Timbral Spaces Sound Labyrinths - Edizioni Suvini Zerboni

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Six premieres culminating in a collaboration with Heinz Holliger and a monographic Cd featuring the composer’s piano works Camillo Togni On October 31 in the Sale Apollinee of the Gran Teatro La Fenice in Venice, during the series “Ex Novo Musica”, Aldo Orvieto will play Ricercare op. 28 b for piano, in the context of a collaboration with the Fondazione Cini that foresees the recording of Camillo Togni’s piano works on the Naxos label. 4 Alessandro Solbiati Solo Timbres S ix premieres for Alessandro Solbiati over the coming months. Epos for oboe (cor anglais) and string trio will be given its first performance by Heinz Holliger and the Swiss Chamber soloists on January 24 at the Conservatory in Lugano, with repeat performances on January 25 at the Conservatory in Geneva, January 26 in the Grande Salle of the Hochschule der Künste in Zurich and January 27 at the Gare du Nord in Basel. The composer explains: «For several years I have had the honour of having a relation of friendship and strong syntony, both musical and personal, with Heinz Holliger, an extraordinary musician, performer and composer, but also a highly generous and open person. Three years ago he invited me to the Festival of Ittingen, for which I composed Und nun, for baritone and six instruments and it was splendid to have him as oboist of the ensemble. In successive meetings the idea was born to write a piece for oboe and string trio for him. The project stayed in my mind for a long time, then at the start of 2012 the third movement of Alfi, a piece for a total of seven instruments, but made up of three movements, each with different groupings, the last of which is for oboe and six instruments, provided me with a sort of starting point, a basic idea for Epos for oboe and string trio. The title is linked to the structure of the piece, which is strongly narrative and in some ways also “epic”. Two quite distinct parts are in strong contrast: in the first, lasting just over half the piece, very fast, at times frenetic, and highly dramatic, a very high oboe summons the three strings in the same high register, but they relentlessly fall in pitch, trying to drag down the oboe with them. The oboe tries to save itself from these dark depths by “launching” three brief situations characterized by lightness, dance and song, without succeeding and so falls into a zone of sound-noise. A sudden climax, made up of multiple sounds emitted like prolonged cries from the oboe and taken up harmonically by the strings, leads to a turning back to the heart of the register, onto an E which is the cardinal note of the whole work. The oboe becomes a cor anglais, the climate changes completely and a melodic line emerges able to involve the strings in various reverberations, until reaching a somewhat bewitching coda». In the same period, on January 20 in the Nanko Sunset Hall in Osaka, a new version of To Whom? for solo female voice, will be performed by Akiko Kozato. «The soprano», says Solbiati, «asked me for a piece for solo voice. I’m very fond of my To Whom?, which I wrote some years ago for Laura Catrani, and which Akiko herself has sung in the original version. So I thought of adding an initial movement to the piece, a sort of prologue, quite different. The original piece has substantially no text and involves a truly theatrical scene, as the singer has to move down among the audience while singing, choose a sort of “victim”, return to the stage, write a message on a sheet of paper and deliver it to the person concerned, all following a musical path that culminates with that action. In the new prologue the performer is “only singing”, stays on the stage, as if the splendid verse by Campana that slowly emerges («...e tu seguivi nell’aria la fresca incarnazione di un mattutino sogno...») makes her want to become an actress and a message-bearing character. On December 16 at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan Bianco, the 5th movement of Crescendo, eight short pieces in the form of a study for chamber orchestra, will be performed by Daniele Parziani conducting the Orchestra I Piccoli Pomeriggi Musicali di Milano, entirely made up of young musicians. The new work will be played in a Christmas concert and this, as always, provides a starting point. Solbiati explains: «The snow is white, candour is purity (and I’m thinking of Niccolò Castiglioni, to whom the work is dedicated), purity is, in the christian image, that of Mary, who provides the inspiration for the other pieces in the programme; but candour is light and the light is that of the crib in Bethlehem, since