Timbral Spaces Sound Labyrinths - Edizioni Suvini Zerboni

The series of quartets is
continued for Milano Musica, a
new chamber work celebrates
the Contempoartensemble
Roberto Fabbriciani
Roberto Fabbriciani plays two
of his own compositions: Suoni
per Gigi for flute and magnetic
tape on October 4 in Wellington
(New Zealand) and on October
18 at the Conservatory of
Fermo; Motion capture for
hyperbass flute elaborated
through motion capture and live
electronics on November 21 at
the Scuola Normale in Pisa,
with Walter Neri as sound
engineer.
10
Michele dall’Ongaro
For Sixteen Strings
O
n October 10 in the Auditorium San Fedele in Milan,
during the Milano Musica Festival, Michele dall’Ongaro’s
Quartetto n. 6 will be presented by the Quartetto di
Cremona. The composer describes the work: «The
Quartetto n. 6 is quite a short work that nevertheless
took longer to write than what it might seem when
listening to it. It all starts from a chorale (often the rough
copy of my work is simply a page with 3 or 4 chords
linked by criteria of harmonic tension that I have
elaborated over the years). This basic grid is
continuously interrupted, disturbed by processes that
assume figures that are apparently secondary (an
integral part of the vertical aspect) which are then
developed horizontally. The texture becomes elastic and
even marred by large flaws that put stress on its
integrity, setting its resistance to a hard test. And this is
why in the end everything gathers around a type of black
hole, a whirlwind that transports the material into
another dimension where everything changes, floats in a
limbo dense with amniotic liquid where the temptation to
sing and its negation cohabit in an apparent
complementary way until the final dissolution. This is the
only zone where the roles of the four instruments are
specialized within a writing that, unlike my other
quartets, transforms the group into a single 16-string
instrument». Paolo Petazzi comments: «The composer
does not feel the weight of the history of the most
illustrious genre in chamber music as limiting or
conditioning, also because he has no intention of
revisiting the genre in its historical formal characteristics,
but rather wishes to exploit the infinite and extraordinary
possibilities of writing for four strings. In the subdued
opening we immediately meet a determinant “character”:
after a few bars with held notes and isolated pizzicatos,
we hear notes rapidly repeated using a bowing
technique called jeté (thrown) in this case col legno,
because it involves making the bow bounce by
“throwing” it onto the string (in this case using the
wooden tip of the bow). Even without the jeté the
potentials of the figures based on repeated notes are
explored by changing such elements as registers,
thicknesses and lengths. After the subdued opening the
music builds up with tension until reaching a breaking
point. Other elements come into play, the discourse
opens up to strong contrasts and dramatic peaks. I won’t
try to describe every detail, but I would like to draw
attention at least to the final sections, where the
consequential logic of what goes before seems to make
way for surprising turns for the listener. Broad
arpeggiated figures invade the sonic space, often
involving all four players in virtuoso gestures which little
by little become out of phase, through the introduction of
divergent rhythms and meters and the use of harmonic
sounds. And while the machine breaks up, an intense
yearning for canto emerges. The second violin removes
itself from the vortex of the others, and is followed by the
Jean-Luc Hervé
On September 21 in Bilbao Amplitude for cello solo
was played by Séverine Ballon, soloist of the Ensemble
Sillages. The Ex Novo Ensemble will give the first
Italian performance of Réplique for five players and
electronics on October 10 at the Teatro Piccolo
Arsenale in Venice during the 56 th Festival
viola. The viola proposes a new cantabile idea (amid the
harmonic sounds of the other instruments); but this too
and the other successive attempts are blocked and
interrupted: there is no room for a prolonged melos like
that of the viola from which the Quartetto n. 5 took its
starting point». The Quartetto n. 5 for strings will be
played this Autumn by the Quartetto Bernini in
collaboration with the Associazione Roma Sinfonietta.
Vingt ans après... for flute, clarinet, piano, violin, viola
and cello, commissioned by the Contempoartensemble,
will also be played this Autumn during the
Contempoartefestival in Florence when the group will be
directed by Mauro Ceccanti. Dall’Ongaro explains: «The
title explicitly refers to the second episode of the exploits
of the three, or rather four, musketeers. And the
musicians of the ensemble too are actually heroes
because, like the musketeers, they defend the colours
not of their cousins beyond the Alps but rather the more
fragile banner of ars nova and especially of ars
novissima at the cost of sacrifices that only they, their
friends and families can really know in detail. A work,
then, that intends to offer thanks and best wishes for a
bright future. It is impossible then to write for the
Contempoartensemble (never did a name cause the
automatic corrector so much trouble!) without imagining
the protagonists in flesh and blood, without thinking of
the smiles, the enthusiasm and the musicality of the
members of the Ceccanti family and their partners. So
writing this short piece was a way of passing time in
their company and thus expressing my deepest
gratitude for their worthy mission». Michele dall’Ongaro
is the composer featured in the 2012 season of the
Ensemble Musagète during the series “Pomeriggio tra
le Muse”, held in the Gallerie d’Italia in Palazzo Leoni
Montanari in Vicenza. The programme includes on
September 9 the Invenzione a due voci n. 2 for flute
and clarinet, September 30 Trenodia for flute, clarinet
and violin, October 7 the Notturno n. 1 for violin, cello
and piano, and on December 9 Berceuse in frantumi for
two violins. On September 12 the Festival MITO
Settembre Musica in Turin included Ad libitum for flute,
clarinet, violin, cello, piano and vibraphone, with the
Ensemble Antidogma. On October 19 at the Teatro
Verdi during the Festival Play It! the Orchestra della
Toscana conducted by Fabio Maestri will play Festschrift
for fourteen instruments. The Ex Novo Ensemble will
perform Zero for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano on
November 15 in Macerata, during the Stagione
Concertistica Associazione Musicale Appassionata, and
on November 25 in Pordenone, during the Festival
Internazionale di Musica Sacra. Finally, on December 2
Stefano Cardi will direct the Freon Ensemble in a
performance of Danni collaterali for cello and small
ensemble, in the Sala Casella of the Accademia
Filarmonica Romana, during the Festival di Nuova
Consonanza in Rome.
Internazionale di Musica Contemporanea. On October
25 in Vilnius (Lithuania) the Ensemble L’Itinéraire will
play Intérieur rouge for piccolo, clarinet, violin, cello and
piano. Finally, on December 8 at the Musik-Akademie
Basel Ein/aus for ensemble will be played by the
Ensemble Diagonale directed by Marcus Weiss.
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