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Tonino Tesei         Preludi Ostinati (NA121cd)

3/1/2006

 
Picture
Fausto Bongelli, piano

The music that I have written for the piano has always been suggested directly by the positions of my hands on the keyboard; the compositional imagination comes directly from the hands, with their muscles and tendons. More precisely, it is a game of reciprocal adaptation between the creative thought, the anatomy of the hands and the instrumental technique.
 
Sei Marchigiane
The title of this collection is taken from the region where I live: the Marche, in central Italy. Composers in the past centuries have given their dances names taken from nations, regions and cities - polonaises, ecossoises, siciliane, pavane or padovane (from Padua), tarantelle (from Taranto) and napolitane (from Naples). I am interested in folk music, not because I can quote themes or because I want to write music that is based in a folk language, but rather in order to renew and enrich my compositional style, the way Debussy did with the Javanese Gamelan or Ligeti with the African tradition. In my Sei Marchigiane, I've tried to reproduce the accompaniment of the concertina in the way it quickly alternates tonic and dominant chords. Also, I have attempted to recreate the flickering, the squabble, the weirdness, the frenzy of the old concertina players, who would play the instrument by ear in their spare time, as their job was in the fields (they were peasants). I heard them play as a child during country fairs.
 
Tre Valzer
In the Tre valzer I have used a compositional technique that Arvo Pärt would call "tintinnabuli style". I have harmonized the melody with only one chord: the tonic. The third "valzer" (that has as subtitle "dell'ultimo e del primo dell'anno" because was composed between December 31, 1998, and January 1, 1999) is a variation on a theme taken from the second movement of Pärt's Tabula Rasa.
Preludi Ostinati
 
In the twelve Preludi ostinati (Obstinate preludes 1999/2000), the rhythmical events happen in two layers: we have a fast uniform series of pulsations as a fundamental layer (ostinato) and an odd rhythmical module constantly changing in the overlapping layer. This technique allows me to create complex polyrhythmic structures. In all the preludes, a coda repeats the first section: the musical discourse is repeated not to resume it but in order to arrive at the end. The final chord, in which the keys are abandoned one after the other from the bottom to the top, is the characteristic ending of this whole collection of preludes.


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The triangle and the spiral, a compound symbol of strength and motion, of pitch and time, of being here and going there... Once we created an imaginary road  sign that we painted and drove to Rte. 50 in the middle of Nevada.  There it became our postcard, our place, our mooring.
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