Essential Sciarrino+: Journey through Silence, Whispers and Cries
Publikováno: 24.10.2024
Ostrava, October 24, 2024 – On Thursday, November 21, the DOX+ venue in Prague will host a concert of music audiences will not get to hear in one night for quite a while. As part of its annual Prague intervention, the Ostrava Center for New Music will present the essential works of Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino (1947) who has been continuously in the center of its attention since 2005. Essential Sciarrino+ will bring to the DOX+ stage highly qualified performers of contemporary classical music who are closely connected with this composer “star”. Baritone Otto Katzemeier (Munich), violinist Hana Kotková (Lugano) and mezzo-soprano Anna Radziejewska (Warsaw) guarantee a level of interpretation that will transport the listeners to the world where silence, whispers and cries are involved in a constant dialogue. At the very end of the evening we will celebrate the hundredth birthday of composer Luigi Nono (1924-1990) with the performance of Quartetto Prometeo from Milan. Ostravská banda, reinforced by the members of ONO - Ostrava New Orchestra, will be conducted by composer Petr Kotík who, like Sciarrino, had a close relationship with Luigi Nono. It is interesting that Luigi Nono played a very influential role for both composers at the beginning of their professional careers.
ESSENTIAL SCIARRINO+
November 21, 2024
19:00 Multifunction Hall DOX+
Ostravská banda & members of ONO – Ostrava New Orchestra
Quartetto Prometeo
Hana Kotková, violin
Anna Radziejewska, mezzosoprano
Otto Katzameier, baritone
Petr Kotík, conductor
Salvatore Sciarrino Quaderno di strada (2003)
Salvatore Sciarrino Allegoria della notte (1985)
Salvatore Sciarrino Efebo con radio (1981)
– intermission –
Salvatore Sciarrino Il silenzio degli oracoli (1989)
Luigi Nono Fragmente – Stille, an Diotima (1979–80)
Otto Katzameier – a bass-baritone who devoted a large part of his career to the interpretation of Sciarrino's works and who been closely associated with the author for more than a quarter of a century – will arrive to Prague. The compositions that Sciarrino dedicated to him, such as Quaderno di strada (Street Notebook) which were performed by him on the world's leading stages, will now be heard in Prague for the first time!! In this composition, Sciarrino, who is known for his fascination by language, uses fragments of signs on the walls, letters or poems which he found on different places and at different periods and subsequently edits and shortens these texts. “A text made up of words,” says Sciarrino, “must be adapted in order to be set to music.” He compares this particular process of editing to the structure of haiku where the words are shortened and reshaped to form completely new images and meanings. Katzameier, too, speaks of Sciarrino’s music in terms of roaming and searching for new meanings: “It is about time, silence, but also about love, rambling, humor, life viewed on both large and small scale.”
The brilliant violinist Hana Kotková, who has been a key figure of contemporary classical music for many years already, while being a no less formidable performer of historical music, also navigates the musical landscape of Salvatore Sciarrino with complete confidence. In Sciarrino’s work, she sees something that is very difficult to express in words: “Alchemy of sounds suspended in silence. Unsettling, mysterious, but also subtle and fascinating.” Sciarrino’s composition Allegoria della notte (Allegory of a Dream) is a musical rendering of the night where the sounds are diffused, indefinite and also often located on the very threshold of audibility. Sciarrino’s composition primarily works with the attributes of night such as darkness, silence and space for contemplation.
Polish mezzosoprano Anna Radziejewska belongs to the leading “muses” of Sciarrino´s works. Sciarrino wrote several operatic roles for her which is a proof of their deep artistic and human connection. „I was always fond of music which is not only objectively beautiful and intuitive. Music that presents new challenges for the performer. And Sciarrino´s music is exactly like that,” explains Radziejewska who also mesmerized audiences at the NODO festival in Ostrava in operas Superflumina or Luci mie traditrici. He is currently preparing his composition Efebo con radio (Ephebos with the Radio) to be performed for the first time now, precisely for the occasion of the “Essential” concert at DOX+. Here, the vocal part appears in several roles, but always as a voice heard on the radio whose tuning knob is being turned by someone (tuning the radio waves) thus opening the doors into diverse sound worlds, unpredictable situations of the present.
The end of the evening will belong to the giant of European avant-garde of the 20th century Luigi Nono. Quartetto Prometeo, a long-term leading string quartet on the European music scene, will come to Prague from Milano. The quartet will perform Nono’s composition Fragmente – Stille, an Diotima which represents one of his deepest reflections on the relationship between and music. Here, Nono, whose works are often politically and socially motivated, embarks on the journey of exploring silence, fragments of the shared as well as the unexpressed. Fragmente – Stille, an Diotima is a piece that requires maximum concentration and eye for detail. Quartetto Prometeo is known for its ability to interpret modern works in a precise way and its relationship to Nono’s work is deeply embedded in the long-term interpretation of his music on prestigious world scenes.
Ticket prices: 450 CZK / 250 CZK (students, seniors). Tickets are available on the GoOut platform.
The concert is produced by the Ostrava Center for New Music in cooperation with DOX Centre for Contemporary Art. We thank the Ministry of Culture, the Municipality of Prague, Statutory City of Ostrava, Arts and Theatre Institute, Perform Czech and National Recovery Plan, Moravian-Silesian Region, Veronika and Libor Winklerovi, Martin and Hana Vohánkovi for financial support, the State Cultural Fund and Italian Cultural Institute.
