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VARIE AZIONI translates from the Italian
into Various Actions, and it is one of the two implied
meanings, the other being "Variations." The
work was written in the summer of 1995 , while I was at
the MacDowell Colony. During this period when my thoughts
turned entirely to the writing of the piece, a couple of
things kept surfacing: I was writing this work for a
recording first and not a concert performance, and
therefore, I wanted the work in some way to relate to the
rest of the music in the CD, which would include some LP
re-releases. I knew that Vuci Siculani, a work which I am
fond of, was going to be included in this project;
therefore, I borrowed what I call a melodic turn from
this work, and proceeded to write free variation on it.
So my thoughts once again turned toward my native land,
the Island of Sicily, and its wonderful melange of folk
sounds. The new work is a carrier of both happy thoughts
and sad ones: while I was composing the work, news that
my father was terminally ill added more than a touch of
melancholy to my already stirred spirits. Hence, movement
1, "Cantilena", is a kind of continuous chant.
Movement 2, "Notturno Triste", also reflects my
state of mind at this time. The third and last movement,
"Salta Fuoco", however, is a celebration of
life: wild and frenetic gestures in the solo violin are
reminiscent of gypsy music, which the Spaniards left
behind during their occupation of the island. The work is
dedicated to my father and the memories I have of us
together when I was young.
VUCI SICULANI (Sicilian Voices), like a
detail from a large mosaic, depicts a small segment of
the rich life on the island of Sicily, whose people have
survived wave upon wave of colonizers, conquerors and
rulers. The Siculi and Sicani tribes (from whom Sicily
took its name) saw the early settlements of Phoenician
traders, and were followed by Greeks around 750 B.C. In
successive eras, Roman, Byzantine, Arabian, Norman,
Aragonese Spanish and Bourbon rulers held sway over
Sicily.
The first movement, subtitled "Sturmentu 1"
(meaning 'canzona'), deals with one of the Sicilian
social conventions still in practice today, with its
roots clearly planted in the Renaissance. It concerns a
woman of years singing of her youth and lost love: her
father had refused to give her hand in marriage, and her
lover, rebuked, left town, but not before she had sworn
to him fidelity and love till death. The Fiscalettu, a
type of bamboo-flute, still in use today by shepherds,
adds an eerie quality to the movement.
The second movement, "In Festo Corporis
Christi", depicts an important ancient rite in the
Roman Catholic Church. The feast celebrates the Holy
Eucharist, its chief feature being a procession in which
the Host is displayed for adoration. As the procession
winds through the streets, stops are made at outdoor
neighborhood altars which have been built and
flower-decked for the occasion. Religious on-lookers pray
for their loved ones. In the first instance a woman prays
that her sick husband might soon recover, and later
another that her blind son and paralyzed daughter might
be restored to health. In the first and third sections of
the movement different people can be heard crying out
similar prayers to the holy procession. In the score the
instrumentalists are asked to hum and shout to
approximate the desired crowd noise. The movement
includes the well-known Gregorian Chant Pange Lingua.
Latin texts are used in the central part of the movement
as well.
The third movement, "Sturmentu 2", is a love
song for one's faraway native land. The whole work is
built upon my own brand of folk music and folk-text, as
opposed to the "real" folk music, fragments
which are heard toward the end of this movement (as an
aural flash-back) vanishing as quickly as they arrived.
The melismatic vocal writing is reminiscent of the kind
of singing one hears from peasants. A short instrumental
Epilogue brings the music from the first movement quietly
back to close the work.
