Unfortunately I don't know exactly what is being said (and am not aware of existing translations), but it is about the death of the Baroque architect Francesco Borromini. See description for more details. You can also see the full text here, p. 16 www.kairos-music.com/sites/default/files/downloads/0012802KAI.pdf
Hey, I’m Italian, I can resume it briefly for you! We are in Rome, 2nd of August 1667. Borromini (a famous architect), is writing a letter where he explains how he got the injure that caused his death (so I assume he wrote it in the time between these two events). The amazing part is that he self-inflicted the injure with a sword, as the result of his paranoia and fear, and I think Sciarrino with this piece wanted to compose in music what was going on in his mind before he harmed himself. The text starts saying that he has being sick in bed for few days days, so he decided to write his will. He starts working on it after dinner until 3am in the night. At his place he had a young guy, Francesco Massari, who was helping him with the house and the work. When Francesco hears that Borromini was still up writing, he advised him to turn off the light (presumably a candle or so), because it was late and the doctor said he should rest. Borromini asked how he could then turn it on again when he was up, and Francesco replied “You can turn it off, because I will turn it on back again for you ,Sir, when You will wake up”. So Borromini stops writing and go to bed. Here starts, at 4:00, the second part, where Sciarrino puts into music the night, Borromini’s sleep and dreams (or at least this is how I see it!). At 15:00 it continues: it's around 6am, Borromini wakes up and asks Francesco to turn on the light again, but Francesco refuses (it doesn’t explain why, maybe because it was too early?). When Borromini hears that “No Sir” he starts getting anxious, and thinking about how he could injure himself (by the way: this sentence is written in an old Italian way, that now would be incorrect, but it sounds so good, and everyone can still understand it!). He remains in bed with this harmful thought until 8:30am. We are at 16:00 in the piece, and there is another long part with only music, that I see as all these paranoid thoughts put into music, you can really hear his obsession ramping up, fears coming and going like ghosts. All this energy builds up until it reaches the climax at 24:45. The text continues: Borromini suddenly remembers that he has a sword next to his bed. All these thoughts and fears about not having the light made him desperate, so he takes the sword, hold it against the bed, and throws himself on it. The sword goes through his body, side to side. Borromini falls down on the floor and starts screaming, Francesco runs into the room and with some help he takes the sword out (when the speaker says that is the moment at 26:10 where the music stops). At the end Borromini says that they put him back to bed, and this is how his injure happened. One thing that might be interesting: in the text there are a lot of references to the time, and in the music they are usually connected with the bells, that imitate the sound of church bells. Here in Italy church bells used to mark every 15 minutes, using a lower bell for the hour and a higher one for the quarter. So, for example, at the very end of the piece, we hear 8 low bells and 3 high, and this tells us it's 8:45am; or at 16:20 we heard that it was 6:15am. What I find amazing is that the bells start as a concrete material, purely to tell us the time, and gradually they become full musical material, as part of the obsessive thoughts that were infesting Borromini’s brain (the second long section with only music). I hope this might help (and sorry for any typo or mistake, English is not my first language!)
What is he saying?
Unfortunately I don't know exactly what is being said (and am not aware of existing translations), but it is about the death of the Baroque architect Francesco Borromini. See description for more details. You can also see the full text here, p. 16 www.kairos-music.com/sites/default/files/downloads/0012802KAI.pdf
Hey, I’m Italian, I can resume it briefly for you!
We are in Rome, 2nd of August 1667. Borromini (a famous architect), is writing a letter where he explains how he got the injure that caused his death (so I assume he wrote it in the time between these two events). The amazing part is that he self-inflicted the injure with a sword, as the result of his paranoia and fear, and I think Sciarrino with this piece wanted to compose in music what was going on in his mind before he harmed himself.
The text starts saying that he has being sick in bed for few days days, so he decided to write his will. He starts working on it after dinner until 3am in the night. At his place he had a young guy, Francesco Massari, who was helping him with the house and the work. When Francesco hears that Borromini was still up writing, he advised him to turn off the light (presumably a candle or so), because it was late and the doctor said he should rest. Borromini asked how he could then turn it on again when he was up, and Francesco replied “You can turn it off, because I will turn it on back again for you ,Sir, when You will wake up”. So Borromini stops writing and go to bed.
Here starts, at 4:00, the second part, where Sciarrino puts into music the night, Borromini’s sleep and dreams (or at least this is how I see it!).
At 15:00 it continues: it's around 6am, Borromini wakes up and asks Francesco to turn on the light again, but Francesco refuses (it doesn’t explain why, maybe because it was too early?). When Borromini hears that “No Sir” he starts getting anxious, and thinking about how he could injure himself (by the way: this sentence is written in an old Italian way, that now would be incorrect, but it sounds so good, and everyone can still understand it!). He remains in bed with this harmful thought until 8:30am.
We are at 16:00 in the piece, and there is another long part with only music, that I see as all these paranoid thoughts put into music, you can really hear his obsession ramping up, fears coming and going like ghosts. All this energy builds up until it reaches the climax at 24:45.
The text continues: Borromini suddenly remembers that he has a sword next to his bed. All these thoughts and fears about not having the light made him desperate, so he takes the sword, hold it against the bed, and throws himself on it. The sword goes through his body, side to side. Borromini falls down on the floor and starts screaming, Francesco runs into the room and with some help he takes the sword out (when the speaker says that is the moment at 26:10 where the music stops).
At the end Borromini says that they put him back to bed, and this is how his injure happened.
One thing that might be interesting: in the text there are a lot of references to the time, and in the music they are usually connected with the bells, that imitate the sound of church bells. Here in Italy church bells used to mark every 15 minutes, using a lower bell for the hour and a higher one for the quarter. So, for example, at the very end of the piece, we hear 8 low bells and 3 high, and this tells us it's 8:45am; or at 16:20 we heard that it was 6:15am. What I find amazing is that the bells start as a concrete material, purely to tell us the time, and gradually they become full musical material, as part of the obsessive thoughts that were infesting Borromini’s brain (the second long section with only music).
I hope this might help (and sorry for any typo or mistake, English is not my first language!)
@@MicheleoTuTo Thank you so much for taking the time to do this!
@@unpetitabreuvoir you are welcome, thank you for the upload! I love Sciarrino's music, and the more people get to know it, the better!
brano di un'intensità incredibile
Pezzo straordinario!
Sciarrino is full of surprises!
Thank you for posting this fantastic work!
Amazing subtile sounds!
Fantastic piece, i love it! i'd love to see the 2nd violin's part score haha
Thanks for posting this!!!
This sounds so similar to the piece "Stille und Umkehr" by Bernd
Alois Zimmermann, since both pieces have a long a pedal point on the note D.