Works

Per orchestra

The majestic yet gentle sight of the Sciliar is nestled among the most striking memories of my journeys in the mountains. My mind’s eye is still filled with that extraordinary mass of dolomite which the local inhabitants call the Mountain of Destiny. A name that evokes ancient legends through the inevitably evocative power of its silhouette, upon which thoughts, dreams and reflections cast from any distance seem to converge, but also because, in prehistoric times, it appears that people climbed to its summit to offer ceremonial rites to the deities of those spectacular places.

With its broad, imposing ridge, powerful and even fearsome when darkened by ominous signs in the sky, the Schlern resurfaced in my mind this year during a winter holiday. I began to trace its shape on the stave, looking towards this place as a horizon in which destiny might be reflected. A protective mountain, where I could perform my own private propitiatory rite, made of sonic dust, harmonic formulas and archaic chords animated by a subterranean orchestral litany.

Sciliar is the symbolic landscape onto which the future can be projected, a place in which to listen to profound emotions. Emotions that pass like shooting stars on a July night, like tears from a sky unable to hold them back, coursing through the orchestra in the lightning flashes of descending scales. Its flat rock is the totem that roots the connection with the sky in the earth, while its unmistakable peak is the tower from which the psyche takes flight, assuming the light form of a bird. It is on the Schlern that we can hear deep strings and the highest breaths, millennia-old silences and epic sonic events. From here we can observe them from the dual perspective of the plain and the summit: the solidity of the stone watches with apparent indifference as existence changes colour, while the silent wisdom of the sky stands ready to receive projects, inventions and desires.

Neither a descriptive nor, still less, an illustrative composition: Sciliar is the musical vision of a mythical and autobiographical topos in which ear and eye seek the divine, while an inner voice articulates the enchanting, fluid and resonant phonemes of its Ladin name. The first syllable glides swiftly, gently dipping into a small “l”, slowly rolling through the diphthong before finally coming to rest on the ringing “r”, which impudently closes the word with an infinite consonant. The yearning for that which, once risen, can never set.

Year of composition

2012

Duration

11 min(s)

World premiere

22/07/2012, Festival di Erl. Orchestra Haydn, cond.. Rinaldo Alessandrini

Instrumentation

2 Fl (2° anche Ott), 2 Ob, 2 Cl in Sib (2° anche Cl b), 2 Fg (2° anche Cfg), 2 Cr, 2 Trb in Do, Tp, Perc (Vibr, Buckelg, Tam tam gr., G.C. sinf), Archi 

Ricordi catalogue number

140788
140788 – score
140789 – parts