We went to Teatro alla Scala to enjoy a concert: Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI on 17 October.
I didn’t check the programme carefully beforehand — it was simply a Sunday night. The four pieces were extraordinary.
There were no rhythms, no solid notes, you just heard music and sound as grey clouds full of mist and inscrutable trills, as if the clouds were shifting, witty, unsettling. It was a wonderful contrast that the theatre is of traditional indoor decoration — red curtains, warm white crystal lights — with most of the audience in formal dress.
The sound of strings and bows, discordant drums, orchestral mouthpieces, cloth tearing. Musical sounds have shapes, compressed and stretched into shapes you don’t recognise. Everything is interspersed with new sounds you can’t distinguish.
The composer’s imagination makes this sound materialise, a force field over the theatre. I asked myself: 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.
This is the kind of moment I really love Italy.
Programme at Teatro alla Scala:
- Helmut Lachenmann, Staub per orchestra (1985–1987), Italian premiere
- Giacomo Manzoni, Schuld per tenore e orchestra (2016–2018, rev. 2021), commission, world premiere
- Fausto Romitelli, Dead City Radio: Audiodrome per orchestra (2003)
- Francesco Filidei, Fiori di fiori, per orchestra (2012)