Filippo Del Corno: A coda di rondine

A coda di rondine
A Coda di Rondine showcases six variations of an ancient Italian folk melody, known as La Girometta. These variations are generated through continuous exploration from diverse perspectives of its possible, and potentially infinite, rhythmic articulations and harmonic consequences. The organic sense of the ancient melody is thus transgressed by heterogeneous codes, producing unexpected outcomes and unforeseen echoes. Each variation grafts onto the preceding one through a neutral musical element that recurs five times in the piece, always identical to itself: a connection that recalls the artisanal technique known as ‘dovetailing.’

Passages
Passages aims to depict an imprecise and incomplete map of an imaginary city. Therefore, the term ‘passages’ is to be understood in an ‘urbanistic’ sense: they are galleries that link the squares populating the musical journey of the Concerto, and that might appear as belonging to disparate places, even if musically derived from a single melodic sequence. The solo clarinet leads the discourse in continual anticipation, as if it were the only musician to possess the map of the four ideal squares visited, pursued or at times merely approached by the instruments of the orchestra. Then, at the end of the score, a fifth square appears, completely different from the others: a place of memory where a kind of short-circuiting of the musical memory of the work occurs, with everything resurfacing and overturning all previous expository criteria.

Six Memos
Six Memos is a musical response to the values proposed in 1985 by Italo Calvino in his “American Lessons” (Six Memos for the next millennium). Six words, namely, Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility, Multiplicity, and Consistency, outline six different ‘reminders’ for the artist, but also for the spectator and, ultimately, for anyone who wishes to face the future. It was not my intention to describe the six different situations, but to attempt to respond to Calvino’s proposal. The memos follow one another without a break, blending into and influencing one another, and the music that arises represents my personal inspiration in accepting the challenge to paint a possible landscape of the next millennium, having six values in the palette.

Not In My Name
Not In My Name is a concert where the soloist is not ‘accompanied’ by the orchestra and does not comply with the traditional dialectic of solo/everyone; it is instead a harsh, tight confrontation that also knows disparity and domination.
The score is in four movements, each bearing as an epigraph one of the four words that constitute the title Not – In – My – Name, that is, the slogan launched by the organization called “The September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows,” a group of relatives of the victims of the horrific attack against the Twin Towers, which raised its protest against the military actions of the United States carried out ‘in the name’ of American victims of terrorism.
Not In My Name is one of the chapters of a broader project that seeks to address the complex and contradictory relationship between contemporary artistic expression and the society that surrounds it, responding to the challenge posed by the British composer Steve Martland for “art that does not reflect reality, but confronts it; music that is a protest for human values and a prophecy of change; and that offers the possibility, however remote, of affirmation.”

FILIPPO DEL CORNO
Born in 1970, he earned his diploma in Composition from the Milan Conservatory in 1995, further pursuing seminars and masterclasses with esteemed composers Paolo Castaldi, John Cage, and Louis Andriessen.
His compositions have been featured prominently in the programming of renowned theaters and institutions, including the Lucerne Festival, Radio France-Montpellier Festival, South Bank Centre, Bang On A Can Marathon, Teatro alla Scala, Venice Biennale, and the National Academy of Santa Cecilia. His works have been performed by distinguished musicians such as Luciano Berio, James MacMillan, Dimitri Ashkenazy, Emanuele Arciuli, Enrique Mazzola, and David Alan Miller.
In 1997, collaborating with Angelo Miotto and Carlo Boccadoro, he co-founded Sentieri Selvaggi, a group devoted to the performance and dissemination of contemporary music.
His oeuvre has been recorded under prestigious labels such as Deutsche Grammophon, Cantaloupe, BMG Ricordi, Emi Classics, Sensible Records, Stradivarius, and has been published by noted editions Curci, Ricordi, Suvini Zerboni, Sonzogno, and RaiTrade.
He currently holds a position teaching Composition at the Milan Conservatory.