Romanischer Sommer 2025 - Den Himmel befragen

In the organizer's words:

Giorgio Netti's necessità d'interrogare il cielo (1996/1999) is an approximately 70-minute cycle for solo soprano saxophone. The work, which was created at the end of the 1990s in close collaboration with the Swiss saxophonist and university professor Marcus Weiss, exclusively uses multiphonics and split sounds on the saxophone as compositional material. This results in polyphonic structures and quasi-polyphonies on a traditionally monophonic instrument. Especially in acoustically lively and reverberant spaces, the impression of a polyphonic meta-instrument unfolds. The collaboration between Netti and Weiss led to the publication of Die Spieltechnik des Saxophons (2010, Bärenreiter Verlag), a book on extended playing techniques on the saxophone, which offers a compendium of multiphonics on all instruments of the saxophone family.

Giorgio Netti, born in Milan in 1963, studied composition with Sandro Gorli at the G. Verdi Conservatory in Milan. He received his poetic influence through lectures by Brian Ferneyhough, Gérard Grisey, Emanuel Nunes, Wolfgang Rihm and Iannis Xenakis, which took place in Milan between 1986 and 1995. His work is characterized by the convergence of initial intuition, instrumental practice and structure, in a space that allows each moment to be experienced as an unrepeatable singularity and local materialization of a broader cohesive force. "What interests me is the specificity of the instrumental body: the instrument as the vanishing point of where a reading of the world in sound is directed. I am interested in how to bring together the most unexpected currents of an anchored traditionalism with the greatest experimental daring on an unaltered instrument. For me, what distinguishes a musical instrument from a sound object is precisely this possibility of very different events. A musical instrument, through the unity of the vibrating body, following the modulation of its local specificity, allows an incredible continuity between extremes." (Giorgio Netti)

In 2021, Giorgio Netti and Salim(a) Javaid met at the IMPULS Festival in Graz and worked together on Netti's music for saxophone. This fruitful collaboration gave rise to the desire for further projects. Netti composed the extensive work puLsar for Javaid's chamber music formation Trio Abstrakt, which premiered in 2024 at Milano Musica at Teatro alla Scala and at the NOW! Festival at the Philharmonie Essen. The work is part of the new cycle LANterna, which is conceived for three different trios, each with a saxophonist. Netti and Javaid are also working on a new publication on extended playing techniques with a special focus on articulation techniques.

Program:

Giorgio Netti
necessità d'interrogare il cielo
Four-part cycle for soprano saxophone solo, 1996/1999
1 "...intuire la dispiegata forma della luce"
2. "...affrettandosi verso il centro della luce risonante"
3. "...silenzio dei padri"
4. "...sottile veicolo dell'anima"

Performers:

Salim(a) Javaid, saxophone

Box Office only 20 euros (reduced 10 euros)

Price information:

Box Office only 20€ / reduced 10€