While in Holland, in 1975, having a work performed at the
Gaudeamus Festival, a number of composers performers and
music festival directors ventured out after a concert for
food and drinks. Among us there was a Belgian
musicologist, who was then the music director of the
Royan Contemporary Music Festival in France, and who had
an urge for apple pie and coffee. Thus we walked for
miles around the city of Rotterdam, passing through what
must have been a half dozen places in search of this
"golden fleece" of pies. Finally, exhausted and
tired, we settled down in a local bar. It was at this
point the director turned to me and asked if I was
interested in writing a work with the title "Apple
Pie". I already had two other works scheduled for
premiere the following season at this festival, so I did
not jump at his suggestion. But a month later I wrote to
him that I was interested in the piece if he, of course,
was
interested in MEMORIE PIE as a title. He loved it. Read
in English, it refers to the memory of that day in
Holland spent looking for apple pie. However read in
Italian it reads "Pious Memory". The pious
memories are the very short quotations from Bach to
Beethoven, Mozart, Liszt, Chopin and Brahms which
permeate the work. The Prelude opens the work using the
Bach quote which is the most dominant for it appears
several times in different guises. Though the work is
continuous, it is divided into six sections with two
Andata (walks), two Sosta (stops) and a Finale
representing our "via crucis."
DI . VER . TI . MENTO (Games For 4) was
completed before VARIE AZIONI was begun. While the two
works have different musical agendas, both share
materials which are derived from Mediterranean folk
elements, my treasure chest which I repeatedly dip into,
consciously and unconsciously, to weave my musical
tapestries. Depending on the nature of the work these
materials are brought out as much or as little as
necessary. In DI . VER . TI . MENTO the folk elements do
not surface till the last movement, where we hear hints
of middle-Eastern melodic and rhythmic flavors. The other
focus behind my writing this piece was to pay homage to
two great composers whom I admire, and who are as
different in style as the periods in which they lived. I
took Bach's contrapuntal approach and Messiaen's chordal
and rhythmic essence and kneaded them together until a
fusion was reached. I had fun composing the work, and
wanted to make it fun for the listener as well-hence the
title, subtitle and the movement titles. Taking this
grand old title and separating it into a four-syllable
phrase, gives the work a third title in Italian, one that
implies not only mischief but perhaps, a bit of mystery
as well!
SAXLODIE was written in a short week or
two before its premiere, which took place in Warsaw,
Poland, 1981. This was a restless period in my life; the
energy and driving force especially in the outer sections
of the last movement truly reflect the turbulent and high
powered flood of emotions I was experiencing at the time.
A calmer central section slowly unfolds, however,
bringing some tender and even serene moments into focus
to balance and contrast the frantic musical gestures that
open and close the movement. The first movement opens
with repeated descending rhythmic figures in the
saxophone which carry the seeds of the nervous energy
later developed into the frenetic rhythmic passages in
the last movement. However, in both movements, it is the
middle section, where the music reaches a tranquil
plateau, and the two instruments share in a peaceful
lyrical interplay.
- Marc-Antonio Consoli
MARC-ANTONIO CONSOLI was born in Italy
in 1941 and came to the United States when he was fifteen
years old. Music was an integral part of his paternal
family. His grandfather was a respected local amateur
musician and the organist at one of the town's three
churches, having his ten children as the choir. Consoli
began his formal music studies in his early twenties, and
went on to earn the Doctor of Music Arts from Yale
University. While at Yale he founded, coached and
conducted the Yale Players for New Music, which performed
20th century music in a variety of styles. It was a rich
musical experience, one that in his formative years
helped him to better understand the many styles
available, and be a beacon in the search for his own.
Consoli strived to achieve a clear personal musical voice
from early on. During the
mid-seventies he began to develop his mature style by
looking to his Italian heritage and its folk songs in
particular. Consoli's musical aesethetic is the result of
mulitple atonal melodic lines layered contrapuntally with
each other, often without meters, creating a variety of
lyrical yet complex textural sonorities.
The same approach is taken with the folk materials. These
melodies are often fragmented and combined in a way that
obscures their folk profile to achieve the desired
sonorities.
Consoli has received numerous awards including two
Guggenheim Memorial Fellowships, three National Endowment
for the Arts grants, and an award from The American
Academy of Arts and Letters. He has won the international
Symphonic Competition of Monaco; Concorso Internazionale
di Trieste, Italy; and the Omaha Competition for
Orchestra and Soloist. He has been commissioned by major
ensembles,
foundations and festivals including the Steirischer
Herbst Festival, Austria; the Festival Interationale
d'Arte Contemporaine, France; the Fromm and Koussevitzky
Foundations. His music has been performed by the New York
Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the
Baltimore, Louisville, Nashville, American Composers
Orchestras, and many others.
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