'A Volcano Viewed from Afar': The Music of Salvatore Sciarrino

Author(s): Nicolas Hodges

Source: Tempo, New Series, No. 194, Italian Issue (Oct., 1995), pp. 22-24
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/944607 .
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Nicolas Hodges
'A volcano viewed from afar':
the Music of Salvatore Sciarrino
With the exception of a few small-scale pieces
programmedby the more adventurouscontemp-
orary music ensembles, the music of Salvatore
Sciarrinohas not been performed frequently in
this country; BBC Radio 3 has given occasional
airtime to larger works, but we have yet to hear
much of his most important music in any form.
This article should act, I hope, as a pointer to
readerswho might wish to explore his output on
disc, which currentlyis really the only way to do
so in this country.
Sciarrino was born in 1947 in Palermo, and
started composing at the age of 12. Biographies
disagreeover his education:some describehim as
an autodidact,while others mention composition
studies with Antonino Titone and Turi Belfiore,
and later work with Evangelisti on electronic
music at the Accademia di S.Cecilia. Sciarrino's
precociousness is beyond doubt, though, and is
evidenced by the exposure given him by the
Palermo InternationalNew Music Week at the
tender age of 15. By the age of 22 Sciarrinohad
put in place many of the fundamentals of his
musical explorations to date, most notably his
interest in marginalizedsounds in often densely-
wrought textures, and his fascination with
relatingto past formal models. Moreover, he was
already considered the youngest leader of the
new music in Italy. Since then his enormous
output has had no lack of performances in his
native country.
Sciarrinoonce describedhis music as 'like the
eruption of a volcano viewed from afar'.1This
image describes several interrelated aspects of
Sciarrino'swork. Firstly,the surfaceof the music,
though often quiet and highly detailed, is never
merely lightweight or pretty: the composer's
characterization quoted above is an explicit
contradiction of such a view. As well as a
preference for low dynamiclevels, Sciarrinoalso
has a predilection for a fully integrateduse of the
whole continuum between unpitched sound and
pure pitched tones. This is particularlynoticeable
in the musicfor solo instruments,in suchworks as
1 Anon: 'Entretien avec Salvatore
Sciarrino', in Entretemps with its companion Canzonadi ringraziamento)on Koch Europa
no.9. Paris 1991, p.137.
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the Sei Caprices(1976) for violin and the solo flute
piece Comevengonoprodottigli incantesimi?(1985).2
He shares this predilection with Luigi Nono, in
the latter's late works, although their other
concerns differ considerably. It may not be a
coincidence, however, that they have both
worked extensively with a specific circle of
Italian new music virtuosi which has the flautist
Roberto Fabbricianias its best-known member.
What Nono and Sciarrinodo share,though, is an
interest in new levels and types of listening as
distinct from a purely capricious use of such
material. Nono's other concerns are often
projected more strongly, but with Sciarrino, if
one stops to think, one becomes aware of being
consciously drawn into the experience in a way
which suggests a hidden agenda. This agenda is
Sciarrino's highly developed and idiosyncratic
sense of form.
Sciarrino's moment to moment progress
through a piece often has particularcharacter-
istics which emphasize his attitude to the
resources offered both by solo instrumentsand
ensembles. Eachpiece strikesan unstablebalance
between continuous states and their disruption.
Typicalof the former would be tremolandi,trills
and ostinati (such as string-crossingarpeggios in
the Caprices),while their disruptionranges from
stormsof entirely distinct materialto the subtlest
changes of colour. The effect is of someone
exploring the sonic resources of an instrument
throughimprovisation.In the Capricesthe closing
gesture - the strumming of the open strings -
emphasizesthis. In ensemble or keyboardworks
Sciarrinooften uses the contrapuntalcapabilities
of his medium to provide furtherenergy through
saturationof the texture with ostinato. A small
motif might be juxtaposed with itself in a myriad
different ways in a very small space of time,
producinga streamof seething detail which could
itself be disrupted as a large scale gesture.
In parallel with Sciarrino'sinterest in formal
references, alluded to above, his textures often
2 The former is available on Accord
202862, the latter (along
350-229, performed by its dedicatee, Roberto Fabbriciani.
 'A volcanoviewedfromafar':the Musicof SalvatoreSciarrino 23
evoke other composers or genres. An obvious
example of this is his First Sonata for piano,
which consciously evokes Liszt.3The texture as a
whole has remarkablesimilarities with passages
fromjeux d'eaua la VillaD'Este,while the opening
of Feux Follets is quoted almost intact, and
extended seamlessly before being transformed
into the Jeux d'eau-on-speed texture which
dominates the main part of the piece. Claudio
Tempo has also suggested that the muted,
fragmentaryending of the FirstSonatarefers to a
further work of Liszt's, the B minor sonata.4
While this may be true it has to be said that
the ending is entirely typical of Sciarrino,
particularlybearing in mind its formal function.
Another example of this occurs in the music-
theatre work Vanitasfor soprano, cello and
piano.5 The function of the piano in the texture
consciously evokes the German Lied tradition.
Similarly, the other textual references in
Sciarrino'smusic never deflect the music away
from the composer's own identity; rather they
provide clues to meaningfulformalreferences.6
Sciarrino'simage of the volcano quoted above
brings to mind another aspect of his work which
is remarkable. Formally his music has more
precision and intention than one might expect
from a superficial observation of the incan-
descent nature of his textures. The breadth and
complexity of his palette is necessitated by his
functionaluse of texture. Sciarrinohas written in
some detail about this with respect to the flute
piece Comevengonoprodottigli incantesimi?
