Salvatore Sciarrino
Lohengrin

The most internationally known and performed living Italian composer: Salvatore Sciarrino is the author of music made of delicate and fragile sounds, sometimes just hinted at, constantly struggling to emerge from silence. A sound in filigree, and "Shadow of sound" is indeed the title of one of his pieces: a definition that could apply to all his music.

The CD I am highlighting offers a sample of his "musical theater": also essential, rarefied, very different from the melodrama of the past. But it is clear that "Lohengrin" (1983) references Wagner's opera, and even more so Jules Laforgue's story, from which the text is derived.

A female reciting voice impersonates the only two characters in this "invisible action": Lohengrin, the medieval knight, and his young bride, Elsa. A small male chorus intervenes sporadically throughout the 45-minute duration of the piece; the rest is entrusted to the sounds of a chamber ensemble.

Not an easy listen because the story is jumbled in chronological succession and the music is frayed and lacking in density. The two characters are distinguished by the timbre employed by the reciting voice: clear and crystalline for Elsa, deep and manly for Lohengrin. There is a certain sense of humor, such as when Lohengrin rejects Elsa's amorous advances, not yet eighteen (during their wedding night), preferring to ride away into the night on a swan instead of staying with his young wife.

It is obvious that a live experience is more significant than a CD listen: only in a stage performance can you notice, in the epilogue, that the wedding villa bathed in moonlight disappears suddenly, and Elsa is revealed to be a patient in a psychiatric hospital...

For those unfamiliar with Sciarrino, author of a vast oeuvre, I might not recommend starting with "Lohengrin": the torn texture of this music can be more unnerving than extreme metal. However, bear in mind that we are dealing with a great composer, with a personal and highly recognizable style: and his distinctive features – the preference for harmonic sounds drawn from all instruments, trills and tremolos, effects like whispers and slaps in wind instruments – are all present here.