Sacred cantata, version for two sopranos, reciting voice, solo violin, and chamber orchestra, based on text from Pope Francis' prayer on March 27, 2020.
World premiere
Rome, Papal Basilica of St. John Lateran, November 14, 2022
XXI International Festival of Sacred Music and Art
Carlotta Bellotto, light soprano, Nadina Calistru, lyric soprano,
Filippo Tonon, reciting voice, Miranda Mannucci, solo violin,
Orchestra l'Appassionata, conductor Claude Villaret
"There are days in everyone's life when you become aware of witnessing the writing of history. Fragments that will remain indelible forever, capable of evoking emotions for days and years to come. That extraordinary moment of prayer during the pandemic led by Pope Francis on March 27, 2020, will never be forgotten. Those who experienced it live, seeing the images of an empty St. Peter's Square and hearing the voice of the Holy Father, will never forget it. His words felt like boulders, like swords piercing the innermost of every person. That's how Universal Vespers was born…
Concerto for String Orchestra written in memory of Beatrice Milani
World premiere, January 20, 2022
Arturo Toscanini Auditorium in Turin, the Cameristi of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra with Alessandro Milani, solo violin.
"The Daughter of Memory is a concerto for a string orchestra inspired by Adele Desideri's story of the same name, and it speaks of childhood and adolescence, resurfacing in us throughout life like a dream, in an alternating play of significant light and darkness. The concerto The Daughter of Memory, composed for the string chamber musicians of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, is dedicated to Beatrice Milani."
For Large Orchestra
World premiere, January 10 and 11, 2015
Filarmonico Theater in Verona
Orchestra of the Arena di Verona Foundation
Conductor Robert Tuohy
"Matthew 26 is a substantial symphonic piece commissioned by the Arena di Verona Foundation. The starting point is the narrative, as handed down to us in the Gospel of Matthew, of episodes from the life of Jesus, starting with the betrayal by Judas, followed by the Last Supper, the capture of Jesus, the abandonment by the disciples, and especially by Peter, who denies the Master. The motif of betrayal provides the formal archetype and is used to represent a dual dramaturgy, both musical and scenic, through the architecture of words that generate sounds, harmonic fields, changes of register, timbre, sound intensity, rhythmic agglomerates, and formal solutions. The ternary pattern (the betrayal of Judas, the sleeping disciples, and Peter's triple denial) tells us something fatal, it tells us that betrayal is essential to the dynamics of Jesus' story and that, therefore, betrayal is at the heart of the human mystery."
For Voice and Orchestra
Text by Adele Desideri
World premiere, Padua, Church of San Francesco
Soprano Giulia Bolcato
Orchestra of Padua and the Veneto, conducted by Clara Galuppo
"The composition was created at the request of Marco Angius, conductor and artistic director of the Padua and Veneto Orchestra, for the First Sacred Music Festival scheduled in Padua in September 2017. The text used is 'A Cross Pierced by Love,' taken from the poem 'I Ask' by Adele Desideri, from the unpublished collection 'The Hermitage of Suspended Thoughts.' In 'A Cross Pierced by Love,' the voices of mothers in our decadent, individualistic, and neurotic era are given expression. Worried mothers, deeply concerned about their adolescent children, who exhibit an incurable distress. The music unfolds with furious and violent tones, and the verses translate into sounds, timbres, harmonic fields, musical themes that come to life through fleeting melodies, sounds with an ancient flavor, and through a compositional technique where each syllable generates a note, each word a melody, each phrase a harmonic agglomeration. On this material, literary suggestion exerts its influence on the music: from being to knowing, from the invisible to the visible, from sound to structure."
Semi-serious Variations on a Monteverdi Theme
For String Trio
Trio Quodlibet
"For the concert dedicated to Claudio Monteverdi in Rovereto, the Italian Society of Contemporary Music asked me to write a piece to commemorate the great Cremonese composer. I started with a short musical fragment attributed to Monteverdi (its origin is unknown) for two violins and basso continuo. I did not concern myself with verifying the authenticity of the extract; I took it as a starting point to create a composition without inhibitions, playing with sounds to trace over four centuries of music history through various stylistic variations in classical music. I blended together, in a multicolored fabric, soundscapes à la Ligeti, strict imitative counterpoint, Satie-like soundplay, references to film and folk music. Emphasizing the evocativeness of the material, I worked rigorously on a terrain laden with memories and allusions, with no concessions to mere ornamental variation but rather a profound interpretation, in search of transformative elements, an opportunity for new inventions."
Concerto for Violin, String Orchestra, and Percussion (approximately 19 minutes), 2017
Brescia, Concert in Memory of the Victims of Piazza della Loggia
Gennaro Cardaropoli, violin
Philharmonic Orchestra of the festival, conductor Alessandro Bonato
"The Principle of Melancholy is based on the eponymous story by Francesco Permunian, a collection of notes and autobiographical fragments written over the past twenty years, a kind of diary in which the figure of the beloved woman, then lost, and the subsequent experience of mourning, shed all realistic accents to transform into a kind of lyrical and visionary score, eventually becoming a subdued song in which the funeral lament and the awareness of nothingness accompany the triumphant march of time, which tramples and humiliates everything, even the memory and the pity of love. The solo violin alternates between moments of great virtuosic exuberance and more peaceful, introspective moments, a kind of expressive seismograph tending toward clarity and the simplification (in an extensive sense) of the relationship between vertical construction and melodic discourse.”
