Release: February 2014 Copyright: Casa Musicale Sonzogno, Etta Scollo Editions: Casa Musicale Sonzogno
LUNARIA – in the luminous joy of deceit
This CD documents a recording event in tribute to the memory of the great contemporary writer Vincenzo Consolo, who passed away recently. The tribute is also the result of an idea born during a meeting between Etta Scollo and the author some years ago – the development of the musical potential of his novel “Lunaria”. The story, inspired by Giacomo Leopardi’s lyric fragment spavento notturno (nocturnal fear) – but also, as the author explicitly admits, by the text L’esequie della luna (Funeral rites of the moon) (1967) by poet and friend Lucio Piccolo – is set in a fantastical Sicily seen through a kaleidoscope that combines all the tones of Mediterranean Baroque. The main character is the vice-king of the island, a melancholy figure who embodies the very opposite of the power that surrounds him and of which he himself is a symbol. One night in a dream this atypical sovereign sees the moon fall down. It would seem to be only a bad dream, but in reality it is a premonition: in a distant village in his kingdom, a place that cannot be found on any map, the moon has really fallen down … Suspended between narrative and lyricism the story is woven like a music score in which the musical elements flow like an underground river, emerging here and there into the light of the sun (or rather the moon) in truly melodic espisodes: songs, dances and poems whose musical tension is heightened by the use of the author’s special “personal” language, using the ancient roots of diverse regional idioms. I am grateful for Caterina Consolo-Pilenga’s enthusiasm for my proposal to make the recording in the Consolos’ Milan home. We wanted to immerse ourselves in the fantasy of the memory of a “Lunaria” born within these walls, in these rooms where living, writing, everyday moments and meetings both personal and literary had taken place. And these rooms became for us the “nameless region” of the story. “The island where the fragment of a word dwells, here it returns again with all its grace and hopes, its necessary dreams, in the luminous joy of deceit.” Entering on tiptoe with only a
minimalistic technical setup, we were able to record live in the birthplaceof what Consolo in an emotional moment called one of the most intimate and most loved works of all his literary production. May fallen Luna from the Vice-King’s visionary dream rise again from this composition! I hope it stand as a testimony and contributes to an awareness and popularization of Consolo’s works, to an irrevocable passage of art and culture which in this age more thanever before risks being lost. English translation: Margarte Helliwell
TRACKLIST(all the original lyrics are a part of the book LUNARIA, available at Mondadori.it / German translation: graphic version – ptintable version)
ORIGINE DEL TUTTO / listen to the track AZZURRO, GIALLO, ROSSO / listen to the track DOÑA SOL E VICERÉ / listen to the track OH FIGGHIA / listen to the track TALÉ TALAI LA LUNA / listen to the track NULLA VIENE / listen to the track LUNA LUNACORE / listen to the track MACULATA LUNA / listen to the track LA REGINA / listen to the track NELLA GIOIA LUMINOSA DELL’INGANNO / listen to the track FILASTROCCA DELL’ARANCIA / listen to the track LUNARIA / listen to the track LUNANOVA / listen to the track
Illustrations and credits
“Lunaria” – interview with Etta Scollo by Zammù multimedia – University of Catania
TEASER
