Osmo Tapio Räihälä: Corpi celesti

Corpi celesti for flute/alto flute, viola and harp. Performed live by
Livia Schweizer (flute/alto flute), Sauli Kulmala (viola) and Päivi Severeide (harp). Commissioned by Päivi Severeide.
Premier performance at the Turku Castle on 3rd Oct 2021, in Turku Philharmonic Orchestra's chamber music series.
www.raihala.com
Published by Hans Sikorski Musikverlage GmbH.
Sheet music available from www.boosey.com
Program note:
”While writing my book ‚Why Is Contemporary Music So Difficult‘ (Atena Publishing, 2021), I had to take a closer look at the complex Darmstadt avantgarde of the 1950's and 60's again. I have never aimed to write complex music for the sake of complexity, so I had to explain to myself how could so abstruse music become a part of the art music canon, since that same avantgarde killed the general public's interest towards contemporary art music. Wasn't it supposed to be too difficult...?
Corpi celesti (‚Celestial Bodies‘, 2020) for flutes, viola and harp is a reflection to that once so fashionable avantgarde, that nowadays feels so old-fashioned. And nothing is as painfully embarrasing as yesterday's fashion.
The work lasting ca. 14 minutes is divided into four sections. The trip starts with I took a walk from Kranichstein... - which of course refers to the Jagdschloss where the Darmstädter Ferienkurse were started after the WW2. It continues with ...and stopped by Erftstadt..., which was where the composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann was born. From there on we go to ...on my way to Oneglia... which was Luciano Berio's hometown. The piece ends with an Epilogue.
Within these sections I rewrite the Darmstadt avantgarde in general, although without serialism, and more specifically Zimmermann's last work Stille und Umkehr, and Berio's Sequenzas for the flute, the viola and the harp - naturally in my own musical language. Berio's habit to use narrative elements within his music brought inevitably a recited text to my work, an excerpt from Giacomo Leopardi's dialogues, where the Fashion and the Death discuss - because what is the avantgarde of today, must be dead tomorrow.”
Translation of the text:
Fashion. Madam Death, Madam Death!
Death. Wait for your time, and I'll come without your calling me.
Fashion. Madam Death!
Death. Go to hell. I'll come when you don't want me.
Fashion. As if I weren't immortal.
Death. Immortal? More than a thousand years have passed since the time of the immortals.
Earth. Do you hear this delightful music, that the celestial bodies make with their movements?
Moon. To tell you the truth, I hear nothing.
(Giacomo Leopardi: Operette morali, 1824)