AUTHORS’ NOTES
Alberto Tomarchio (1962)
Al Moulin Rouge (Lever le rideau)
The curtain rises on the famous stage of a cabaret, the beating heart of the Belle Époque! The fabulous dancers make their entrance, with dazzling dresses, colorful feathers and sensual perfumes in a whirlwind of swirling legs. Everything here moves, spins and dances, in a relentless search for a life of carefree abandon and pleasure!
Il cubo di Rubik (Puzzle matematico-musicale)
Il Cubo di Rubik is a metaphor for human life, where our goal is to calmly and precisely put together the scattered pieces of our own “cosmos”.
This piece, with its ostinato in 5, is at the same time a study, a game, and an intellectual delight for the search for possible solutions.
Scherzo su due note
Starting from a simple only two-notes motif, the entire composition evolves into thousands of sounds. This is the essence of this scherzo, built on the art of variation explored in all its aspects.
Roberto Cipollina (1994)
Lu re d’amuri
Inspired by the ancient Sicilian folktale included in Giuseppe Pitrè’s collection, Lu Re d’Amuri unfolds as a musical reflection on the fairy tale, without adhering to it in a didactic manner. The music evokes settings, moods, and dramatic turns, building an expressive arc that operates through allusions, maintaining formal coherence around recurring motifs and contrasts that oscillate between the tragic and the ironic, which are inseparable aspects of Sicilian narrative sensibility.
Within Roberto Cipollina’s body of work, Lu Re d’Amuri belongs to a series of compositions in which form is seen as a narrative space, where thematic development and invention steer clear of purely experimental aims. In this sense, the tale finds a musical translation in gestures and lyricisms that stay close to the popular idiom.
Francesca Adamo (1987)
Shapes 898 (Hildegard File n. IX)
Shapes 898 is a composition inspired by the asteroid 898 Hildegard, which was discovered in 1918 and named after Hildegard of Bingen.
The piece is part of a progressively numbered collection titled Hildegard Files, in which the composer Francesca Adamo Sollima pays tribute to the German nun. Each composition in the collection is based on the visions that accompanied Hildegard throughout her life.
Carmelo Mantione (1980)
Tarantella plenaria
The title comes from an ironic dispute between the composer and the clarinetist Anzalone regarding the concept of “plenary indulgence”. This irony plays an important role in the entire composition, which is built on three distinct themes, often treated contrapuntally.
The playful aspect of the piece lies in the metric deformation of the dance in some passages and the contrast between the three different themes: the first, which is central and recurring, is dance-like; the second one is pensive and vague; the third, finally, has an ironically triumphant character.
Mario Romeo (1993)
Ruit hora
The title itself, taken from Latin and meaning time rushes on, evokes the fleeting and inexorable passage of time. The piece unfolds as a sonic meditation on this ever-shifting flow, shaped through fluid rhythmic transitions and sudden changes of tempo. The accordion, in particular, is entrusted with the task of creating this “moving soundscape,” upon which the clarinet unfolds the entrusted melodies, at times dreamlike and at times contemplative. The “basic harmonies” were chosen so as not to create excessive tension and to keep the sonic context ambiguous, with the aim of making the flow of time always feel like a “continuum.” Furthermore, the piece unfolds in a context on the borderline between tonality and modality.
Gorka Hermosa (1976)
Gernika, 26/4/1937
Gernika, 4/26/1937 (4/7/1994) is based on the historical event that took place in Gernika (Bizkaia) on April 26, 1937. During the Spanish Civil War, the town was subjected to a horrific bombing carried out by fascist troops. A little more than a month later, Pablo Picasso presented his painting Guernica. In this monumental, epic work, painted out of a sense of fury, he expressed a violent moral outrage at the event, which still resonates today. The musical work tries to express two totally opposed feelings: on the one hand, the rage that this historical event generates in me, and on the other hand, my great admiration for all of Picasso’s work and especially for his painting, Guernica. He so perfectly expressed those feelings of hate and anger that I also wanted to convey through my composition. The piece is dedicated to those killed in the bombing of Gernika and to all victims of violence in general. Since it was not written specifically for the accordion alone, it adapts well to almost any instrumentation and has many different versions. The original accordion version was premiered by me in Zumárraga on November 24, 1995. It is a minimalist work based on the diminished fifth and diminished seventh intervals. I wrote it when I was only 17 years old in just one week.
Eddy Flecijn (1962)
Suite (Inspired by Marie Ndiaye’s theatre play ‘Hilda’)
This composition was written to be performed between the interludes (or “between the acts”) of the theatrical production of Hilda, as soundscapes or moods that accompany the dramaturgy. The Suite is divided into various sections, each with a title suggesting a different emotional state or moment of the action/psyche. The titles of the different movements suggest a rather strong emotional arc, connected to inner states such as hope, betrayal, anger, pain, and remorse. It is a piece that focuses heavily on narrative expressiveness: each movement is like a dramatic chapter, evocative of powerful feelings.