Song cycle for baritone and piano
Zurich 1974 / Lavadina November 25, 1978
approx duration of performance 14-15'

'… ein Fliegendes ruft / aus dem Stein / Gräser wachsen / wie Abels Feuer / …
'… a flying one calls / from the stone / grasses grow / like Abel's fire /…' thus begins the final poem of Ermano Maggini's song cycle as if it took up the word of the previous vocal work, as if a word answered the voice that once was Nelly Sachs's voice, whose poems on 'Tear yourself apart, night' (or 'Divide (Cease) thee, night') had not yet been published when the young poetess wrote these texts in 1970. In that year Paul Celan and Nelly Sachs died.

The poetry of the 1970s can almost only be a response to the voices that perished in the cruel century. And so the composition 'Kieseliris' begins with the poem 'Finsterfall / Steintropfen / wiedergefunden / am Grabhügel / einer Welt' ( 'dusk falling / drops of stone / refound / at the tomb of a world'. The six-part poetic cycle by Evi Kliemand was published bibliophilically in 1973 together with her woodcuts by Editions Brunidor Paris/Vaduz. In 1974 the composer, who was on friendly term with the lyricist, set these texts to music for baritone and piano, as he had previously done 'Schläfentäler' for baritone, flute, piano and narrator. The meeting with the musician Mario Venzago, 'Neue Horizonte' Bern, had encouraged Ermano Maggini to undertake the setting of 'Kieseliris' again, which had not yet been fully completed, and to keep it ready for a planned performance.

On February 4, 1979 Ermano Maggini wrote a letter to baritone Niklaus Tüller in Konolfingen/Bern: 'Dear Mr Tüller, in the meantime you will have received 'Kieseliris' via Mr Mario Venzago. I would be very pleased if you could find access to my work. I mentioned to Mr Venzago that I had written an unperformed composition for baritone solo.
on texts by Nelly Sachs. I take the liberty of sending these to you. I would appreciate it very much if you could realise this work.' On March 15, 1979 Niklaus Tüller replied (his letter went from Bern to Zurich, Niederdorfstrasse 50): 'Dear Mr Maggini, I have looked at your compositions with interest and pleasure. There will surely be an opportunity to perform your work after compositions with Nelly Sachs's poems. We will probably meet in Bern. I am already looking forward to to it. P.S. Would you please give me Ms Evi Kliemand's address, I have not yet thanked her for the 'Sentences 1978' you sent to me.
And Maggini's letter dated March 3, 1979: 'I was very pleased about your gracious answer, thank you. I am all the more in the expectation of our personal meeting. I am happy that you appreciate the 'Sentences 78'. Ms Evi Kliemand, Sonnblickstrasse 6, 9490 Vaduz will also be very delighted. With warm regards, I am yours Ermano Maggini.'

Unfortunately, what was planned so joyfully could not take place. The intended concert of May 26, 1979 in the radio studio DRS Bern, organized by 'Neue Horizonte Bern', with the two interpreters Mario Venzago, piano, and Niklaus Tüller, baritone, had to be canceled on the day of the performance because of the singer's angina. The programme sheets were ready.
The facts that 'Kieseliris' remained without a premiere well beyond the composer's death, apart from a private performance in Berlin which Ermano Maggini did not want to consider as a premiere, and that even the vocal work with Nelly Sachs's poetry cycle has not yet been performed to this day, may better understand who knew the composer personally. Although he was committed to the performance of a work for some time, he usually wrote for particular interpreters. When a performance did not materialize, he moved on, focused on what was in the making as working time was too precious. Not so, however, when interpreters approached him again later.

he posthumous activity of the foundation he had set up should be understood regarding this background. In the first years, the Board of Trustees devoted itself to setting up archives and first recordings, first taking in account the interpreters who had rehearsed the works together with the composer. If the means allowed, there was a further emphasis on posthumous premieres. These included two orchestral works, one organ work, works for solos and also the three string quartets, which were recorded on CDs posthumously by the Gewandhaus Quartett Leipzig, which are now available in edited scores. Even so he had not had the opportunity of hearing 'Kieseliris' performed, it can be assumed that his inner ear distinctly heard the works he wrote.

Three decades after its creation 'Kieseliris' was premiered on January 7, 2007 in Liechtenstein, in the music workshop Rietli, Triesenberg, in a concert supported by the Fondazione Ermano Maggini Intragna. The interpreters were Peter Naef, bass baritone, Raffael Kuster, piano, Hieronymus Schädler, flute. Beside this world premiere, the Trilogy for Flute and Canto V (1978/79) and the composition 'Atem' for piano (1976) dedicated to Evi Kliemand were also performed (both manuscripts have the note 'Lavadina').

'Kieseliris' for baritone and piano is a simple work compared to the composer's polyphonic works, the orchestral works, the string quartets or the late broadly conceived vocal compositions which have not yet been premiered. The concert started with a reading by Evi Kliemand from her early poetry cycles. The third poem in 'Kieseliris' ends in the lines: 'Flight and starry cold / graze the stone / where sleep keeps vigil a clay core a word egg / rolls / perhaps / along the boundless galaxy / past me.

The painter and poet Evi Kliemand still uses her studio in the hamlet of Lavadina in Triesenberg; Ermano Maggini mentioned this place several times in his scores, also in 1990, for there, high above the Rhine Valley at the little window with a sweeping view, he had liked to watch over his emerging compositions, sitting at the piano in the upper room of the ancient wooden house at Lavadina, armed with eraser and pencil, and making use of the seclusion he had gained. The last bars of his poetry cycle 'Kieseliris' for baritone and piano change from crescendo to lento espressivo 'the birth of your wings is happening (oder: Your wings are coming into being) / - raise the stone' and returning to silence the music ends in a fourfold piano – lasciar suonare sino al niente.
This is followed only by the entry, written with the same pen that wrote the composition: 'Ermano Maggini Lavadina 25-11-1978'.

Text: Evi Kliemand (2018/21)
Translation: Thomas Batliner (2021)
Fondazione Ermano Maggini Intragna
Herausgeberin Fondazione Ermano Maggini Intragna
alle Rechte auch bei der Autorin
Werkausgabe: 23
Musikverlag Müller & Schade AG 3014 Bern
M&S 2609 ISMN M-979-0-50023-986-4

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