that message is still, today, extremely alive and deep. The polyrhythm of the descending lines of the crotales, vibraphone, celesta and violin harmonics (this is the technical hinge of the piece) gradually concentrates into a highly marked unison, which expands and then closes around the next unison, forming a vibrant sequence, which leads to a series of strokes which give rise to fast arabesques (the next technical hinge of the piece). Technical intentions and timbres unite to paint an image». On October 12, at Casa Paganini in Genoa, Le sei corde di Nicolò for guitar will be played by Luigi Attademo, part of the guitarist’s project around Paganini’s Ghiribizzi for guitar. Solbiati defines them as «album leafs with no particular common denominator, each made up of the simple statement of a musical idea; for each of Luigi’s performances I add a link to my chain of short guitar pieces. I’ve arrived at the fourth link, the fourth out of a total of six, once again decontextualizing it and making one of “my” figures an elementary motive of a Ghiribizzo». Still on October 12, in the Church of San Rocco in Piove di Sacco (PD), Lina Uinskyte and Francesco Filidei will play Déesis for violin and organ, postponed from last June on account of the earthquake that hit the Emilia region. Solbiati said this about his new work: «A charming ancient organ in a small church near Padua, a season of organ music lovingly organized by my friend the composer and organist Leonardo Polato, a very particular duo made up of my friends Lina Uinskyte and Francesco Filidei, both composer and organist: these are the starting points for a short, very personal and heartfelt piece. Déesis in ancient Greek means “prayer”. I thought I would contrast and continuously set against each other four “attitudes towards transcendence”, the obscure and tortuous sense of absence, the courageous and necessary tension, the doubt or rather the sensation of unattainability, and the ecstasy dreamed of or achieved for just an unstable instant. This, then is a confession adapted for a non “heroic” organ and a small, beautiful church». A first performance in Italy is scheduled for October 18 at the Teatro Verdi in Florence during the Festival Play It!: Sinfonia terza for orchestra will be played by the Orchestra Regionale Toscana conducted by Fabio Maestri. Among the other performances of music by Solbiati, the Festival Musique au Temple, at the Temple Protestant in Tours, included, on June 15, Sphynx for eight solo voices, with the Ensemble Vocal 2021 directed by Agnès Charles. I quattro punti for twelve cellos was played by the Nomos Ensemble on July 1 st at the Festival “Cello fan” in Callian (France), and on July 3 at the Festival D’Aujourd’hui à Demain in Cluny, and will be played again by the same group on October 6 at the Château de Blandy les Tours (Seine et Marne). On September 9 Akiko Kozato performed To Whom? for solo female voice at the Festival of Bellagio and Lake Como. On September 16 the pianist Emanuela Piemonti and the soprano Laura Catrani gave performances respectively of Fête for piano and To Whom? for solo female voice, in the park of Villa Tre Tetti in Montevecchia, during the final concert of the sculpture exhibition arranged by Giorgio Riva in the park. Luigi Attademo gave a partial performance of Le sei corde di Niccolò for guitar on September 18 in Milan during the Festival MITO and on September 29 in Cremona during the series Mondo Musica. On October 25 the Sonata Felix for violin and piano was played at the Festival Spazio Musica in Cagliari by the soloists of the New Made Ensemble (Raffaello Negri, violin, and Rossella Spinosa, piano), during a concert in collaboration with the New Made Ensemble and ESZ. Finally, on December 2 at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Turin, during the series Musiche in Mostra, the Trio Albatros will play Albatros for flute, violin and piano. Stradivarius have released a Cd dedicated to the piano music of Alessandro Solbiati, played by Emanuela Piemonti and Alfonso Alberti (Alessandro Solbiati, Piano Works, STR 33909). The Cd includes the Sonata seconda, the sixteen Interludi, Fête, Like as the Waves (for piano solo and duet), and Preludio. Finally, Euroarts has released a Dvd edited by Roberto Prosseda entitled Mendelssohn unknown, which will include a video of the complete performance of the Sonata Felix, played by Sonig Tchakerian and Roberto Prosseda at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza on June 11, 2009. From October Alessandro Solbiati will teach at the new department of Composition that will be opened at the Conservatory in Tours in collaboration with the adjacent Faculty of Musicology.
