutti, saxophone<br />
Alessandro Solbiati<br />
SINFONIA TERZA<br />
for orchestra<br />
(First Italian performance)<br />
Florence, Festival Play It!, Teatro Verdi, October 18<br />
Orchestra della Toscana<br />
conductor: Fabio Maestri<br />
Nicola Sani<br />
SEASCAPES III “Caieta”<br />
for orchestra<br />
(Commission by ORT)<br />
Florence, Festival Play It!, Teatro Verdi, October 19<br />
Orchestra della Toscana<br />
conductor: Francesco Lanzillotta<br />
Giorgio Colombo Taccani<br />
DURA ROCCIA<br />
for bassoon and string orchestra<br />
(Commission by ORT)<br />
Florence, Festival Play It!, Teatro Verdi, October 19<br />
Paolo Carlini, bassoon<br />
Orchestra della Toscana<br />
conductor: Francesco Lanzillotta<br />
Eric Maestri<br />
LA VISIONE DELLE COSE<br />
for ensemble and electronics<br />
(Commission by Ensemble Vortex)<br />
Strasbourg, Without Cage - Manifeste de Musique<br />
de Demain, October 19<br />
Ensemble Vortex<br />
Eric Maestri, electronics<br />
Pasquale Corrado<br />
LUX DAY OFF<br />
for violin, cello, doublebass and piano<br />
Verona, Conservatorio “E.F. Dall’Abaco”,<br />
Auditorium Montemezzi, Laboratorio sulla prassi<br />
esecutiva della Musica Contemporanea,<br />
October 19<br />
Lucia Zanela, violin<br />
Eleuteria Arena, cello<br />
Claudio Borolomai, doublebass<br />
Adriano Ambrosini, piano<br />
conductor: Andrea Mannucci<br />
Giorgio Colombo Taccani<br />
LYBRA<br />
for baryton<br />
Ariccia (Roma), Palazzo Chigi, October 20<br />
Jessica Horsley, baryton<br />
Aureliano Cattaneo<br />
BLUT<br />
for trio (saxophone, percussion, piano) and<br />
orchestra<br />
Donaueschingen, Donaueschinger Musiktage,<br />
October 21<br />
Trio Accanto<br />
SWR Sinfonie Orchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg<br />
conductor: François-Xavier Roth<br />
Nicola Sani<br />
NO LANDSCAPE<br />
for piano and live electronics<br />
(Commission by Ex Novo Ensemble)<br />
Venice, Ex Novo Musica, Gran Teatro La Fenice,<br />
Sale Apollinee, October 21<br />
Aldo Orvieto, piano<br />
Alvise Vidolin, live electronics and sound<br />
engineering<br />
Vittorio Montalti<br />
LABYRINTHES<br />
for bass flute and electronics<br />
(Commission by Ex Novo Ensemble)<br />
Venice, Ex Novo Musica, Gran Teatro La Fenice,<br />
Sale Apollinee, October 21<br />
Daniele Ruggieri, flute<br />
Alvise Vidolin, sound engineering<br />
Stefano Gervasoni<br />
FOLIA (Homage to Aldo Clementi)<br />
for solo violin<br />
Latina, Festival Pontino di Musica, Incontri<br />
Internazionali di Musica Contemporanea,<br />
Palazzo della Cultura, October 25<br />
Lina Uinskyte, violin<br />
Aldo Clementi<br />
ARIA (DOWLAND)<br />
for female voice, viola da gamba and lute<br />
(First Italian performance)<br />
Latina, Festival Pontino di Musica, Incontri<br />
Internazionali di Musica Contemporanea, Palazzo<br />
della Cultura, October 25<br />
Livia Rado, soprano<br />
Silvia De Maria, viola da gamba<br />
Elena Casoli, lute
Aldo Clementi<br />
OTTO FRAMMENTI<br />
Canoni su una “Ballade” di Charles d’Orléans<br />
sul tema de “L’homme armé”<br />
for soprano, countertenor, viola da gamba, lute<br />
and organ<br />
(First complete performance of the definitive<br />
version)<br />
Latina, Festival Pontino di Musica, Incontri<br />
Internazionali di Musica Contemporanea, Palazzo<br />
