The musical poetry of Fulvio Caldini is not easily pigeonholed and cannot be succinctly summarised in a few words. This is because his journey through music has seen him traverse an array of differing musical styles. Without a doubt, Caldini is a composer with an undeniably eclectic disposition, which has led to a wide range of distinctive compositional experiences.
The pieces included on this CD are primarily rooted in the minimalist and post-minimalist traditions, genres which Caldini has extensively explored and engaged with. Compositions such as the three Novelettes showcased on this CD fall under a type of music which the composer has produced throughout his life, written with the sole intention of creating pleasurable auditory experiences for the listener.
Lastly, “Diario” and “Dooruzu” are tied to a genre of compositions where the primary focus of compositional exploration is aimed at developing the harmonic and melodic language that springs from traditional harmony.
In Caldini’s compositional journey, there are also other creative experiences that are not showcased here, which include compositions that revisit the stylistic languages of jazz, rock, electronic and ethnic music.
Sonatina op.127a
The work, written in 2008 and dedicated to the famous recorder player Karel van Steenhoven, is divided in three movements. The first and the third are really fast, while the second is quiet. The first and the third are in a minimal style, however avoiding a rigid elaborated scheme inside the patterns respect the classic one. This works exactly in the first movement, while the third is closer to the classical minimal music. The second movement, even though it’s quiet in character, has a starting pattern repeated several times with notes addition and subtraction to obtain a melodic outcome in an iridescent and always different colour but similar to itself at the same time.
Diario op.130b
This work was written in 2008. The recorder and piano version derives from a former one (op. 130a) for English horn and piano. The version for English horn and piano is divided in five movements, while the recorder and piano version is in four only because one movement didn’t work well for the recorder. I used a harmony based on nine sounds scale (C, D flat, E flat, E, F, G, A flat, B flat, B) really dear to me, which I used and worked out several times. Sometimes I varied the scale in this way: C, D flat, E flat, E, F, G flat, A flat, A, B. I combined this scale with a harmony based on fourth and sixth chords and major seventh altered. I think the final output shows a really variegated harmonic colour.
Momiji [marginalia nr.31, 42, 43, 44, 45, 50]
The six works titled “Momiji” are the musical result of a never completed project, developed between 2015 and 2017, of a plot for a Japanese anime. After completing the plot, I started to compose the music, but I never completed it. These six pieces are the only completed parts of the original projected score. The instrumentation (recorder and piano) was linked to the fact the female protagonist (a Japanese teenager), discovered sentimental ups and downs of her grandmother during the second world war. These vicissitudes had a link with a musical instrument (the recorder) she played during her youth. The six movements are related to six events of this story.
Sonatina op.65e
The work was originally conceived for solo English horn in 1997. Later I made different versions for other instruments. The version for recorder and piano was written in 2006 and it is divided in three movements. The first and the third are written in the typical minimal style. The pattern is shown little by little and the last elements of the pattern gradually replace the former ones. The rhythmical characteristics in these two movements are full of syncopations and the meter changes continuously ought to the pattern’s structure. The second movement is a quiet canon built between the two instruments. As usual in minimalism, the pattern develops little by little.
Novellette n. 1-2-3 [juvenilia nr.14, 15, 23] They are three works belonging to what I define “light music”: something I write for pleasure in composing and playing only. This music doesn’t present or contains much more than a pleasure itself. They were written during my youth (1986) while I was under the military service. It was a tough period in my life and during the few moments I was free, I wrote them to get in touch again with music. The life in the army was in fact very distant from the musical language I was developing at the time.
Sonatina op.152a
The work was written between 2014 and 2015 and is divided in three movements. It follows the identical scheme of the other works of mine with the same title. There is a slow movement between two fast ones. It’s really a technical demanding work because I treated the musical material strictly following the minimalist rules but with a lot of changes in the rhythmical structure. In the first movement the recorder and the piano right hand are in canon; this fact together with the variability in the rhythm and the pattern’s elaboration in length, brings out a really high grade of virtuosity in performance. The second movement has a less exasperated pattern creating an iridescent colour in the melody played by the recorder, with the piano’s right hand support. The goal is a sort of “pas de deux” with the harmonic frame given by the bass line at the piano left hand. In the third movement are really evident the additions made in the pattern’s development and the bar structure is more stable if compared with the first movement. However, the two high layers are in canon, increasing the difficulty in playing.
Dooruzu (dolls) [marginalia nr.28] In 2015 I saw Takeshi Kitano’s movie “Dolls” and it deeply impressed me. This piece springs form the deep emotions evoked. At the time I was deeply interested in the Japanese culture and in particular the movies The Kitano’s movie was made in 2002 but I saw it later; I was impressed by the female actresses in this movie. From this starting point I tried to explain in music their characters: Ryoko, Haruna and Sawako, each one with a different movement focused on them; the music develops in a dramatic atmosphere from a psychological point of view.
Sonatina op.99j
The work was composed in 2006 and is divided in three movements; it was written for the recorder player Daniel Koschitzki who made the first performance in Karlsruhe, Germany. In the first movement I used a particular technique: minimal additive technique, which consist in stopping and restarting the pattern continuously. Form this alternation comes the title “Le domande nella voce” (“Questions in the voice”) to put in evidence the interrogative music character. The second movement exist in two different versions, here the recording presents the second version. It’s a singing style in opposition to the other two movements, and it uses a pattern continuously developing on itself increasing or decreasing parts already repeated before. The scheme, generally speaking, renders the work, such as in my other compositions, in a “stroboscopic” character so to say: A ; A+B ; A+B+C ; A+B+C+D ; B+C+D+E ; C+D+E+F etc. Following this scheme, the pattern is treated with additions and subtractions in a sort of sliding phenomenon. The recorder part and piano’s right hand are in canon, while the left hand in piano part, plays long notes to give a harmonic base. The title is “I pensieri del ritorno” (“Thoughts of comeback”) and refers to the thematic characteristics of the first version. In the meanwhile, stepping ahead with a second version, the former music characteristics were lost but I left the same title. The third movement is titled “L’astrazione del tempo” (“Abstraction of time”) and I refer to the fact the pattern and musical material treatments are based on the meter unevenness; the time fly seems made by only one quantity to simulate a loss of harmonic and melodic parameters. In this movement the pattern is not used in a classical way but in a post minimalistic one in which a stroboscopic character comes out as above.