07.18.2009

The idea for this programme was sparked off by the Mario Schifano show which is currently underway in the MdM Museum in Porto Cervo. In particular it was inspired by Schifano’s interest in certain contemporary icons (Coca-Cola and other commercial logos above all) which he reviewed, analysed, and recreated. Among those composers who, in a not too different way, were fascinated by the sharp images proposed by the world around them, we have chosen a master of the earliest 20th century, Erik Satie; two of the greatest protagonists of today’s’ music in Italy, Salvatore Sciarrino and Sylvano Bussoti; the American Futurist Leo Ornstei; and the young Luciano Chessa. Over all can be seen the shadow of Franz Liszt who, almost as though he were standing guard, reminds us that he was not only the father of modern piano music, but also the father of a new relationship with the public, a relationship constructed from various strategies and a continual interchange with the surrounding world.
The programme we offer begins with one of the last century’s best-known songs: Singing in the Rain, the theme tune of the film of the same name and interpreted by Gene Kelly. Salvatore Sciarrino has “discovered” that the harmonic basis of this song can be found – surprisingly – in a collage of pieces of music by Maurice Ravel, and so he has staged his very own “anamorphosis”; just as, when standing in front of The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein (the most famous example of the technique of image-deformation) it is necessary to look at the painting from a particular angle in order to see the hidden skull, in the same way it was necessary to approach Ravel’s music in a different way in order for the famous song to emerge.
From icons of music and show business, we then pass (after the long interval of Liszt’s Second Ballade, where the icon is the piano itself which, for the Hungarian composer, had become an instrument for enchantment) to those of behaviour, portrayed some hundred years ago by Erik Satie: the Comédie italienne, carnivals, races, and the flirting of the France of the time become the protagonists of brief yet sagacious musical pictures dominated by the enjoyment of life and fun.
And then an icon of technology: the airplane, which has inspired Leo Ornstein to compose a brilliant and spectacular piece completely dominated by the roar of the aircraft.
In the second half of the programme the icons are people. Olof Palme, the Swedish prime minister killed in 1986, is depicted in an intense work by Sylvano Bussotti. Petőfi Sándor, a political icon of past times and an immortal poet is, instead, the subject of a work composed by Franz Liszt in his last years. And finally there is Greg Louganis, the virtually unbeatable diver who entered into the collective imagery after the episode of his accident in the 1988 Olympics; this has inspired Luciano Chessa to create an item of music theatre in which the pianist recites his part from inside a genuine installation.

Overall, this programme aims at destroying the stereotype of 20th century music as an abstract and complex exercise detached from the world we feel ourselves part of. On the contrary, it will show some of its liveliest and effective expressions in which the motives linking it to our own situation are quite evident. The result is the possibility of appreciating the immediate impact of the music and of recognising at once its reasons for existing, its enthusiasms, and its knowing and free attitude towards the contemporary world.

Alfonso Alberti.