della Cultura, October 25<br />
Livia Rado, soprano<br />
Alessandro Giangrande, countertenor<br />
Silvia De Maria, viola da gamba<br />
Elena Casoli, lute<br />
Filippo Perocco, organ<br />
conductor: Marco Angius<br />
Giorgio Gaslini<br />
CIRCULAR DANCES<br />
for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and<br />
percussions<br />
(Commission by Ex Novo Ensemble)<br />
Venice, Ex Novo Musica, Gran Teatro La Fenice,<br />
Sale Apollinee, October 27<br />
Ex Novo Ensemble<br />
Martino Traversa<br />
RED<br />
for solo violin<br />
Parma, Festival Traiettorie, Casa della Musica,<br />
October 31<br />
Hae-Sun Kang, violin<br />
NOVEMBER<br />
Malika Kishino<br />
MONOCHROMER GARTEN IV<br />
for 30-string koto<br />
Tokyo, Tokyo-shohken Hall, November 3<br />
Shuretsu Miyashita II, 30-string koto<br />
Federico Gardella<br />
CINQUE CORI NOTTURNI SOTTO LA COSTA<br />
for alto flute<br />
Riva presso Chieri (Turin), Rive Gauche Concerti,<br />
November 3<br />
Annamaria Morini, alto flute<br />
Andrea Mannucci<br />
NOVEMBRE DEI VIVI<br />
Melologue for reciting voice and piano on a text<br />
by Marco Ongaro<br />
Desenzano, V Festival del Ned Ensemble, Stagione<br />
Concertistica “Città di Desenzano”, Auditorium<br />
Celesti, November 4<br />
Paolo Valerio, reciting voice<br />
Maurizio Baglini, piano<br />
Ivan Vandor<br />
KLAVIERQUARTETT<br />
for violin, viola, cello and piano<br />
Rome, Accademia Filarmonica Romana, Teatro<br />
Olimpico, November 12<br />
Quartetto Klimt<br />
Nicola Sani<br />
DEUX, LE CONTRAIRE DE “UN”<br />
for ensemble<br />
(Commission by Ensemble Orchestral<br />
Contemporain)<br />
Nice, Festival Manca, Théâtre National de Nice,<br />
November 13<br />
Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain<br />
conductor: Mark Foster<br />
Nicola Sani<br />
UN SOUFFLE LE SOULÈVE, LES DUNES DU<br />
TEMPS<br />
for alto flute and digital support<br />
Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore, I Concerti della<br />
Normale, November 21<br />
Roberto Fabbriciani, flute<br />
Walter Neri, sound engineering<br />
Ivan Vandor<br />
SILENCES HORIZONS ESPACES - Part 1<br />
for orchestra<br />
(First complete performance of the definitive<br />
version)<br />
Campobasso, Teatro Savoia, November 22<br />
Orchestra Stabile del Molise<br />
conductor: Franco Piersanti<br />
Valerio Sannicandro<br />
SUTRAS<br />
for ensemble and electronic sounds<br />
Cottbus, Staatstheater Cottbus, 30 November<br />
Philharmonisches Orchester Cottbus<br />
Valerio Sannicandro, sound projection<br />
conductor: Will Humburg<br />
Michele dall’Ongaro<br />
VINGT ANS APRÈS…<br />
for ensemble<br />
Firenze, Contempoartefestival, November [date to<br />
define]<br />
Contempoartensemble<br />
conductor: Mauro Ceccanti<br />
Henri Pousseur<br />
HUIT PETITES GÉOMÉTRIES<br />
for seven players<br />
Florence, Contempoartefestival, November [date to<br />
define]<br />
Contempoartensemble<br />
conductor: Mauro Ceccanti<br />
Marco Quagliarini<br />
ZONE I<br />
for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano<br />
Florence, Contempoartefestival, November [date to<br />
define]<br />
Contempoartensemble<br />
conductor: Mauro Ceccanti<br />
DECEMBER<br />
Federico Gardella<br />
SIRÈNES<br />
Chamber work in one act<br />
Libretto by Emmanuel Darley on a fragment by<br />
Licofrone<br />
