Works - Luigi Sammarchi

2025

Mitternacht

chitarra — 6'

stars Prima esecuzione 26/3/2026 — Artistic Research Higher Education and Technological Innovation in Opera, New York

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Sammarchi - Mitternacht - chemin su Doktor Faust, di Ferruccio Busoni in memoriam.mp3

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2025

Senza titolo

mezzosoprano, 2 soprani, violino, violino barocco, viola, viola barocca, viola da gamba, flauto, clavicembalo, percussioni storiche e percussioni moderne, arciliuto, tiorba, ūd

stars Prima esecuzione 21/3/2025 — Teatro comunale di Ferrara

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2021

In alloro mutò il suo pianto

Soprano I, Soprano II e clavicembalo, Baritono, Live electronics — 1h 6'

The myth of Orpheus, reimagined through the eyes of an unexpected witness: Daphne, Eurydice’s dearest friend, who herself was swept away by ‘mad love’ for the singer of the gods. This fresh perspective restores to the myth the brutal elements handed down by ancient sources and often softened by later tradition: Eurydice does not die by chance, but in an attempt to escape Aristaeus’s violence; Orpheus, having returned from the underworld, is torn apart by the Furies, and his head drifts as far as Lesbos before being reunited with his body.

The score is conceived as an uninterrupted flow of sound in which ancient harmonies, evocative of the Orphic myth, emerge and submerge within a contemporary musical fabric, creating a dialogue between eras that seeks not quotation but interpenetration.

The work is dedicated to the memory of Mario Messinis, artistic director of the Bologna Festival from 1992 to 2019, who passed away in 2020.

Premiere: Bologna Festival, ‘Il Nuovo L’Antico’ cycle.

stars Prima esecuzione 15/9/2021

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Sequence for 2 sopranos, baritone and ensemble

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Sequence for soprano flute and viola

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Daphne’s song over Orpheus’s body

2015

My fleeting destiny seemed sweet to me

voce e live-electronics — 9'

stars Prima esecuzione Bologna festival 2017

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My fleeting destiny seemed sweet to me

2014

Infinity-Moment

soprano, flauto e violoncello su testo di Paolo Cecchi

It arises from a fusion with Paolo Cecchi's poetic words, of which the music is not an illustration but an extension: a flow of sound that inhabits the same dreamlike dimension as the text, chasing fleeting traces in the infinite passing of moments.

Time — engraved, suspended, dilated — is the very material of the composition. The three voices move as reflections of each other: echoes, resonances, reminiscences that surface and vanish without ever settling into a definitive outline. The soprano takes the word beyond its meaning; the flute and cello prolong its breath into the unattainable.

stars Prima esecuzione 11/7/2014 — Teatro La Fenice

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infinito_attimo.mp3

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picture_as_pdf programme (601.5 KB) open_in_new picture_as_pdf locandina fenice.pdf (1.4 MB) open_in_new

2014

Senza titolo

Flauto, contrabbasso e nastro magnetico

stars Prima esecuzione 18/3/2014 — Laboratori delle Arti

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Brama il mio desire_Omaggio a Gesualdo -6'47.mp3

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2014

A distant song tugged at my heartstrings

coro di voci bianche, pianoforte e suoni elettronici

Dedicated to Luigi Nono, the composition revisits the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice through texts taken from the correspondence between Dino Campana and Sibilla Aleramo.
The ensemble — choir, piano, soprano voice and electronic material on digital recording — constructs a sound texture in which classical references and contemporary language coexist seamlessly. The soprano voice moves along a continuum that ranges from individual clarity to full integration into the overall stratification.
The electronic component takes on a structural role: not as an accompaniment, but as a progressively absorbing force, capable of submerging the musical discourse to the point of redefining its boundaries. During the performance, the sound director manages the interaction between the recording and the live performers in real time.

stars Prima esecuzione 21/4/2015 — Università di Bologna - dipartimento delle arti, centro la soffitta

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2013

Dionysus chasing the image in the mirror...

Flauto e clarinetto

‘Duplicity’, ‘reflection’ and ‘mirroring’ are the terms that inspired me—both in the formation of the underlying concept and in its realisation within the compositional structure—for this work. The sonic dualism established between the flute and the clarinet is to be understood both as a polarity in timbral and colouristic diffraction, and as a differentiated affinity in ‘aulodic’ sound production, governed by the performer’s breath. Within the aphoristic yet carefully structured tempo of the composition, the two instruments weave a dialogue and a differentiated mirroring that unfolds in three brief sequences titled ‘diaphonia’, ‘dialodia’ and ‘hoquetus’.

stars Prima esecuzione 6/7/2013 — Teatro La Fenice

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Dionisio inseguendo l'immagine nello specchio...mp3

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picture_as_pdf Programma di sala (796.9 KB) open_in_new picture_as_pdf Poster (814.1 KB) open_in_new

2013

And if only I could drink from the depths of Lethe

Orchestra

stars Prima esecuzione 12/1/2014 — Teatro La Fenice

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Radio3.mp3

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2012

To the silent stars

Flauto/voce e live electronics — 12'

Alle tacenti stelle was inspired by the figure and thought of Hypatia: philosopher and scientist, symbol of the defence of freedom of ideas and the search for truth, defined by Pallada as 'uncontaminated star of wise culture'. The piece is fuelled by the cognitive tension towards that which transcends the chronological and sensory dimension, in order to draw on the quintessence of ideas.

The structure is divided into three parts — Sequence I, Kore kosmou; Sequence II, Hypate lux-reminiscence; Sequence III, Altum silentium — and the text is constructed through the montage of fragments by various authors, recited or sung and recorded on magnetic tape.

stars Prima esecuzione 9/10/2012 — la Biennale di Venezia

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