Ringe

• Year of composition: 2021

• Instrumentation: C/alto flute, Bb/bass clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, viola, cello

• Duration: 7'30" ca.

• Premiere: 4th September 2021 at Orsolina28 in Moncalvo (IT) by Divertimento Ensemble (conducted by Sandro Gorli) for Rondò in Monferrato 2021

• Program notes:

« I live my life in ever-widening circles ("Ringe") that stretch themselves out over all the things; I won't, perhaps, complete the last one, but I intend on trying ». Thus opens the poem by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 –1926) by which this work is inspired: divided into two macro-sections, Ringe is the result a reflection – primarily autobiographical, but in fact intrinsically human – on the search for one's own identity and one's "sense of being", whose understanding is as desired as it is perhaps illusory.

The first section has a yearning attitude, with an almost eager expansion; starting from a first moment of constraint, all the instruments interact, gradually expanding with a single "sound gesture", explosive in its conclusion.

The "search for meaning" then continues in the second section, cyclically: the same sound material is repeated and processed, in different forms, characters and timbres, until it is lost: is there actually an answer to this question? “I circle for thousands of years; and I don't know, yet: am I a falcon, a storm, or a mighty song”. Rilke's concluding lines do not close any circle, and so does the music: the question remains pending, with an expectation that leaves room for new, cyclical research.

• Recording(s):