You will listen to music written according to an aesthetic of “surprise”.
However, in order for there to be a “surprise”, it is necessary that the gap with the “normality” (what is expected) comes within a shared horizon of expectation. The game with the tradition – sometimes indulged, sometimes neglected – creates a dynamic which may be called my “style”, the form of my musical thought.
The horizon of these pieces ought to be called “narrative”, but this CD has not a proper story; there isn’t a “program music”. Music moves within an archipelago of meaning and aims to tell a possible, potential story, a situation that arises from an extra-musical inspiration; it proposes to express the affections of the soul as directly as possible, attempting to emancipate itself from pre-established paths, codified techniques, presumed historical necessities.
1) OTTAVIA
Inspired by the description of an Invisible City by Italo Calvino, Octavia is a city suspended over an abyss, through a network of ropes. The life of its inhabitants is driven by a desperate vitality, in the consciousness of the inevitable fall.
2) IL MIO MATTIN BRILLÒ
This composition is a reflection on death. Imagine a procession with Aida and Radamès in the afterlife (ideally it is a postlude to Verdi’s opera, mentioned in the title and inside the piece itself) in which the solo trumpet plays the role of the “Celebrant” and the orchestra become the Assembly.
3) SINFONIA DELL’ARIA
Within this symphony is showed my relationship with the element of air: contemplative. I lived in a seaside town for a few years; there I could see the effects of Air on nature – more evident than elsewhere. The Symphony of Air is the result of the observation of atmospheric phenomena and how they effect the human soul. The Introduction is a kind of reverie, focused on the subject that observes. Nuvole in viaggio [Travelling Clouds] is the first description of an event, a shot of the changing sky. Borèa is again a “subjective”, a reminiscence of the myth of the girl seduced and abducted by the wind. Tùrbine is again the description of an object: the storm (more joyful than tragic).
4) OK TROMBONE: GAME OVER
This piece is inspired by those rudimentary video games that appeared in Italy when I was a child. They were with sharp colours, very bright, and the unmistakable and obsessive sound: the “square wave”. The gamer was able to overcome the increasing difficulties with a skill acquired over time (experience), and an ability to improvise always renewed. This is what I ask to the soloist virtuoso, a performer/gamer of this piece/video game that also includes improvised parts.
5) RICERCARE III
The last composition is completely different. Written about fifteen years before the others. There is no extra-musical inspiration, and the narrative focuses mainly on the formal development of the piece. I breathed the score with mournfulness, almost a regret for a lost world I have not had the opportunity to meet directly.
Text: Alberto Cara
Translation: Theresa Williams