Stefano Gervasoni Invitation au voyage T his Autumn opens with a chamber premiere for Stefano Gervasoni: on October 25 the Incontri di Musica Contemporanea of the Festival Pontino will include, in the Palazzo della Cultura in Latina, Folia (Omaggio a Aldo Clementi) for violin, played by Lina Uinskyte, during a concert dedicated to the memory of Clementi. The composer introduces his new work as «a spiral wandering with an assured return home (therefore, a wandering without adventure), but a home that is always a little foreign (never completely felt as one’s “own”). A wandering that is “domestic” and ambiguous at the same time, in which the possibility of discovery – typical, and declared, of the adventure trip – is not excluded, but is reserved for the usual objects of a usual wandering, to which, with the surprise of a rediscovery or the deciphering of an enigma ever to be unveiled, the curiosity of the traveller is subjected. A traveller who is not adventurous but alert. In a play of repetitions, variants, micro structural development of an initial cell and of appearances of new elements to broaden the “walking radius” of the wayfaring composer, like that of two objects crystallized around the notes A and C that become increasingly more important, almost as if being transformed into a person encountered on a walk and in a moment of dialogue with her. A typical situation of pilgrimage or climbing a mountain, in which history or nature break off from everyday reality and allow us to build a deep relationship with a fellow traveller encountered momentarily perhaps by chance and that one is certain to meet again». After its first performance last September at the Festival Musica in Strasbourg on commission of Les Percussions de Strasbourg, the opera Limbus-Limbo, “apéro bouffe” in seven scenes for six percussionists, three soloists, three singers, three actors and live electronics, on a libretto by Patrick Hahn and directed by Ingrid von Wantoch Rekowski, now goes on tour. It can be seen on November 29 in Vernon, during the Automne en Normandie, on December 3 and 4 in Paris, at the Opéra Comique, and on December 15 at the Opéra de Reims during the festival Scène d’Europe. It will be performed by Juliet Fraser (Tina), soprano, Christopher Field (Bruno), countertenor, Gareth John (Carl), baritone, Corinne Frimas, Luc Schillinger and Charles Zevaco, actors, Olivier Darbellay, horn and alpine horn, Antonio Politano, flutes, Luigi Gaggero, cymbalom, Les Percussions de Strasbourg and Carmine Emanuele Cella, computer music designer and live electronics. On December 16 the series Ex Novo Musica in the Sale Apollinee of the Gran Teatro La Fenice, will include an evening entitled “Wanderung mit Stefano Gervasoni”. The violinist Lina Uinskyte and the pianist Aldo Orvieto play in a concert that features – with deliberate symmetry – three instrumental works by Stefano Gervasoni: the very recent Folia for violin, a triptych of piano pieces (Précieux for toy piano, Pré paré and Pré épuré, the latter two in their first performance) from the series Prés, work in progress, begun in 2008 that is now enriched by two new pieces, and the very recent Sonatinexpressive for violin and piano, commissioned by Ex Novo Musica 2012, this too in its first performance. The theme of the evening represents an invitation to move, to wander, to travel the way together. In a famous interview, the Hungarian composer György Ligeti, one of the important points of reference for Gervasoni, affirmed with an exemplary sense of irony that, if they really wanted to name a street in Budapest after him, it should be called: “wrong way street György Ligeti”. One of the recurring themes in the music of Gervasoni is precisely the idea of a “street” taken in a problematic sense: the “strada non presa” (“the street not taken”) (which is also a title of a work of his from 2001) or the street that “has nothing in front of it”. «The street», Gervasoni observes, «is also a labyrinth and proceeding without any goal: a metaphor of our times that is reflected in art with the collapse of aestheticideological paradigms». As far as his new works are concerned, Gervasoni describes his project for a book of Prés as being «divided into groups of three pieces (from one to three pages), thematically and/or musically related. Pré paré and Pré épuré, which should be separated by a Pré carré, constitute another of the triptychs of the second book. Pré paré (embellished meadow) and Pré épuré (denuded, treated, cleaned meadow) represent two antithetic and complementary views of the meadow taken metaphorically. One in which the grass species live together unchecked (by man) with other wild species, in a regime of luxurious happiness, anarchic or democratically natural (green as an image of multiple