Byzantinum: Contemporary Unpublished Works for Flute by Composers from Ravenna and Bologna

“Byzantinum”
Unpublished contemporary works for the flute
by composers from Ravenna and Bologna

The project “Byzantinum” was born out of my artistic need to represent and to showcase the musical talents of my territory. The cooperation between composers and instrumentalists has always favoured the development of a repertoire which, in many cases, became part of concert and recording programmes, until it became, at times, matter also for study and pedagogy. One has merely to think to the cooperation, in the 1960s, between flutist Severino Gazzelloni and two Italian geniuses of composition, i.e. Luciano Berio and Bruno Maderna.
Thence came my idea to involve seven composers who are currently active both nationally and internationally. They all were born and still live in the provinces of Bologna and Ravenna, and lent their skill for the creation of an original flute repertoire dedicated to me. At first, the programme had been conceived for public concert performances. However, the idea of embodying in a CD the entire project will leave a testimony, in time, about the high artistic value of the musical proposals presented here. I have always been convinced that “contemporary” music must be an active component within a musician’s itinerary. As interpreters, we have the duty to bring to light today’s repertoires, whatever their language, but provided they are quality works. One of my dearest teachers, i.e. Glauco Cambursano, who had been a legendary principal flutist at the Teatro alla Scala for more than forty years, always provided me with stimuli in this direction. We must be open to all languages, even to those which, initially, seem farthest from our being. One of the unique traits of this CD is precisely this: it offers to the listener a palette of languages which are extremely different from each other. They create a kaleidoscope of colours, sounds, and images, leading us to a dimension which is at times dreamlike, at times melancholic or evocative.
Guitarist Marco Rosetti, from Ravenna, is the composer of Nostalgia. It is a triptych for flute and piano, with melancholic – but also with joking – nuances. The generating principle of this work is precisely nostalgia, as a revelatory and impressionist element; it is a veil of organdie beyond which one should probe his or her own time. This nostalgia is interrupted by random moments of unjustified, but saving, euphoria. It is a short suite in three movements, which impose their feelings on the music staff, working at first on a rarefied sound – as the halo of a faded memory -, then on the shameless “humoresque” style, and finally returning to a total and definitive abandonment in its last movement.
Ermione, by Filippo Bittasi (a composer from Ravenna born in 1997) is inspired by La pioggia nel pineto, one of Gabriele d’Annunzio most famous poems. It describes a mystical scene where the poet and his lover (historically identified with Eleonora Duse, who is addressed, in the poem, by the name of Ermione) live the experience of an intimate merging with nature, up to the metamorphosis of their bodies into natural elements. Their voices are transformed into the language of drops, their teeth become almonds, their skin like bark.
Another composer who was born and still lives in the “city of the mosaics” is Matteo Ramon Arevalos, a pianist and composer who is active worldwide. His Strambata Suite for flute and piano is made of a sequence of dances preceded by a Prelude (the initial preamble). It is an evocation of the colours of the sea and of Byzantine art; sea is the element which directly touches the Eastern Roman Empire, i.e. the Byzantine Empire. In the second dance, the Bizantina, one actually feels the sudden strambata (gybe), as happens to a sailboat which must suddenly change direction without forewarnings. Peace is found again in the Sarabande (third movement), and in the concluding Gigue, rhythmically very energetic.
Paolo Molinari, a double-bassist and composer from Bologna, expressed himself here with a tonal-like language: it is almost a provocation, but also the demonstration that there is still very much to say with this kind of writing. His Capriccio for flute and piano was born as a homage to Johannes Brahms, one of my favourite composers. It evokes structures, harmonies and melodies by the Hamburger genius.
Another kind of “homage” is that paid to Claude Debussy by the famous Bolognese pianist and composer Patrizia Montanaro. To that greatest among the composer, today’s musician dedicates, as a dutiful homage, this work of her by the title of Prélude. The composer took inspiration from the atmospheres of magic and suggestion that the flute can evoke. She created a works whereby surges, quivers, and sound conglomerations unfold into moments of an intense cantabile style, and where timbral invention is animated into clear-cut virtuosity. The sound images following each other let some thematic fragments of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune come to the surface. These emersions may be veiled or more clearly recognisable, and they take the shape of citations, memories, echoes of what is one of the most beautiful and fascinating melodies ever written for the flute.
With Prélude, written in 2006, the artistic collaboration between Patrizia Montanaro and myself began. It is an artistic synergy which, also thanks to our personal friendship, becomes increasingly intense, until it reaches, in 2022, the piece Fuochi Siderali for flute and piano; it is chronologically the latest work by its composer, and is, again, dedicated to me. This work is inspired by the constellation of the Pleiades, also defined as “the seven sisters” and the “fire stars”. In winter sky, they are the most spectacular and suggestive object, visible also at our latitudes. From the most ancient times, this group of stars represents an ancestral reference rich in esoteric meanings. It is present in the culture of all peoples on earth, from India to China, from Mesopotamia to Egypt, from Europe to the native culture of Northern and Central America, and many more.
The timbral research and the flute’s capability to sing are enveloped by the impalpable, vortex-like, fluctuating and resonating atmospheres by the piano. The two instruments give life to sound images rich in colours, where moments of “sidereal” stasis alternate with vibrant timbral quivers and virtuoso instrumental elan.
Graziano Riccardi, whose roots are in Puglia, has been living for many years in Imola, in the province of Bologna. His piece L’inesorabile scorrevolezza del tempo (“The inexorable flow of time”) for flute and piano has been written at an incredible pace (thence its title), but with a mastery and precision which define the work of this very young talent in Italian contemporary music. In spite of its brevity, little more than five minutes, the flute and the piano initially move individually and lonely, with different tempi and modes, up to when, in the finale, they get increasingly closer to each other, and join in a single tune. Even though there is an absolutely personal style here, some sonorities at times echo French music of the twentieth century and, somehow, even Japanese traditional music.
Denis Zardi, from Romagna, has not only been my musical partner for many years, and is the other protagonist of this album. He also chose to dedicate to me his last work, Apollo e Maria for flute and piano. The piece is inspired to a famous myth, exemplarily narrated, among others, by the Roman poet Ovid. One day, Athena, in order to reproduce the lament of the Gorgons when Perseus beheaded their sister Medusa, invented a wind instrument, the aulós, a flute with two reeds. Some time later, at the end of a banquet of the gods, the goddess wanted to please Zeus and the other guests, so she took her instrument and began playing. The music was pleasant, but, notwithstanding this, Hera and Aphrodite began laughing, mocking her. Offended, Athena fled mount Olympus, stopping by a lake. Here she began to play again, but, seeing her face reflected in water she understood the reason for the two goddesses. By blowing into the instrument’s reeds, in fact, the goddess’ face inflated, became red and deformed. In wrath, Athena threw the musical instrument away, cursing whoever would take it. The aulós was found and picked up by Marsyas, a Phrygian-born satyr, who, by practising, became extremely skilled in playing it. The fame he acquired was such that, one day, the satyr dared launch a challenge to Apollo, the god of music, certain of being able to win among the contenders. The god accepted and called the Muses to adjudge the contest. At first, the jury was very impressed by the melodies of Marsyas’s aulós. Apollo, therefore, fearing a failure, began to play his lyre and sing at the same time . He challenged his rival to do the same; clearly, the very nature of the musical instrument would not have allowed for this, and therefore victory was attributed to the god. As a punishment for having dared challenge a god, Apollo atrociously tortured Marsyas: he bound him to a tree, and skinned him alive. Satyrs, nymphs and fauns came from everywhere, in order to cry for a last time over their companion; from their tears a river was born, which was then called after his name.