februar y2018 75 ESZ news Edizioni Suvini Zerboni - Fourmonthly Newsletter Dialogues with the Stage Three first performances in three months for Alessandro On March 31 Il n’est pas comme nous! - Une fable de tous i Solbiati. On February 22 in the Auditorium Pollini in Padua, les temps , stage action for female singing and narrating t the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto conducted by Marco voice, violin, viola, cello and percussions from Miguel de a i Angius will play Sette Intermezzi da “Il suono giallo” for Cervantes Saavedra’s El retablo de las maravillas , reduction b orchestra. The composer tells us: «In June 2015 at the Teatro from the French translation by Alessandro Solbiati, will have l Comunale in Bologna, Marco Angius conducted Il suono its first performance at the Petit Faucheux in Tours, with o giallo , my opera inspired by Kandinsky’s stage work of the Mathilde Barthélemy, voice, and the Ensemble ATMusica S same name, that in 2016 was awarded the Premio Abbiati as (Saori Furukawa, violin, Gilles Deliège, viola, Myrtille Hetzel, “Best first performance in Italy in 2015”. The general structure cello, and Renaud Détruit, percussions). Solbiati explains: o r of the opera consisted of a Prologue, six Pictures and an «To move along the thin line that separates vocal music and d Epilogue, separated by seven short orchestral Intermezzos chamber theatre, “pure” music and at least the suggestion of n (each between one and three minutes) which, far from having a stage work, the voice as an instrument that gives form and Three premieres in a a purely “ornamental” function, were intended to incarnate sound to a text and its own particular character, this was the Italy, France and s the various phases of Kandinsky’s second text that I had starting point for Il n’est pas comme nous! - Une fable de the USA feature in s added and combined with the rather scanty text of Der gelbe tous les temps . At the basis of this venture was an encounter the composer’s rich e Klang . Together with Marco Angius, we had immediately with the singing and narrating voice and stage personality of l agenda thought it was possible to extract these Intermezzi and unite Mathilde Barthélemy, who is able not to separate acting from A them in a separate work, since each of them, in an aphoristic singing, and to mix the two vocal approaches in a reciprocally arch that inevitably recalls Webern’s op.10, has a clear and rewarding relation. However, it was first necessary to find a independent figural and imaginative structure. It was text that was “strong” but at the same time entertaining and nevertheless necessary, given their destination for the light. Cervantes and his Retablo de las maravillas was the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, to remanage the perfect choice: a tale, full of irony but also of a rather bitter orchestration and rearrange it for a chamber orchestra». truth, able to sting and at the same time make you smile. continues on page 2 Multifaceted Reality Vittorio Montalti is composer in residence for the season of emerge and vanish as in a fade-in fade-out. In particular the i the Divertimento Ensemble “Rondò 2018”. In this role he will electronics present the idea of the “skeleton” of a piano; an t l enjoy a substantial series of performances of his works by the instrument of which only the mechanical noises remain. This ensemble directed by Sandro Gorli, starting with the opening almost intimate way of listening to the instrument makes a t concert of the season, on January 17 , at the Auditorium San reference to two fundamental concepts of Perec’s poetics: n Fedele in Milan, which will include the Italian premiere of that of the infra-ordinary and that of the machine. In the third o Tentative d’épuisement for ensemble and electronics. Next, movement a “musical” switch opens or closes brief views of on February 28, still in Milan, at the Palazzina Liberty, Les certain images. Various miscellaneous objects are depicted M toits de Paris for flute, clarinet, piano, violin, viola and cello, with a gradual intensification of the orchestration and of the and Bestiaire remix for solo voice, with Ljuba Bergamelli; at dramaturgy of the piece, until the explosion of one of the o i the same venue, on March 19 , Nu descendant un escalier for figures that involves the whole ensemble. I was also r ensemble; finally, on May 15 , at the Fabbrica del Vapore, a interested in the shifts of perspective of the observer in Residence at o new work for ensemble directed by Marco Seco. The Perec’s book. During the days, in fact, the author moves Rondò 2018 is the t t composer introduces this new work: «The piece is inspired