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Timbral Spaces Sound Labyrinths - Edizioni Suvini Zerboni

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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

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