unity). The other, in which the hand of man has left its mark: in the selection of the grass species, reduced to one, and in the care of the surfaces, perfectly regular, uniform and monochrome, on the one hand; or in its impoverishment: the artificialization of the meadow, reduced to urban decor, until becoming arid due to drought (a “natural” meadow finds it increasingly difficult to survive by itself), dramatic evidence of climate change in which humans are certainly not without responsibility. In any case, an unhappy meadow, neither anarchic nor democratic. An image of externally imposed unity, depriving the green of its natural and joyful complexity». Regarding Sonatinexpressive (Inexpressive sonata – Expressive sonatina?), Gervasoni tells us: «The architectural development of the Sonata that sterilizes or dominates the expressive impulse of the small form; the intimacy of the album leaf, the most recurrent confession – and the desire to share it – for the impromptu, the romanza, the prelude; the strength or fragility of the emotions or the need for consolation in the intermezzo, the berceuse, the nocturne... Or else the fullness of emotion and elusiveness of the grammars that move the imagination and are inscribed in the charm and the discretion of a Sonatina? To allow oneself to “say”, but only microscopically, as from behind a veil, muted, so that the temptation to express and lyricize are not absolved but only averted, made to live alongside the desire to hold them back, to protect them, to allow them to renew themselves with even greater force. An indomitable force, not possible to crystallize, to sterilize into forms and manners that would show them in full, openly, reducing them for ever into discourse, emblem, surrogate of an active listening, for ever, which that force must each time seek out and rediscover... The dilemma, evoked by the title chosen for this piece, remains deliberately unresolved...». At the beginning of the new year Geneva will be a vital centre for the music of Gervasoni. The centenary of the Comédie de Genève will be celebrated with a series entitled “Constellation Musique Autour de 1913”, which interprets the year of foundation of the institution as a year emblematic of the start of modernity in all the arts, which in the field of music coincides with the historical premieres of the Sacre du Printemps and Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire, Debussy’s Jeux, and Webern’s Bagatelles op. 9. This consideration has led to the creation of a programme that, keeping Stravinsky in the background, investigates the mature 20 th Century through two composers that in many ways are distant from each other (anagraphically and stylistically): Pierre Boulez and Stefano Gervasoni, exponents of different generations able to offer «a different interpretation of this legacy and of contemporary sensibility». In this context the cycle of Poesie francesi reaches its conclusion and is completed by the Due poesie francesi di Luca for female voice and ensemble on texts by Ghérasim Luca and the world premiere of Due poesie francesi di Cheng for female voice and ensemble on texts by François Cheng, on February 4 at the Comédie in Geneva, with Barbara Zanichelli and the Ensemble Namascae, directed by William Blank. Gervasoni’s cycle of Poesie francesi based on texts written by authors whose mother tongue is not French, texts which the composer interprets by capturing all the semantic and sensitive wealth. Finally, Geneva again will feature in the tour taken by Dir - In dir for vocal sextet and string sextet, with the Ensemble L’Instant Donné and the vocal group Exaudi directed by James Week, on January 24 in Toulouse, January 27 in the Salle du Conservatoire in Geneva, January 28 in Lausanne, Utopia 1, and on January 29 in Berne. Travel as a source of inspiration for a new work, underlying metaphor for a monographic portrait, and a real itinerary of two important tours Matteo Franceschini On December 2 in the Sala Casella of the Accademia Filarmonica Romana, the Festival di Nuova Consonanza, in co-production with the Accademia Filarmonica, will include Sine qua non for piano and ensemble, with the Freon Ensemble directed by Stefano Cardi. 5
Page 1 and 2: Nicola Sani ESZnews Edizioni Suvini
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Page 7 and 8: Aldo Clementi Canonic Mosaic O n Oc
Page 9 and 10: Giovanni Verrando Rethinking Gramma
Page 11 and 12: Giorgio Colombo Taccani Solitary Vo
Page 13 and 14: Malika Kishino Sonic Garden A first
Page 15 and 16: Andrea Mannucci Melologues of Solit
Page 17 and 18: Giorgio Gaslini Leaps and Dances O
Page 19 and 20: First First World Perform Per First

Timbral Spaces Sound Labyrinths - Edizioni Suvini Zerboni

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