Vocal work for baritone, flute and violoncello (sung and spoken)
Texts: Evi Kliemand
1973
without time specification

Ermano Maggini wrote the composition 'Schläfentäler' in 1973. He had met the young poet and painter Evi Kliemand on the occasion of the premiere of 'Cinque Disegni' in which he himself played the guitar. In the conversation that followed, he inquired about lyrical texts for the setting. Thus began the relationship that was to last beyond the composer's death.

A few months later he had picked 'Schläfentäler' out of a collection of poetry cycles, they are slivers of poetry that respond to something standing in space – and in space stands the falling silent of language, and there also stands death. Perhaps the texts are preceded by a lament, they are lamentations.

The sequences are part of a broader cycle. It was certainly courageous of the composer to use these unknown, unpublished texts for a composition. For the performance at the Tonhalle Zurich, one critic compared these hermetic, dark-sounding word sequences to the poetry of Hans Arp, possibly because he was reminded of the setting of Hans Arp's poems by Wladimir Vogel.

The premiere of 'Schläfentäler' took place on 10th September 1973 at the Kleiner Tonhalle Saal in Zurich. The performers were Fritz Etzensperger, baritone, Marlis Joss, flute, Christof Escher, violoncello, and Hans Willi Häusslein, piano. The concert programme referred to the spiritual roots of Ermano Maggini's compositional orientation. It included a work bei Luigi Cortese, Othmar Schoeck's settings of Lenau, Meyer and Eichendorff and Olivier Messiaen's 'Le merle noir', Frank Martin's 'Ballade' for flute and piano as well as Ermano Maggini's compositions for flute 'Der bemalte Vogel' and 'Ikaros' followed by 'Schläfentäler'.

The 'Tages-Anzeiger' of 14th September 1973 says: ' Three works by the 42-year-old Ermano Maggini, who lives in Zurich, show a composer off the beaten track. Even where Maggini creates playfulness for the flute ('Der bemalte Vogel') he does so with a will to singable brevity. His lyric cycle 'Schläfentäler' was premiered: the human voice recites, turns into recitative or implied arioso, and the flute and cello (Christof Escher) offer a sparse, concentrated accompaniment. Not clumsily, Maggini evokes a dreamlike atmosphere with the simplest means.'

Only two weeks later, this same concert was repeated, 'Schläfentäler' was performed a second time at the 'Theater am Kirchplatz' in Schaan on the occasion of the opening of a first comprehensive exhibition in which works by the young painter and lyricist Evi Kliemand were shown, pictorial works that had been created both in Liechtenstein and in her studio in Intragna/Ticino; these secluded places would also offer the composer a refuge for his work until in lifetime. This meant that he was allowed to separate teaching at school from his own creative activity. At these three places where he composed exclusively and where his life's work was created, Zurich – Lavadina – Intragna, three pianos were waiting for him. Ermano Maggini wrote all his compositions on the piano.
It was obvious that in a century in which a form of falling silent was immanent, artistic attempts were made to help to find a language again. Language had also lost its innocence at a time when mankind was pressured so much to question humanity and language was still in a state of shock because of the disastrous and monstrous events. This affected all forms of art, including music.

Text: Evi Kliemand (2018/2019)
Translation: Thomas Batliner (2022)
Fondazione Ermano Maggini Intragna

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Schläfentäler [Valli delle tempie] 1970, Triesen Messo in musica da Ermano Maggini G-70 Uccelli sepolcrali Il volo
degli uccelli sepolcrali
s’impenna di più

mentre quasi
s’imbruniscono

Il volo
degli uccelli sepolcrali
s’impenna di più

G-70 Il vento chiede

Il vento chiede
i nomi dei fiori

I semi si allineano
nell’ala

cosa tornisce
l’asse
nel dente di leone

cosa
l’iscurisce

G-70 addolorato

Volto addolorato
scorza materna solcata
maschera espianta

La morte batte la
pergamena del volto biblico

oscuro fendidolore
disperso nella sagrestia
del Dio dimenticato
e rigor luttuoso per misteri

G-70 Orologi monolancetta

Gli orologi monolancetta
battono più silenti

Le tombe ammostano il vino
e il tempo coagula
in specchi

Ore amebiche
parole turbinanti
gli orologi monolancetta
battono più silenti

e le colonne vocali
del presente gibboso
presagiscono durata

G-70 non chiedono mai ai morenti

Non chiedono mai ai morenti
dei fiori

ma chi porta
lo scettro di pastinaca
nell’interstizio

G-70 muoiono facilmente

Muoiono facilmente
si spalancano trattengono
radici in bocca
muoiono troppo facilmente
e le loro mani
maturano
nello stelo


Una prima versione di queste poesie è stata messa in musica da Ermano Maggini nel 1973 – per una pubblicazione letteraria fa però stato la presente versione.

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