Dal belvedere di non ritorno

The piece was originally commissioned by the French Government and written for the Parisian Ensemble FA. It was performed only once, in 1993, and it has been completely revised for the present occasion. Such a late revision is due to the fact that its initial conception partly swerved from Gervasoni’s production. The 1993 version, in fact, stood out as an attempt to introduce formal and figurative gestures which, though they were made more essential, belonged more rigorously to music tradition. The usual features of Gervasoni’s musical language - the microscopic elaboration of figures and the focusing on timbre details and new sonorities - are mingled with the use of melodic short motives. These are resumed and developed from the point of view of structure and color throughout the composition. The purpose of this device is to create a narrative form, as it was later achieved in the Concerto pour alto, where the surfacing of a “narrated” story does not contradict a personal painstaking search for new timbre solutions. The present revision aims at better integrating these two different attitudes in composing. This integration is still Gervasoni’s main actual concern, and is now coupled with an interest in the dramatic rendering of a musical event (Parola, Atemseile).

Dal belvedere di non ritorno is named after a line from the last volume by the Italian poet Vittorio Sereni.

Il poggio

Vittorio Sereni, “Stella variabile”, Tutte le poesie, Milan, 1986
Quel che di qui si vede
- mi sentite? - dal
belvedere di non ritorno
- ombre di campagne scale
naturali e che rigoglio
di acque che lampi che fiammate
di colori che tavole imbandite -
è quanto di voi di qui si vede
e non sapete
quanto più ci state.

 

Stefano Gervasoni, July 1998