Intragna/Zürich 1986/87
performance time: about 12'
dedicated to Annick Gautier
Instrumentation: 12 violins, 6 violas, 4 violoncellos, 2 double bass

Christof Escher conducted the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana in the first performance of Canto XVI for violoncello solo and orchestra in June 1998. In the year 1986 he had already premiered with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra one other of Ermano Maggini's orchestral works, Canto XII (1985). It was not the first time for the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana either that it played a composition by Maggini. In 1978 under the direction of Marc Andreae the Orchestra Radiotelevisione della Svizzera Italiana (still with its former name) excelled with Torso II and in 1982 with Canto VI. Twelve years after its creation, Canto XVI for violoncello solo and orchestra was first performed at the request of the dedicatee, Annick Gautier in the radio studio Lugano. It was a radiophonic, not a concertante performance, which became the basis of the recording for a CD (cf.Jecklin Edition JS 317-2 2000, ed. by Fondazione Ermano Maggini Intragna).

The cellist Annick Gautier, a distinguished soloist and chamber musician, taught in Zurich and at the conservatory in Feldkirch/Austria. Ermano Maggini dedicated several works to her. She founded the cultural center LePincacle in Saint-Vallerin/Burgundy in 1996 and was its director until her premature death in 2003 at the age of 51. Her congenial way of playing contributed much to the fame of Ermano Maggini's works. Like Christof Escher, she was devoted to the composer and premiered all his works for violoncello solo. She is well remembered as the cellist of the Trio Zemlinsky, the dedicatee of the late composition Torso VIII for clarinet, violoncello and piano. (CD Jecklin Edition JS 295-2 1993).

In the late 1980s, Ermano Maggini turned his attention in his orchestral works increasingly to the string registers: among them are not yet performed works like Torso V for Clavier Cristal and strings, Canto XII for strings (for 14 violins, 4 violas, 4 violoncellos, 2 double bass), Canto XV for violoncello solo and orchestra, but also the work presented here, Canto XVI for violoncello solo and strings from 1986–1987, arranged for 12 violins, 6 violas, 4 violoncellos, 2 double bass. Ermano Maggini's orchestral works have a dense sound texture whose characteristic is a tension that explores extremes. There are also the homogeneous sound and the individual part, an acoustic phenomenon that can become an expressive, informal sounding body in which the transparency of dynamically spatial dimensions comes to bear and continues to develop. Hence it is not surprising that Ermano Maggini had always been in direct contact with visual artists of his time. (see also the biography: Evi Kliemand: Ermano Maggini, ein Schweizer Komponist, Musik Verlag Müller&Schade Bern 2014).

Ermano Maggini's oeuvre comprises 56 instrumental and vocal works, of which a good two-thirds were premiered during the composer's lifetime, including elaborate orchestral works. Numerous chamber music concerts and radio broadcasts made his work known during his lifetime. He founded the Fondazione Ermano Maggini Intragna which posthumously released five CDs of his works in collaboration with Radio-Studio Lugano Rete Due and Edition Jecklin Zurich. The first projects were recordings with those interpreters who had rehearsed the works in the presence of the composer. In addition, new circles of interpreters have been invited in order to record still unperformed works. An important step in this direction emerged from the premieres of the three string quartets undertaken by the Gewandhaus Quartett Leipzig. The cello also plays an irreplaceable role here. This outstanding ensemble took up Canto VII again and also performed it in the anniversary concert of 25th March 2018 in the Gewandhaus Leipzig.

For Ermano Maggini, it was essential to perform a composition from the beginning to the end in order to evoke dynamics, colour, time and space in a congruent way and develop its actual tonal corpus and its overtones. This was also his principle of teaching: just in the way the students entered into a work, they should hold it and end it in the same spirit. The composer's 'duende' was fulfilled in this spirit – this energetical and perceptible culmination of all parts of the work. It may be all the more obvious that he would be sceptical of recordings that owe their perfection to a purely electronic assembling of the sequences. This piecewise procedure – without a consistent performance – happened to Canto XVI and to Canto XX, his last orchestral work, they have been performed and recorded only in the studio. A premiere before an audience in a concert hall would be desirable for both compositions.

Text and editing:
Evi Kliemand (2018/2019), Fondazione Ermano Maggini Intragna
Translation: Thomas Batliner

Publisher Fondazione Ermano Maggini Intragna
All Rights also at the author
Edition: 20
Musikverlag Müller & Schade AG 3014 Bern
M&S 2600/01ISMN M-979-0-50023-975-8

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