"Sogno di danza" (Dream Of A Dance), for flute and electronics (February 2001)

Recording data: March 2001, flutist Gianluigi Nuccini.

AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION
The folk music traditions, which I have always been interested in, show us wonderful examples of pastoral music: the calls used in Sweden to summon one's herd, or used by shepherdesses to communicate with each other, whle their voice echoes through the valleys, or the dance rhythms played on their flute by the shepherds, from Sardinia to Scandinavia, to entertain themselves, alleviating the melancholy of a day spent in watching the cattle, in complete solitude, and silence.
These are indeed the music examples that, reworked into my own personal musical language, form the background of "Sogno di Danza", and, during the composition of this piece, my mind was often returning to these images.
The piece includes also some scenic directions, which contribute to a better rendition of the desired effect. Here we quote some of them, adapted and interspersed with other comments:
"At the beginning of the piece the flutist enters the stage unexpectedly, but he stops at its margin. The score and the flute, visible to the audience, are already on the stage. The tape and the chronometer are started, without waiting for the audience to be all seated or silent. The tape emits an introductory background sound. Immediately after, the lights are dimmed considerably. For 1'30" the flutist gazes at the flute, almost bewitched, from a distance, without approaching it, remaining at the stage margin and ignoring the audience, while the tape goes on playing the nostalgic and delicate introductory sound..."
Here is the image evoked: a shepherd is resting under a willow, sees the flute beside him, and, suddenly, feels the desire of standing up and dancing, of dreaming, and, with his playing, of dialoguing with the things around him, as if they could answer...
"Around 1'30" the tape keeps silent, and the flutist moves on resolutely, grasps the flute and begins immediately to play. At the same time, the stage lights return immediately at their normal level..."
The flutist begins to play, and the first hints to strongly rhythmical patterns, with their feeling of uneasiness, tend progressively to come into evidence more and more. A man, alone, facing the nature, the reality surrounding him, and trying to awake it, to make it react to the suggestion of his flute. The rhythms become more and more firm, tend to expand, until they become almost overwhelming, sometimes also passing through tender and then dramatic moments, tend to explode, until they develop into the vortex of a long dance, almost an infinite, ecstatic song.

But, perhaps, it's only a dream. At the end, all is soothed again into the melancholic and sweet soft calls, which had already appeared several times during the piece, while the tape returns to the delicate and nostalgic background sound of the beginning.
"Approaching the conclusion of the piece, the flutist, very slowly, almost as in a slow-motion movie, while playing, begins to move in order to exit the stage, never stopping playing. At the same time, the lights get gradually dimmer and dimmer, but they are never switched off completely. The flutist continues to move in order to leave the stage, exits it, and goes on playing from outside (till 13'35" approximately)."
The sound comes from a distance, as from another world, to which the flutist has now gone...
"...after a short silence, the tape emits a sort of final burst: precisely in that very same moment (at 13'48,5") the lights are abruptly switched off completely."
And here, at the end of the story, with this "sound explosion" which throws us into the darkness, one awakes.
Where are the overpowering rhythms of the dance? Where is the nostalgia of the melancholic calls? Where is the flutist? Was it all only a dream?

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Differently from what happens in my previous piece for piano and electronics "A Forest Tale", in "Sogno di Danza" the leading part is that of the instrument, and, often, the electronics remain in the background.
The tape part has been composed by using only flute sounds, or their derivative elaborations, which have turned out to have a fascinating variety of expression. The same sonic nature of the flute sounds sampled has by itself indicated the way for the proper expressive development of the composition.