Avi Avital & Erin Helyard Program Guide | September 2022

Three works by Giovanni Sollima himself are
next up; the cellist balances his performing
life with that of a composer. The first of these
works is literally an Improvisation, drawing
on themes or fragments from traditional
tunes (from Sicily, the Balkans etc), or from
his own works, or from Bach’s Cello Suites...
Sollima describes it ‘a surprise moment in the
program’.
Federico II is a piece originally written for
string quartet as part of a 2001 project called
Viaggio in Italia (Italian Journey): one hour
of music for quartet/quintet and voice which
premiered at Carnegie Hall in New York.
Federico II is inspired by the controversial
13th-century figure of Friedrich Hohenstaufen
– Federico Ruggero in his native Italy – who
was King of Sicily (from the age of three!),
King of Jerusalem and Holy Roman Emperor,
ruling over a vast empire that stretched
through Italy, all the way north to Germany.
He lies buried in Palermo Cathedral. On the
one hand, he was a major patron of science
and the arts, a scholar, poet, composer and
architect (some of his buildings are truly
amazing, and many are still open today);
on the other, Dante Alighieri in the Divine
Comedy places him in Hell.
Alep (Pesce) is also born from a larger-scale
project. Sollima describes it as ‘essentially a
song, in an antique or folk style. Leonardo’s
Bestiary is a text that I love very much by
Leonardo da Vinci who, among all his codices,
discoveries, experiments, inventions and
paintings, had the time to write musical jokes,
rebus puzzles and games. The Bestiary is a
catalogue of animals, real and imaginary:
Leonardo gives them names – Alep is a fish –
and human characters, both the virtues and
the vices...’.
Dario Castello (1602–1631) worked mostly in
Venice: he held a position as violinist at
St Mark’s Basilica under Claudio Monteverdi.
His Sonata is followed by a Tarantella by
Sollima’s father, also a composer:
Eliodoro Sollima (1926–2000).
Avi Avital’s own thrilling arrangement of a
traditional Bulgarian tune may be familiar
to listeners who have attended his Musica
Viva Australia concerts previously – back
by popular demand! Girolamo Frescobaldi
(1583–1643), meanwhile, was a highly
influential Italian composer of mostly keyboard
music; he held the position of organist of
St Peter’s Basilica.
Concluding the program are two more folk
tunes; one Sephardic and one from Salento
(in the ‘heel’ of the Italian ‘boot’).
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11
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1. Iberian Peninsula | Traditional Sephardic
2. Turkey | Traditional Turkish
3. Macedonia | Traditional Macedonian
4. Naples, Italy | Domenico Scarlatti’s birthplace
5. Palermo, Sicily | Giovanni Sollima’s birthplace
6. Venice, Italy | Castello – Sonata No. 4
7. Marsala, Sicily | Eliodoro Sollima’s birthplace
8. Bulgaria | Bučimiš
9. St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City | Frescobaldi
– Canzona No. 3
10. Salento, Italy | Traditional Salento
11. Be’er Sheva, Israel | Avi Avital’s birthplace