- Program Notes
- The piece was commissioned for the centenary of the birth of Italian author Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975). The title is taken from a youthful story included in "Atti Impuri," where the song of birds, one of the main leitmotifs of the work, serves as a signifier of the narrator's amorous desire, experienced with a "painful sense of sin" (Pasolini, 1947-1950, Atti impuri: 51-52).
"Thousands of birds were singing, on different scales, alternating or overlapping, and gently tearing the silence, now with modulations like a human throat, now with impeccably animal-like trills and squeaks. All of this distracted me a little; but it was a distraction far from freeing me from my obsessive state of anticipation and envy for the meadows that Bruno was treading with his bare foot. Often it seemed to me that I could hear a human voice emerging from the intricate web of bird songs, and then I would stand up, trembling, with the absurd hope that it was Bruno calling me!"
Throughout the story, the young Pasolini frequently resorts to precise musical descriptions, almost an effort to compose music with words, as if to fulfill a desire that the author would express not only in his maturity ("I would like to be a writer of music," he would write in "Poeta delle Ceneri," 1966) but also in the same story, where the protagonist, fascinated by the nightingale's song, asks his friend Dina to teach him how to play:
"Suddenly, Paolo sat down, or rather, lay down on the parapet; and with his hands crossed under his head, he resumed listening in silence to the amazed and irritating song. 'Dina,' he suddenly shouted, 'you must hurry and teach me to play. I need to express myself in music. I feel that music is my truest way of experiencing love...'"
Thus, I sought to give voice to the music imagined by the author, influenced by the contrast between the outer landscape, which with the eternal song of the birds "suggests the thought of death mixed with the infinite," and the inner landscape, with the abysses and peaks of the soul.
- Recording Notes
- Live recording, Italy, Castelfranco Veneto, Academic Theatre, 22 September 2022.
- Performer Credits
- C. Soranzio Sop Sax, F. Bomben Alto sax, P. De Giorgi Alto sax, M. Marnicco Ten Sax, M. Turco - Bari sax, M. Pellizzari, A. V. Furlanetto - violin I and II, A. Fazio Viola, S. Grazioli cello, M. d'Amico D.B., E. Perentori Harp, S. Grassi perc.
