Pietro Domenico Magri

Pietro Domenico Magri
He studied and graduated with honours at Accademia di belle arti in Brera and at Civica Scuola di musica C.

Abbado in Milan, he completed his clarinet studies with Prof Giovanni Iuliano in Milan, in Paris with Prof Guy Deplus and, finally, in Rome at C.I. He teaches history of art at the Liceo Statale G. Galilei in Caravaggio. As a musician of chamber music, he has performed in Italy at Teatro alle Erbe, Rosetum, Auditorium Asteria, Circolo della Stampa and la Piccola Scala in Milan, Teatro Ponchielli in Cremona, Verdi in Trieste and Donizetti in Bergamo and in France, at Rencontres Européennes de Clarinette and IRCAM in Paris. He has increased his repertoire as soloist and chamber musician of the XX century, devoting himself in particular to music for unaccompanied clarinet (Stravinskij, Stockhausen, Boulez, Denisov, Penderecky, Arnold, Carter), concentrating on Italian composers of the second half of XX century, in this CD. Such never-ending research work and interpretation of contemporary music has been carried on thanks to the highly valuable teachings of M° Giovanni Iuliano, first clarinet in the Ensemble Garbarino, a witness and outstanding performer of the New Italian Music movement, including memorable premieres that featured the direct participation of the composers themselves. The performance of such a contemporary repertoire requires from the classical performer an extreme suppleness in their execution, including a careful research of the instrument’s fullness of sound. Not only, it also requires an extraordinary instrumental technique, which is sometimes taken to the extreme limits of expertise. In these compositions contemporary clarinet writing is perfected and where ‘glissati, vibrati, frullati and soffiati’ alternate with vocalised sounds or multiphonics or are even obtained with the simultaneous percussion of the instrument’s keys or yet again resorting to the added alterations of the rising or descending quarter tones within modern day renewed semiography. Bruno Bettinelli, in the introduction of his renowned Studio da Concerto for solo clarinet, wrote, referring to the ‘Nuova Musica’ writing: “Questi effetti come vibrati di vario genere, voce più suono dello strumento, quarti di tono, quadricordi che stanno entrando nell’uso corrente, hanno tutti un preciso significato musicale e vanno quindi ‘interpretati’ e non considerati come sovrastrutture amorfe o come virtuosismi tecnici di maniera (“These effects, such as different kinds of vibrato, voice plus the sound of the instrument, quarter tones, tetrachords, are becoming more common. But they all have a precise musical meaning and are therefore ‘interpreted’ and not viewed as amorphous superstructures or as mannered technical virtuosity.”). The words of the Milanese composer confirm, therefore, that the exquisitely musical nature of these effects, represent further nuances available from the technical-expressive palette of the modern clarinet.