Salvatore Sciarrino

STUDI PER L’INTONAZIONE DE MARE

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18 October, meeting 6.30pm, in concert 8.30pm, 10pm

PALLADIUM

“Everything is waves - memories, time, energy, and the pulsating of our blood.  As far as the sea is concerned, is the rotating, insistent movement of the waves in tune with the music of the spheres?”
This is how Salvatore Sciarrino writes about his “Studi per l’intonazione del mare” (Studies for the intonation of the sea).  Sciarrino is a composer of serene restlessness, who has created a changing, iridescent universe of sound over his forty year career. Created for the year 2000 inauguration of the Basilica of Assisi after its post-earthquake restoration, this piece is a symbol of the imagination with which the Sicilian musician invented ‘ecological’, ‘biological’ music.  He has used unconventional methods to challenge some of our contemporary issues, and this piece involves a spectacular orchestra with over 200 performers including both flautists and saxophone players.
The two wind instrument, percussion and voice ensembles will be headed by the voice of male contralto Daniel Gloger, and our guide through this universe of sound will be Marco Angius, a conductor who has always been involved in accompanying diverse audiences through the music of our time.  Born in Palermo in 1947, after an initial approach to the visual arts, Sciarrino dedicated himself to music and composition, and was self-taught. It was a decisive choice in the growth of this free spirit and musical personality seeking an interior, poetic vision, which always prevails over the technical side.
Built on silence, noise and sound, for Sciarrino the passage into music is the result of a lyrical decanting process where the extremes stretch so far they touch one another.  In these “Studi” the evanescence of the harmonics join with a natural, full-bodied sound, the crowning achievement of research that explores the breathing, heartbeat and noises of animals.  It is no coincidence that the protagonists are the wind instruments, with their intimate, breathy relationship with the performer.  The use of the male contralto voice is even more dominant, in the extracts from a poem by Thomas Wolfe, “Legend of the Three Companions” and from the Apochryphal Gospel “Pistis Sophia”.

Salvatore Sciarrino (Palermo, 1947) likes to boast that he was born free and not in a school of music. Self-taught, he began to compose when he was twelve. His first public concert was given in 1962. After completing his schooling and a few years of university in his home town, he moved first to Rome in 1969 and then to Milan in 1977. Since 1983 he was been living in Umbria. His discography is particularly large: around 80 CDs, issued by the major international labels, have been acclaimed and often awarded prizes. As well as the librettos of his own works of music theatre, Sciarrino has written many articles, essays and texts of various kinds. He has taught at the conservatories of Milan, Perugia  and Florenc and he has also held courses of specialization and master classes. An Academician of Santa Cecilia, Academician of the Fine Arts of Bavaria and Academician of the Arts (Berlin), he has won numerous prizes.