Luca Francesconi
Etymo / Da Capo / A Fuoco / Animus

"Wanderer" is the title of an orchestral piece by Luca Francesconi, thus offering us the portrait of a composer on the move, presented in this Kairos CD. The opening piece, "Etymo", is written for soprano voice, electronics, and an ensemble of 18 elements. A complex, ambitious piece, because it doesn’t want to merely be a musical transposition of Baudelaire’s texts used here, but an organism on multiple levels that in its 25 minutes of duration arranges its basic material (phonemes, instrumental particles, electronic transformation) and then aggregates it into increasingly complex structures.

The piece is almost entirely based on Baudelaire’s poem Le Voyage, from which two key fragments are declaimed by the soprano at two points: «Dites, qu’avez-vous vu?» (what have you seen? with the syllables vous vu repeated very quickly, creating a sound effect in itself) and «Et puis, et puis encore?» (and then, what else?). These fragments are the aesthetic manifesto of the piece, the key to understanding a composer who wants to direct his gaze far away (what have you seen?) in search of ever-new visions (and then, what else?).

The vocal and instrumental density is a characteristic of Luca Francesconi (probably derived from Berio, of whom Francesconi was first a student and then assistant): it can be found in "Etymo" (written in 1994) as well as in the other three pieces on the CD, all of which are instrumental and each lasting 14 minutes.

Soft sounds and calligraphic writing in "Da capo" for 9 instruments (1986), a piece that moves from a great initial impetuosity to a hieratic rallentando. Great skill in exploiting the resources of a limited instrumental ensemble in "A fuoco", for classical guitar and an ensemble of five elements (1995). And then, the final surprise: "Animus" for trombone and electronics, also from 1995.

The instrument, the trombone, which in certain occasions (Sequenza V by Berio) takes on grotesque and hyperbolic characteristics: here Francesconi magnifies them disproportionately with the aid of electronics, transforming the piece into a catalog of expressive possibilities that seem to outline a caricatured mutation of the instrument as well as of its performer, trapped in a sort of iron lung (brass lung, in this case). A brilliant, surprising piece, with subtle virtuosity that pushes our gaze further (what have you seen?) and our listening.