(Preview of the 1 st and 3 rd scenes)<br />
Paris, Arcal - Compagnie Nationale de Théâtre<br />
Lyrique et Musical, December 3<br />
Dorothée Lorthiois, Sirène 1<br />
Chantal Santon, Sirène 2<br />
Caroline Meng, Sirène 3<br />
Benjamin Alunni, Ulysse<br />
Ensemble Cairn<br />
conductor: Guillaume Bourgogne<br />
direction: Jean De Pange<br />
Michele Tadini<br />
K_446<br />
Concert for 60 guitars, 20 basses<br />
Rome, Contemporanea, Auditorium Parco della<br />
Musica, Sala Sinopoli, December 5<br />
Stef Burns, guitar soloist<br />
Ivan Fedele<br />
FÜNFZEHN BAGATELLEN<br />
for violin, cello and piano<br />
Bilbao, Fundación BBVA, December 11<br />
(Commission by Fundación BBVA)<br />
Trio Arbós<br />
Stefano Gervasoni<br />
PRÉ PARÉ - PRÉ ÉPURÉ<br />
from the cycle: “Prés” for piano<br />
Venice, Ex Novo Musica, Gran Teatro La Fenice,<br />
Sale Apollinee, December 16<br />
Aldo Orvieto, piano<br />
Stefano Gervasoni<br />
SONATINEXPRESSIVE<br />
for violin and piano<br />
Venezia, Ex Novo Musica, Gran Teatro La Fenice,<br />
Sale Apollinee, December 16<br />
Lina Uinskyte, violin<br />
Aldo Orvieto, piano<br />
Alessandro Solbiati<br />
BIANCO - V movimento da “Crescendo”<br />
Otto brevi brani in forma di studio<br />
per orchestra da camera<br />
Milan, Teatro Dal Verme, December 16<br />
Orchestra I Piccoli Pomeriggi Musicali di Milano<br />
conductor: Daniele Parziani<br />
JANUARY<br />
Valerio Sannicandro<br />
WINDSTRÖME<br />
per orchestra<br />
Cottbus, Staatstheater Cottbus, January 11<br />
Philharmonisches Orchester Cottbus<br />
conductor.: Marc Niemann<br />
Marco Momi<br />
ICONICA II<br />
for ensemble<br />
ICONICA III<br />
for six voices on a text by Filippo Farinelli<br />
ICONICA IV<br />
for string trio, flute, clarinet, prepared piano and<br />
live electronics<br />
(First integral performance of the cycle “Iconica”)<br />
Paris, Ircam, Espace de Projection, January 13<br />
Solistes XXI<br />
Ensemble L’Itinéraire<br />
conductor: Rachid Safir<br />
live electronics: Ircam, Marco Momi<br />
Aureliano Cattaneo<br />
PAROLE DI SETTEMBRE - LIBRO I<br />
for countertenor and ensemble<br />
Genève, Saison Contrechamps, Radio de la Suisse<br />
Romande, Studio Ernest Ansermet, January 15<br />
Daniel Gloger, countertenor<br />
Ensemble Contrechamps<br />
conductor: Michael Wendeberg<br />
Alessandro Solbiati<br />
TO WHOM?<br />
for female soloist voice<br />
(First performance of the new version)<br />
Osaka, Nanko Sunset Hall, January 20<br />
Akiko Kozato, soprano<br />
Alessandro Solbiati<br />
EPOS<br />
for oboe (English horn) and string trio<br />
Lugano, Conservatorio, Jenuary 24<br />
Heinz Holliger, oboe<br />
Swiss Chamber Soloists<br />
ESZ<br />
Constantly updated, at the website www.esz.it<br />
you will find the complete performance list of our composers<br />
news EDIZIONI SUVINI ZERBONI<br />
Editore: Sugarmusic S.p.A. Galleria del Corso, 4 - 20122 Milano Tel. 02 - 770701 - E-mail: suvini.zerboni@sugarmusic.com - www.esz.it<br />
Direttore responsabile: Maria Novella Viganò - Responsabile del Settore Classica: Alessandro Savasta<br />
Redazione: Raffaele Mellace - Coordinamento di redazione: Gabriele Bonomo - Progetto e realizzazione grafica: Paolo Lungo - Traduzioni: Mike Webb<br />
Aut. del Tribunale di Milano n. 718 del 25-10-1991<br />
DISTRIBUZIONE IN OMAGGIO