Fragments & Electronics – The Poetry of Sammarchi

“Among today’s composers, Luigi Sammarchi (b. 1962) of Bologna occupies a leading position. Winner of the Valentino Bucchi International Composition Competition (2004), he writes for major theatres and collaborates with renowned musicians. As reserved as he is cultured and sensitive, he favours the use of electronics: in this field, he considers himself a pupil of Alvise Vidolin. At the heart of his writing, one can sense the influence of the ‘classics’: Bach in the way he leads the melodic lines, Mozart and Beethoven in his handling of the overall form. At the same time, Sammarchi draws on composers of the recent past, such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luigi Nono; he is not immune to the appeal of structuralism, but aims above all for ‘expressive’ music that evokes and conveys emotions. His preferred technique is the “fragment”: an image – a verse, a sound – is brought into focus by a sort of eidetic memory, which, resonating in space, is transformed. In this process, the literary text provides a stimulus for compositional imagination, then becomes sound itself by combining with that of the instrument and “live electronics”. Listen to “Hybris/Dike” for flute and live electronics (2009): these are excerpts from Edgar Morin, hence the title, combined with fragments of Heraclitus, blended with the instrument’s melody, whilst the sound is spatialised, in various dynamics, thanks to the signal circulating through eight speakers. "Dolce mi è sembrato il mio destino fuggitivo" for voice and live electronics (2017), featuring verses by Dino Campana and Pindar, presents four "image-resonances" – Sogno, Alti orizzonti, Ombra del vento, Andar fatale –, where the presence of the choir is simulated through electronics. Fascinating is “Sydereus… canto della lontananza” (2011), performed in Trieste for chamber ensemble and revived in 2013 in Bologna for full orchestra. The idea stems from Rainer Maria Rilke (Sonnet to Orpheus I, 23): it is the poetic image that evokes the music, in a continuous surfacing of dreamlike visions, of unconscious flashes in which consciousness becomes dulled and shipwrecked.”