1914-2014: À la vie! – War letters and love poems on the centenary of the Great War
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The DUO ALTERNO
Tiziana Scandaletti soprano
Riccardo Piacentini piano & “foto-suoni”
The Duo Alterno from
Turin-Italy is considered one of the most significant reference points
in the vocal-piano repertoire ranging from the early 20th century to
today. Since its debut in Vancouver
in 1997 it has taken the best Italian music to over 40 countries in all
5 continents. Defined by The Washington Post as the Duo “with a big
voice and a fine sense of comedic timing”, as a “high theatrics Duo with
a strong personality” by the Los Angeles Times, “The Duo that gives
voice (and piano) to the Italian twentieth century” by La Repubblica of
Rome and as “an electric experience” by the Hindu of Chennai, the Duo
Alterno has published 19 CDs among which 4 monographies with world-first
recordings of Giorgio Federico Ghedini, Alfredo Casella and Franco
Alfano (Nuova Era, 2000/4) plus the wide collection La voce contemporanea in Italia – volumes 1-6 (Stradivarius,
2005/14, with pieces by Abbado, Andrini, Battistelli, Berberian, Berio,
Bortolotti, Bosco, Bussotti, Cage, Cattaneo, Clementi, Colla, Corghi,
Dallapiccola, Donatoni, Esposito, Ferrero, Gentile, Giuliano, Guarnieri,
Landini, Lombardi, Maderna, Manzoni, Morricone, Mosso, Nono, Petrassi,
Pinelli, Scelsi, Sciarrino, Solbiati, Vacchi) and La voce crepuscolare (Stradivarius, 2010). Their experimental research into “foto-musica con foto-suoni” © has led to six CDs of soundtracks for museums: Musiche della Reggia di Venaria Reale, Mina miniera mia, Treni persi, Arie condizionate, Shahar (Curci, 1999) and Musiche dell’aurora. The Duo has performed in many countries around the world as well as in Italy.
Tiziana Scandaletti is
Professor of Vocal Chamber Music at the Piacenza Conservatory while
Riccardo Piacentini is Professor of Composition and Chief of the
Department at the Alessandria Conservatory.
PROGRAMME
1914-2014: À la vie!
War letters and love poems on the centenary of the Great War
Gian Francesco MalipieroFrom “I Sonetti delle Fate” (1914) – Eliana – Mirinda – Melusina – Grasinda (texts by Gabriele D’Annunzio)
Riccardo Piacentini
À la vie (1st part) (2014)
for prepared piano, video projections and whispered
“foto-suoni” (on two paintings by Kazimir Malevic [The
Aviator, 1914] and Umberto Boccioni [Dynamism of a
man’s head, 1914], texts by Rainer Maria Rilke)
Alfredo Casella
From “L’adieu à la vie” (1915)
– O toi, suprême accomplissement de la vie
– A cette heure du départ
– Dans une salutation suprême
(texts by Rabindranath Tagore, translated by Andrè Gide)
Riccardo Piacentini
À la vie (2nd part) (2014)
for prepared piano, video projections and
whispered “foto-suoni” (on two paintings
by Kazimir Malevic [The Aviator, 1914] and
Umberto Boccioni [Dynamism of a man’s
head, 1914], texts by Rainer Maria Rilke)
Francesco Paolo Tosti
From “Consolazione” (1916)
– Non pianger più
– Ancora qualche rosa è ne’ rosai
– Tanto accadrà, ben che sia d’aprile
– Sogna, sogna, mia cara anima!
– Settembre (di’: l’anima tua m’ascolta?)
– Mentre che fra le tende scolorate
(texts by Gabriele D’Annunzio)
1914-2014: À la vie is a musical project ideated by the Duo Alterno on the centenary of the Great War.
The masterpiece that opens the program, L’adieu à la vie [Farewell to life], written at the beginning of the Great War by the composer and
pianist Alfredo Casella, born in Turin and educated in Paris, is a
sweet and intensive meditation lasting more than fifteen minutes on
moving texts by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore translated by André
Gide. The following piece, À la vie, written a hundred
years later by Riccardo Piacentini, also from Turin, gives its title to
the entire concert programme, extrapolating the last part of the title
of Casella’s piece and redirecting its sense. It is an homage to two
artistic geniuses of the first 20th century, the Russian Kazimir Malevic
and the Italian Umberto Boccioni, both of whom worked in 1914 on two of
the most iconic figurative masterpieces of that period: The Aviator and Dynamism of a man’s head.
As well as the contributions of these two great paintings, the piece
uses texts written in the same years by Rainer Maria Rilke.
The second half of the
programme, reconnecting to Rilke, includes two works dedicated to the
Duo Alterno by living Italian composers on texts by the great
Austro-Bohemian writer. The reference is always to the years of the
Great War, particularly with the dense and “poly-expressive” Rilke Lieder (in Italian translation) by Adriano Guarnieri from Mantua, whose texts restlessly tell about love.
As a prelude to them,
there will be a Rilke song set to music by Alberto Colla, a composer
from Alessandria, winner of many international prizes: a work of
impressive transparency on the theme of madness.
The concert will
conclude with the last masterpiece of the greatest Italian chamber vocal
composer, Francesco Paolo Tosti, written on D’Annunzio’s texts during
the Great War a few weeks before dying.