Introduzione all’oscuro

“Introduction” is a term usually applied to a work that precedes, announces, or suggests another, sometimes of a contrasting character. This, however, is not the case with Introduzione all’oscuro, where the term refers to waiting or expectation.

In Introduzione all’oscuro, the imitation or transfer of some physiological sounds is obvious: an objectivisation of sorts, a silent dramatisation of heartbeat or breathing. Here, the music tends to invert the meaning of absence and presence, shifting them toward the “spectral”. What is announced is imperceptible; what remains is a blind, enigmatic movement of accelerating and decelerating periodic pulsation.

A few reminiscences of song appear (remnants of reality in that tense atmosphere), not only with the magic indifference of things that we well know but almost like limpid epiphanies.

Salvatore Sciarrino