We went to Teatro alla Scala to enjoy a concert: ORCHESTRA SINFONICA NAZIONALE DELLA RAI on Oct.17th.
I didn't check the concert information carefully before this night, but just as an ordinary leisure activity to relax on a Sunday night. However, the performance of the four pieces of music that night was so extraordinary.
There were no rhythms, no solid notes, you just heard music and sound as grey clouds full of mists and inscrutable trills as if the clouds were shifting, witty, unsettling, you heard these incredible emotions. It was a wonderful contrast of sorts that the theatre is of traditional indoor decorations, like red curtains and warm white crystal lights from above, along with most of the audience in fine formal dress.
The sound of strings and bows waving, the discordant drums, the sound of orchestral mouthpieces, the sound of cloth tearing. Musical sounds have shapes, but they have been compressed and stretched into shapes you don't recognise. Everything is interspersed with yet many new sounds that you can't distinguish.
The composer's imagination makes this sound materialise, creating a force field that hangs over the theatre. I ask myself more questions under this mysterious mood: What is the exact difference between one sound and another? What is the need for structure and form? What is the relation between the audience and the composer? After the show, the moon was very beautiful and I was still lost in the music for a long time.
This is the kind of moment I really love Italy.
List of Music on Oct 17th, Teatro alla Scala:
- Helmut Lachenmann(1935), Staub per orchestra (1985 - 1987), Prima esecuzione in Italia
- Giacomo Manzoni(1932), Schuld per tenore e orchestra (2016 - 2018, rev. 2021), Commissione Milano Musica - Prima esecuzione assoluta
- Fausto Romitelli(1963 - 2004), Dead City Radio: Audiodrome per orchestra (2003)
- Francesco Filidei* (1973), Fiori di fiori, per orchestra (2012)