(1985).7
The piece describes a curve which grows in
density and solidity throughout, starting with
unblown key taps and becoming denser through,
at first, the intensification of movement and
widening of harmonic range, and then the
intervention of blown notes, becoming more
and more prominent in the texture. Sciarrino
mentions in connexion with this the tradition of
final movements which represent a virtuosic
3 Sciarrino's
complete piano music up to 1992 is available in
authoritative performances by Massimiliano Damerini on
Dynamic CDS82. Sciarrino has only written one piano work
subsequently, a Fifth Piano Sonata for Maurizio Pollini.
Following its premiere (Salzburg, 24 August 1994) the work
was withdrawn for revision and has not reappeared.
4 In the sleeve note to the above-mentioned CD.
S Available on Ricordi CRMCD1015. The same company have
also released a recording of Lohengrinon CRMCD 1001.
6 The
extraordinaryAnamorfosi(1980) for piano is made up
almost entirely of material by Ravel. The piece opens with
'I'm singing in the rain' as a descant toJeux d'eau(Ravel's this
time, not Liszt's),while the close is furnished by uneBarquesur
I'oceanfrom Miroirs!The effect is charming, ironic and entirely
Sciarrinian.
7 'Entretiens avec Salvatore Sciarrino', p.136.
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culmination - a tradition which can be traced
through late Haydn and late Beethoven (a
preoccupationof Sciarrino's)to Liszt- and many
others of his works bear an active, conscious
relationship with this tradition. In the present
case the piece confounds expectations of a final
pyrotechnic display: it completely loses its
confidence, and retreats into mournful tremolo
warbles. There are a few brief attempts at a
repeated intensification- which fail, leaving the
piece to end unresolved.
This is an explicit formal reference, not for
reference's sake, but to make a point about
perception. Sciarrinonotes that 'in order to hold
the attentionit is necessaryalwaysto escalate;and
that is what the piece contradicts'.8A similar
point is made by the First Piano Sonata
mentioned above. After a profusion of material
the music suddenly pauses, and one is forced to
listen to nothing but resonance for a full 30
seconds before the piece haltingly continues,
never regaining its momentum and repeatedly
stalling, leaving only resonance again in the
foreground. My principal objection to Claudio
Tempo'sconnexion of this ending with that of the
Liszt Sonata is that in the latter, the ending is a
returnto the materialof the prologue, and is not,
like the ending of Sciarrino'sSonata,9a contra-
diction of the nature of the whole of what
precedes it.
Sciarrino frequently inverts this process in
order to place emphasis on an often extremely
sudden climax. Perhapsthe most telling example
of this is in his huge Un'Immagine d'Arpocrate for
piano, chorus and orchestra (1974-79). As the
only large-scale work currently available on
CD,10 it is perhaps worth giving some back-
ground as the long gestation of the work is
explained in part by the circumstances of its
inception.11 The Italian pianist Dino Ciani, a
colleague of Sciarrino's, had asked him for a
piano concerto early in 1974. Tragically that
proved to be the last year of Ciani's life, and after
his death work on the piece ground to a halt.
8 ibid.
9 It is interestingto note, howeverthat Liszt'sendingwas
originallythe same virtuosicculminationwhich Sciarrino
mentionsin connexionwith the flute piece.The processof
revision can be seen in the facsimileof the manuscript
publishedby Henle Verlag.
10Accord 202862, performed by Massimiliano Damerini,
with the choirand orchestraof RadioSudwestfunk Baden-
Baden, conductedby ErnestBour. The performanceand
recordingare exemplary.
II I havebasedthe followingmaterialon a smallessayby the
composerabout the compositionof the work which was
containedin the sleeve notes for the originalLP recording
ItaliaITL7088),butomittedfromtheCD booklet.
(FonitCetra
24 'A volcanoviewedfrom afar':the Musicof SalvatoreSciarrino
Sciarrino had planned three movements (in a
'traditional' fast-slow-fast scheme - which no
doubt would have been put to ironic use), and
had scored a few pages. When he managed to
resume work, however, he found that the piece
startedto change.The middle movement (Adagio)
became the centre of attention while the outer
movements (Allegroappassionato and Allegro con
fuoco) became two tiny frames, later to be
dropped altogether. Sciarrino thought of the
Adagio as 'a kind of timeless zone, veiled by
larval apparitions' and found that the idea of
'death strippedof rhetoricand linked to a limbo-
like more thana nocturnalatmosphere'broadened
the dimensions of the piece.
The result is strangelymore than the sum of its
parts. Most of the piece consists simply of
unidentifiable sustained low sound of great
complexity (produced without the use of elect-
ronics). Essentially there are two outbursts, a
short one about 10 minutes in and a longer one
just before the end (the piece lasts over 40
minutes). The expectation set up by the first
outburst is drawn out for the rest of the piece,
intensified by the muted flurries of piano and
percussionmaterialwhich have appearedregularly
from the start. When the final climax suddenly
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comes, the effect is both of great relief and tragic
pain - though clearly a work of this scale and
nature needs to be experienced ratherthan read
about.
Sciarrino uses broadly the same formal
principle in other works, although the overall
effect is of course completely different. One
good example is the Second Piano Trio (1987)
which spends much of its time exploring the
string players' harmonics, the piano very rarely
getting a look in, only to blossom rapidly into a
beautifully florid stream of ornamentation.12
One thing which these works and others in
Sciarrino's output do have in common is the
remarkable integration between the different
layers of each piece. While one can easily talk
about the great subtlety and intricacy of his
textures,and the articulacyof the formal schemes
he creates, it is emphatically not possible to
describe the total experience brought about by
music which is bound together in all dimensions
with the mastery that Sciarrino displays in so
many of his works. Let's hope that we in Britain
can experience more of his music at first hand in
the coming years.
12
Unfortunately neitherthisworknorthepowerfulFirstTrio
(1975)havebeen recorded.