canti notturni (Beat Furrer)
by Beat Furrer unfolds a vision of a distant, peaceful garden, “in which nothing exists apart from incandescent trees, deep in a harmonious reverie…”. This description comes from the novel La meccanicaby Carlo Emilio Gadda (1893– 1973). Beat Furrer locates this vision in the middle part of his Fama aural theatre. It is surrounded by parts offering a total contrast to this idyll, telling of the dangers which await us, like the shimmering sound massif in the initial scene. In the house of Fama all human fate and earthly noises resonate like distant whispers, echoes, reverberations. “The mythical Fama has built a house on a sound-reflecting rock, which is always reverberating, reflecting and repeating what it heard”, according to Ovid’s description of “moving sensuality” (Furrer). In canti notturni the longing for a distant place reverberates in the echoes of pulsating sighs. Above the sounds of the instruments, in the words of the composer: “the voices of the sopranos float like the foam on the waves”. Melodic moments are born in the mutual calls and answers of the echo, in the pulsating sounds of the instruments.
Marie Luise Maintz
Oh! Vi doveva pur essere, sulla terra di tutti i dolori, un giardino profondo, lontano, silente, dove solo fossero sognati alberi in un loro comune pensiero…
Carlo Emilio Gadda, “La meccanica“ (© Garzanti Editore,
Milan 1989, 2nd ed. 1999)
