Intragna/Zürich 1989/90
performance time about 14'
Transp. notiert
instrumentation: 1 Flute (Piccolo), 2 oboes (cor anglais), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 1 trumpet, 1 trombone, timpani, strings

Ermano Maggini's orchestral work CANTO XX – his last orchestral work (created without a commission and remaining without a dedication) was premiered on 15 March 2014 as a posthumous studio recording in the Radiostudio Lugano RSI Rete 2. It was performed by the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana OSI. The work was not performed in one piece and the assembling of the single parts was left to the art of the sound engineer. A recording (digital storage) was sent to the archive of the Fondazione Ermano Maggini Intragna on 10 November 2014. The members of the foundation council listened to this significant work, which is very characteristic of this composer, for the first time at the 2014 Annual Meeting. Undoubtedly 'ermanissimo', although a refined interpretation and in-depth recording as well as a concert before an audience are still due as a true tribute and world premiere. The Radiostudio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano-Besso is the place where several of Ermano Maggini's works were premiered. The score of Canto XX has already completed a real odyssey as this orchestral work should have been performed on request in Kiev/Ukraine as part of a Pro Helvetia concert in 2001, but the venture was canceled.

Ermano Maggini completed Canto XX for orchestra in 1990, a year before his death. These last years were busy, also in terms of concerts and lavish works were created. Some late works could only be posthumously performed or are still waiting for a performance. They include Canto XVI for cello solo and orchestra, which was performed in 1998 in the radiostudio by the violoncellist Annick Gautier and the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana under the direction of Christof Escher. The three string quartets were also posthumously recorded by the Gewandhaus Quartett Leipzig in the Radiostudio Lugano, Rete 2, and were premiered in representative concerts between 1998 and 2002 in collaboration with the Fondazione Ermano Maggini Intragna (Zurich, Leipzig, Gentilino). This resulted in the CD editions Jecklin 2000 JS-317-2 and Jecklin 2004 JS-319-2.

In the early 1970s Ermano Maggini had planned to write 21 Canti, according to the number of chapters in the Gospel of John. He completed the Ultimo Canto, the last string quartet, in the same year as the Canto XX for orchestra, one year before his unexpectedly early death. Both works reveal a lucid spatial-acoustic energetics of high transparency, and they come close to cosmically structured sound formations in their sound-sphere and in their intervals and overtone spectra, to which Ermano Maggini always attached great importance.

The absence of the sound or its disappearance in space has also an effect as part of the whole form. Therefore Ermano Maggini called a comprehensive cycle of composition: Torsi. Ermano Maggini saw the space, where the sound disappears, as part of the whole form; visually this would mean the form reaches the invisible. Thus we are approaching the given content-related motives of the Canti in general and the motive of Canto XX in particular. Concretely, the 20th chapter is located at the tomb of the risen Christ: '… and Mary Magdalen comes to the tomb early on, when it is still dark, and sees the stone taken away from the tomb entrance. She runs and comes to Simon Peter and that other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and says to them: they have carried the Lord away from the tomb … They had not yet grasped the meaning of the scripture, namely that he was to rise from the dead. The disciples went home. But Mary stood without before the tomb, weeping … and she saw two angels clothed in white sitting there. … They said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? Because they have carried away my Lord, and I do not know where they have put him. … and she turned round, and saw Jesus standing there without knowing that it was Jesus. … Whom are you searching? Mary! … And Jesus announced her his resurrection. The risen Lord soon after appeared to the disciples'.

It is a striking fact that all parts in Ermano Maggini's compositional work are singable as the sound structure remains connected to the part, which is also true within the orchestral works. Every single part could be listened to individually for Ermano Maggini uses the possibilities inherent in the instruments and makes the individual tone rise and fall, similar to the dynamics of a human voice. It is not by chance that the catalogue raisonné features only one work for piano solo, while the winds and the strings, flute, clarinet and cello enjoy a predominance also within the more complex works. The individual parts have an individualized, self-supporting dimension. It is as if there still were a voiced, singable breath, as if in this way the composer approached his vision of sound. Ermano Maggini remained very precise and differentiated in his dynamics, the crescendi and decrescendi. Whether the parts move in opposite directions or run parallel, their overlapping in time and space is perceived as transparency. As broad-minded and extensive these sequences may be, this one-after-the-other becomes a simultaneity for the composer. Like the simultaneity of clouds, these sound clouds actually complete this music. This shows that Ermano Maggini had a very clear idea of the sound he intended, he knew fairly well how the sound would spread, how it should sound. A reviewer noted when listening to one of the first orchestral works 'that the work was extremely well listened to its full extend.. This applies to his late work to an even more complex extent. He may also have experienced his compositions visually in all of which a sculptural, three-dimensional style is perceptibly a sensory element. When he wrote seven 'forte', he really meant seven 'forte'. An informal painter would most likely have reinforced his strokes of the brush and intensified his use of paint in those spots. Ermano Maggini cultivated the company of visual artists of his time. To him the spatial aspect was at the same time transcendental.

Text and edition: Evi Kliemand (2018)
Translation: Thomas Batliner
Fondazione Ermano Maggini Intragna

Herausgeberin Fondazione Ermano Maggini Intragna
alle Rechte auch bei der Autorin
Werkausgabe: 19
Musikverlag Müller & Schade AG 3014 Bern
M&S 2558/01 ISMN M-979-0-50023-957-4

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