Simone Movio
Libro di terra e d’incanti (2016-19)
for voice and ensemble, on poems by Andrea Bajani

Livia Rado, soprano
mdi ensemble
Beat Furrer, conductor

Recording date: 16-17 December 2020
Release: 4 June 2020
KAIROS (0015070KAI)

www.kairos-music.com

Tracks
1. Preludio. È rimasto scritto sulla lavagnetta
2. Intermezzo I
3. 1. Ricordarsi prima di morire
4. Intermezzo II. Curare una parola che sta male
5. 2. Far figliare le parole
6. Intermezzo III
7. 3.In generale aspettare primavera
8. Postludio. Traslocare dentro un’altra lingua

TRACCE

1. Preludio. È rimasto scritto sulla lavagnetta
2. Intermezzo I
3. 1. Ricordarsi prima di morire
4. Intermezzo II. Curare una parola che sta male
5. 2. Far figliare le parole
6. Intermezzo III
7. 3.In generale aspettare primavera
8. Postludio. Traslocare dentro un’altra lingua

The instrumental-vocal cycle uses 18 poems drawn from Andrea Bajani’s Promemoria: a collection of 60 short compositions in verse that grew out of a list of simple things to be done during the day which the author’s grandmother had written on a blackboard. These  annotations are gradually transcended, until they arrive at a state in which the everyday meaning of the words no longer has any value and they become vehicles of a pure inner voice: essences that may also bring with them something that is inwardly shared, archetypical. For my work I picked, together with the author, three of the more lyrical themes, even though this did not exhaust the possibilities: death, childhood, words. In each group of poems a core has been identified, a sort of primary color hovering above the terrestrial sphere; as well
as an anti-primary one, plunged deep into the things of the world: the texts were then sorted, creating transitions between primary and anti-primary or the other way round.
The musical idea found concrete expression in three structured vocal pieces:
— an Andante, reminiscent of the madrigals of the 16th and 17th centuries (death)
— a very fast-paced and highly contrasted Scherzo, like a blurred memory of a playful moment (words)
— a sweeping Adagio concertato evoking baroque structures (childhood)
The cycle is introduced by a prelude which sets the aforementioned list to music and sows the seeds that are going to germinate in the three main parts; alternating with brief intermezzi, these conclude with a postlude. The voice is treated as a special component of the instrumental parts: the word being regarded as the highest possibility of existence for a sound, one which directly contemplates an inner reality, a human effort to become its vehicle. The essential lies not in the meaning of the words, but in the mysterious, arcane and poetic power of their resonance.

Simone Movio

DISCOGRAPHY