Monodia – quasi un requiem (1993)

Scattered notes on Monodia, quasi un requiem.

This piece is designed to be played using a small amplification and reverberation system unless it is performed in a room with a lot of resonance.

The original material is very simple: two melodies, a line for two voices and a chromatic aggregate. The rhythmic attitude should always be loose and flexible...

The idea of resonance is central to this piece. The sound of each note and the musicians' timbral imagination are very important.

My first title was ‘Quasi um Requiem’. It's a piece about the extinction of sound and life. It's about the absurdity of death, racism and intolerance. The central section is a kind of non-sense passacaglia...

Commissioned by the Porto Contemporary Art Days 1993

on the CD Monodia (1995)

in ‘monodia - quasi un requiem’ I use a simple melodic succession and a lyrical and consonant musical gesture - but what a pleasure using these words - as the starting point for the piece. it is excessive, tense, at times almost unbearable. I wrote a little theory of the scream but lost the paper... 

     the idea was that a scream is all the more shrill the quieter it expresses itself, while still remaining a scream. silence can be the most violent of protests. in our audio-visual civilisation, silence is a sign of malfunction.

     I wanted to make a play about death, about the advance of barbarism, sometimes in very elegant and amusing guises. but how can you make a play about barbarism without shouting so loudly that you can't be heard? these ideas aren't in the play. they were in me when I was composing it.

even so, you might hear them...

 little theory of the scream for Luigi Nono

 1995