by between the Tabac Saint Sulpice, the Café de la Mairie and opportunity for a i Tentative d’épuisement d’un lieu parisien , a book by Georges the Saint Sulpice fountain. So there are some transversal series with two V Perec. For three days in a row the author sits in Place Saint images in the piece, which recur in the three movements, premieres Sulpice in Paris and makes a note of what happens in the always shown in a different light. Many ideas from Perec’s square: the buses that pass, a man walking with a baguette poetics fascinated me and guided me in the composition of under his arm, the flight of the birds, the cars, a girl smoking a the piece. Above all the concept of infra-ordinary, which Perec cigarette… all details, at first sight insignificant, that make up describes as “background noise, what happens when nothing the description of a city. The form of the piece follows the is happening”, and the concept of constraint, which has structure of the book and is inspired by the ideas that lie at always been of fundamental importance in my writing. Perec the basis of the text. The piece is divided into three was in fact one of the major representatives of Oulipo, the movements, which represent the three days that Perec group of French writers and mathematicians founded in 1960, spends in Place Saint Sulpice, and the various images whose credo stemmed from the premises that those who described become musical figures. I wanted to translate into write following a series of rules they know, are much freer music the multiplicity of representations appearing in the than those who write without rules while obeying rules they book, trying a different approach in each movement, don’t know». On May 6 Les toits de Paris will also be played highlighting the heterogeneity of the description. In the first at Maison 44 in Basel by the Ensemble ö!, who will repeat the movement different musical objects are presented in a sort of piece at the Theater Chur in Chur the following day, May 7 . frantic zapping, reaching an explosion at the climax; there Finally, on May 8 at the Carnegie Weill Recital Hall in New follows a re-reading of the first part in the electronics, which York, Solo for piano will be given its first performance by Min becomes a soloist, while the ensemble presents the opening Kwon. figures in scraps. In the second movement the figures from page 1 (Solbiati: Dialogues with the Stage ) Chanfalla is a charlatan who moves in the world of the again restless, fast and urgent, returning to the initial shrill powerful and of high society showing them a retablo in sound of the soprano, which is then transformed into a which extraordinary things can be seen… only if you are sweet, low and enchanting episode, crystalline and part of the “good side of humanity”, that is, in 17 th century suspended, bringing the piece to a close». On January 24 Spain, if you are not converted Jews or illegitimate Alessandro Solbiati’s music was featured in a monographic children. But every era has its “good side” and its excluded, concert at the National Recording House in Kiev in the as we well know. And if someone says they see nothing in same week as the recording of a Cd for EMA Vinci the retablo , “il n’est pas come nous!”, it is someone to be Records, which includes the pieces played in the concert: excluded and sent away. This is how Cervantes’ tale ends. the Sinfonia da camera for sixteen instruments, the I made many limiting choices to make the text synthetic Concerto for guitar, in the version for guitar and fifteen and strong and to have the chance to give equal instruments, Insieme for ten instruments and Neve in the importance to the spoken and sung part and the version for sixteen instruments. The performers for the Sándor Veress instrumental part. In addition I wanted to emphasize the concert and the Cd were the Ukho Ensemble directed by theatrical nature of the piece through a formal division not Luigi Gaggero and the guitarist Luigi Attademo. On Orbis Tonorum for chamber foreseen by Cervantes: my work is divided into a Prologue, February 15 in Milan, during Musica d’Insieme, the orchestra can be heard on three Scenes and an Epilogue, separated by four monographic Cd Novus released by Stradivarius will be February 17 at the Studiobühne instrumental Intermezzos. Each zone uses the presented, featuring the Ex Novo Ensemble, who for the of the Opernhaus Zürich, with instrumentation in a different way, because when only four occasion will play Novus for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and the Ensemble Opera Nova players are available for a piece lasting 50’, it is necessary piano and Albatros for flute, violin and piano.