On August 17th, 2000, Franco Donatoni passed away. This CD is an affectionate homage to our “artistic father” but also to a friend we used to see in our youthful years, in the numerous Italian Academies and at the University of Bologna. In the Eighties and in the following years, it was normal for composers from all over the world to ask him for advice, and this happened to the five Italian composers represented in this CD and also to Hisatome: they happened to be together for two years, working in Via della Conciliazione in Rome, where the master courses for postgraduates of the Academy of Santa Cecilia took place. Surrounded by the fog of his cigar, or dining together at Borgo Pio, there always were constructive discussions on composition, which eventually led all of us to write and also to teach at various Conservatories. The dissemination of Donatoni’s thought later infected our Japanese colleagues represented in this CD, since he went frequently to Japan as an invited professor at the University of Tokyo, in order to teach and transmit his thought there just as he did in Italy. The idea for this project came to me when, as I happened to be teaching at the Aichi University of Nagoya and to be working with the students of my colleagues Yamamoto, Hisatome, Narimoto and Kobayashi, I felt myself very sympathetic to their languages and I discovered with great pleasure that Franco Donatoni’s music was among their compositional models. The discovery of these common roots led me to think how gratifying it could be to remember him from West to East, with a language which is not substantially different. After twenty years, our affection for the Maestro has not changed; rather it increased in all of us, because, with time, we developed a greater awareness about his teaching. Remembering him is a pleasure and an honour, because this brings us back to a unique season of our lives and also of the Italian musical culture.
By Gian Paolo Luppi
Ritratti d’Oriente
This is a series of Preludes written at the end of 2017. They constitue a collection of musical portraits of various Japanese composers and musicians met during his stay in Nagoya by the composer who has been teaching at Aichi University of the Arts and Music for several months. In each of these Preludes, the composer tries to describe the qualities and characteristics of his colleagues. In particular, the four pieces on this CD portray the four Professors of composition, some of whose works are also included in this CD.
Illuminated Windows II
Inspired by the lights of hotel windows. Viewing the hotel by night, there are windows with and without light, and the contrast looks like some kind of pattern. I took over 100 photos and analyzed the pattern. I applied them and derived from them the rhythm structure of my work. In those processes, however, my immediate concern was not whether or not my composition faithfully ‘mimics’ what I found in the analyses. My aim was to internalize what I found there, to develop my own interpretation, and to make it manifest.
Una Partenza dall’Europa
My study in Italy for two years renewed the perception of music I had in Japan. Since then, I have started thinking about my musical language and learning ideas about ethnic music including that of my own country. The title of this piece comes from that. The sound being prepared at the beginning consists of seven pitches (FACDHEsE), found in the monogram of Franco Donatoni and Hisatome. The motif of the first half of the piece refers to the Pigmies’ polyphony of Africa. The second half is a music produced by a distorted bass and sounding like a percussion instrument. Finally, by quoting a melody worshipping a Guru (Maestro) in North Indian music, i.e. “Vande Guru Deva”, I express my gratitude to Maestro Donatoni at the piece’s closure.
Autopoietic Motion
This work was inspired by autopoiesis, a concept in life science. Since living organisms continue to metabolize, it can be said that their bodies are constantly changing. I sought the truth of life by presenting this ever-changing state itself. And the wonderful pianist Kumi Uchimoto brought my notes to life with transcendental skill and excellent sensibility.
Canto senza parole
This piece is a transcription from the third movement of “À la recherche du texte perdu IV”, originally a piece for female choral composed by myself. When a piece is transcribed to a different medium, the music takes on a completely different aspect, and it reborn to a new piece. This is very close to a translation of language.
Once again
The title of this work is a quote from Stardust, “the song about a song about love”. That song seemed befitting to honour the memory of my teacher, both because of the evocative words and in purely musical terms: a minor-seventh arpeggio, made up of the notes included in Franco Donatoni’s name, appears at the very beginning of that song’s refrain. So the musical material employed through most of this piece lacks the notes D, F, A, C, symbolizing Donatoni’s absence, according to a practice he himself sometimes used. In the end, those notes come to light as a whole chord and as piano harmonics, perhaps with some stardust effect…
Tides
As described by the title Tides, this piece belongs in a cycle of three naturalistic pieces inspired by the observations of phenomena connected with water. This is the second one. It describes the movement of marine waves, just as the Baroque masters first, and the Impressionists later, had done. With a contemporary language, it evokes the seeming immobility and the small surface ripples, up to the imposing waves.
Illusion
This piece is a toccata, which has been one of my favorite musical forms for a long time; I have been impressed by the performers’ dazzling virtuosity. Trying to compose beautiful music that exhibits the pianist’s technique and quickly passes by, I named this piece “Illusion.”
Sette Refrains
I decided to remember Franco Donatoni through a very intimate personal memory. It is the memory of a dinner we had in Bologna, after a concert, in the late 1990s. After spending some time at the restaurant, we ended up in the street, chuckling between ourselves while softly singing some well-known (and lesser known) songs of the Fifties and Sixties. The picture of Franco, one of the most important twentieth-century composer, who happily sang with me, under the city’s arcades, is one I will cherish in my heart for my entire life. I therefore thought of writing a piece divided into seven very short refrains (Refrain is the title of four pieces by Donatoni, written for various ensembles). It should somehow recall those songs, reviving them as confused scraps of memory, as songs barely alluded to between two chuckles. My sixth Refrain contains a quote from Rima per pianoforte (1983), a magnificent piece by Donatoni dedicated to the extraordinary pianist Maria Isabella de Carli.
D’Onde
D’Onde for piano was written in 2018 to remember Franco Donatoni; under his guidance, Sonia Bo completed her postgraduate studies both at Accademia Chigiana in Siena and at Academy of S. Cecilia in Rome.
The composition is also connected to “Waves” by Virginia Woolf, especially referring to the first part of the novel, written in italics. The piece does by no means describe the text; instead, some of Woolf’s lines encouraged a deep research into how to transform colors, as well as a reflection on the passing of time.