Timbral Spaces Sound Labyrinths - Edizioni Suvini Zerboni

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.
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