At the beginning of the twentieth century, San Giovanni Rotondo was a tiny village, virtually in the middle of nowhere, in Southern Italy. Then, a humble friar, by the name of Padre Pio, came to the local Franciscan convent. He was destined to change the destiny of that village, but also of countless people all around the world. He was one of the most striking mystics of all times; whilst never attention-seeking, he did attract the gaze of the world for his piety and for the extraordinary phenomena happening to him and around him. A man who physically lived the Passion of Christ, he was also very attentive to the health and wellbeing of the local inhabitants. Thus, among other initiatives, he created one of the greatest and most advanced hospitals in southern Italy, where high-quality medical care was provided together with kindness and attention to the patient’s needs.
Composer Antonio Cocomazzi grew up in San Giovanni Rotondo, by then transformed into one of the most important spiritual and health centres of Southern Italy. His family was acquainted with Padre Pio, and has many intimate memories of the friar’s influence on their lives. In 1998, Cocomazzi was barely twenty-five: still very young, but already with considerable compositional experience. He was asked to compose a major work: a Requiem Mass for Padre Pio, on the thirtieth anniversary of his death (September 23rd). Liturgically, a Requiem is a Eucharist celebrated as an intercession for a dead person’s soul. In 1998, though the fame of Padre Pio’s holiness was already widespread, he had not yet been canonized. The first formal step toward his canonization took place the following year, when he was proclaimed a “venerable”. It was on that occasion that the premiere of Cocomazzi’s Requiem eventually took place; the work has been worthily revived in 2022, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the friar’s canonization.
Nearly twenty-five years passed from the premiere until present day. In the meanwhile, the composer’s career flourished, and he fully realized the promises of his youthful years. Of course, he also acquired experiences and knowledge which he could not have at twenty-five; still, he did not wish to alter a single note of the work he had written as a young man. For one thing, even after writing a huge number of works and issuing nine albums as a pianist/composer, he still considers this Requiem as the highpoint of his output, the peak of his creativity. “When I wrote it”, he states, “it was as if I was being enlightened, perhaps even led by spiritual inspiration”. For another thing, of course he could have changed some minor details, but (rightly) wanted to preserve the work in its original form. This concerns, of course, the overall concept and even the particulars; at the same time, one major intervention was needed, which, still, was not taken as a pretext for further changes.
The original 1998/9 version was in fact scored for symphonic orchestra, choir, and four vocal soloists. The 2021 version maintains the vocal parts as they were originally written, but replaces the orchestra with an organ. For this transformation, Cocomazzi took inspiration from Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem Mass, which underwent similar transformations. Cocomazzi first heard Duruflé’s Requiem in a version for solo organ with obbligato solo cello, and fell in love with it; later he discovered the other original versions, with different scorings, created for thinner ensembles in comparison with the original.
Occasionally, the lack of some particular timbres and instruments which had been originally intended in the orchestral version is felt. For instance, in the Rex tremendae the effect provided by the timpani is rather different from that offered by the organ pedals, even though the majestic, impressive, and powerful feeling is absolutely not lost… in transcription.
In fact, this rather depends on the composer’s particular musical intentions. Indeed, he did aim at evoking God’s majesty and the fearful awe and amazement caused by the irruption of transcendence on human beings. Still, Cocomazzi’s view is always tempered by a feeling of comfort and consolation. “I was inspired by Mozart’s Requiem”, he tells us. “His Requiem always impressed me, more than other masterpieces such as those by Verdi or Fauré. In my own Requiem, there are movements when, as a composer, I had to express God’s wrath and the menace of hell. On those occasions, a Stravinsky-like inspiration in my style surfaced, particularly as concerns rhythm”.
This is embodied in a particularly clear fashion in movements such as the Rex tremendae and the Kyrie, where the artist adopts a compositional technique called “multimetrics”. It implies that virtually each bar of music has a different time signature. This makes for a very complex and demanding performance, but not for difficult listening.
In fact, the hidden propelling power in Cocomazzi’s music is always a particular attention for the listener’s needs. His music possesses a kind of expressive immediacy, which is frequently lost or forgotten in many contemporary musical works. This efficacy was noted and appreciated by some of the greatest Italian musicians of the late twentieth century, such as Ennio Morricone (who defined one of his albums as an “excellent work, original as concerns both form and musical substance”), Giovanni Sollima and jazz musician Giorgio Gaslini, who specialises in crossover between classical music and jazz. Writing about one of Cocomazzi’s recordings, Gaslini spoke of “his harmonic sequence is always interesting, never trivial or obvious, his rhythm lively and original, his melos graceful and elegant”. These words, written at the beginning of Cocomazzi’s career, not only were the synthesis of his style at the time, but also constituted a guiding light for his further compositions. “I strive for originality and try not to be like any other musician, even though this is very difficult”. At the same time, Cocomazzi stands firmly within a line of tradition which crosses the whole of the European music history. And, of course, he looks to the great masters of the past with reverence and humble attention.
“I wrote my own Requiem thinking closely of Mozart’s. Here too it was as if Mozart was inspiring, or rather guiding, me. I was obsessed by the idea that Mozart died while he was composing his Requiem. This led me to ponder on the mystery of the afterlife. And to find an answer which is never desperate or anguished. Death frightens me, of course, as happens with all human beings: none of us knows how and what will happen. Still, in pieces such as the opening movement, or at the end of the powerful Confutatis, or in the Kyrie, I always tried and closed the piece with something suspended or non conclusive. For instance, the first piece closes with an open fifth, whose mode remains undecided”. This is a space left open for hope, for consolation, for the infinite desire of eternal life which inhabits the soul of human beings.
Such ideas are the direct result of the composer’s close, passionate and intense study of the liturgical words. A musicologist poignantly commented on the final result, stating that the music “suffers” the text. This, far from being a form of criticism, is in fact its highest praise. “I tried and gave a kind of musical translation to each and all the text’s phrases. My music is a commentary in sounds to the text. I entered those words even though I was very young. Every movement was and had a story of its own; I analysed the text, and sought its deepest meaning. My music is a pure expression of feelings and affections. When the lyrics speak of a thing of concept, I aim at leading the listener to understand what I felt, what I wanted to tell at that moment. Every sentence is carved in my soul; I focused closely on each word. The majestic King who causes fear is also the Saviour who redeems humankind. I saw what Mozart had done with these sentences, and in my own humble way I sought to repropose these same textual excerpts with my own language”.
And this is what Cocomazzi really did. The result, as listeners of this Da Vinci Classics CD will easily grasp, is a magnificent palette of varied emotions, of feelings, of contrasting effects. None is ever chosen for effect’s sake; all are in the service of the written words. And since these written words are those of an ancient liturgy for the dead, here applied to the towering figure of Padre Pio, the result will not fail to move the listeners’ deepest feelings and to arouse their great questions on the mystery of life, of death, of the afterlife, and of faith.
Chiara Bertoglio © 2022