PER LE CAMPANE DI INTRAGNA
Meditation on a tomb (for the bells of Intragna)

Intragna 1973
performing time approx. 7'30„

Carillons usually sound in preparation for a festive day. In this composition the six bells of the church in Intragna ring out. These bells were of acoustic significance for Ermano Maggini since childhood, they gave him the initial to the world of music. In another way he experienced the singing of polyphonic folk songs in the osteria of his parental home as well as the Gregorian/Ambrosian cantatas he had listened to as a pupil in the Collegio Papio di Ascona. He wrote ,Meditazione su una tomba' per le sei campane di Intragna in 1973 and it was premiered in the August of the same year. He was 42 years old then. A year before, the painter Carlotta Stocker had died unexpectedly in Zurich, in the midst of her creative work, her death deeply affected Ermano Maggini. She had been at the very beginning of his music-making in the youth, found him a better guitar and later encouraged him to move to Zurich. She had awakened in him the prospects of studying music. Two decades later, as if she had recognized the future composer, she asked him for a first work, which Ermano Maggini also dedicated to her in 1969: „Cinque Disegni“ for flute and guitar, first performed in August 1971 (cf.CD and Edition). And then her sudden death at the age of only 50 in August 1972.
In August 1973, this composition for the six bells resounded, thoughtful, resonant, persevering. Next to Gino Maggetti, the last bell-ringer of Intragna, who made the bells ring out there in the belfry on the 'bateng' (a regional expression for 'keyboard'), stood Ermano Maggini, the composer, as if the resounding notes, still in the air above his birthplace, had to embody a commemoration that concerned only him – as if he had dedicated to himself the work that was spreading over the landscape. These bells had built him a first bridge to his music, they stood at the beginning of the sonorous space, they had been the initial impulse. Through their sound he had understood what sound did – not only time but also space was the language of music. This realization already accompanied him, the guitarist, and was formative for his entire life as a composer. In a later statement on his work he wrote this: „My way of composing is based on modal tone series with a limited possibility for transposition. The more limited this possibility the more interesting the way is for me. These modes build the areas of tension within the raised musical intervals which are an elementary part of my music. At the same time the polyphony of my works produces a linear homophonic sound. The laws of tension within the harmonic-imaginary overtone sequence lead me to my own tone colour, which ultimately determines my musical language“ (Ermano Maggini).

This work for the bells is unusual for a composer of 'serious' music, after all, - but those who look deeper understand one more thing: in this, he encountered the modules to which, for better or worse, he committed himself in his musical language. For a long time he had prepared himself for this, now his language had become more tangible to him. Since his childhood, the bells had a different meaning for him than would commonly be assumed.
This 6-part module with its spectral sound textures high above people's heads had taken an early liking to him, these acoustic laws had also become enormously important to him, the composer, and this became particularly clear when they still boomed when struck by hand, making the air vibrate, and he revealed with a grin that one of the bells sounded a little 'off' in the semitone range – a vibration and frequency whose effect sounded just right for him tonally.
All this would be lost, he feared, and he was right. So it happened when the six bells were converted to an electronic drive and the clunky keyboard or 'bateng' had been cleared away, the 'bateng', which was struck with fists, so to speak. In August 1973, however, this equipment still existed, and I who writes this had to stand at the studio window with my small cassette player, while the two, bell-ringer and composer, were preparing their first performance at the manual in the open belfry, and prompted me with loud shouts from there: ancora una volta, sei pronta! And the recorder buzzed, and the buzz of a fly immortalised itself with the recording! And the first note of the composition sounded and echoed for a long time while the people in the village were surprised by the untimely sounds. There was not much more to come at that time. Gino, happy but a little perplexed, climbed down from his belfry afterwards, and Ermano laughingly handed him the new triangles he had brought from Zurich for Gino's mandolin, as he did every year.
In the year 1973, it was the first time that Ermano Maggini found the opportunity to compose during his holidays in Intragna. In the spring his friend Evi Kliemand had moved her second studio from Cavigliano to Intragna, where she had rented rooms on the upper floors of the highest stone house, whose side windows looked out onto the campanile, so that the sound of the bells virtually ran through the house. They both liked that.
In the meantime, there was also an old piano, 'Hofpianofabrik Stuttgart Ackermann'. The music house Soldini had brought the heavy thing – like once the fabulous bell from Locarno to Intragna, it was to remain Maggini's composing instrument there until his death. He liked it. When he heard that it was being considered to operate the bells electronically, he was very worried, and it was as if he was pushed to create another work with them to remind him of the former sound, virtually on the dying away of the of the far-reaching hand-beaten resonances. But something had gone out for him. And so it was.

As unspectacular as that single performance of the hand-beaten 'Meditazione su una tomba' in the summer of 1973 was, the two posthumous performances by Roberto Dikmann in memory of the composer were spectacular. On 21st April 1996, a concertante premiere took place in the Centro culturale Elisaron Minusio-Locarno, the bells as a live radiophonic transmission. A tribute to Ermano Maggini, complemented by the concert with Francesca Gianoni, flute, Aldo Martinoni, guitar and the compositions 'Cinque disegni', 'Canto V', 'Atem' and 'Meditazione su una tomba' for the bells of Intragna.
Robert Dikmann had already replayed this composition for a registration of the Fonoteca Nazionale in 1994 and then again on the occasion of the posthumous premiere. It is true that the former spectral magic of the sound body was missing, but the inkling resonated that the audible sound in the sense of Ermano Maggini was a torso graspable by the ear only in parts as a fragment of a larger whole, whose components grew into the air space, into the silence, disappeared into space there, sino al niente, fuori del tempo – still vibrating, so to speak, as if the sound were not from here, yes, in transcendent understanding (agreement), not entirely from this world. The sound body was only partially audible to the human ear, that was the message.

On 23rd July 2000, on the occasion of the great memorial concert, Ermano Maggini's composition for bells was performed again: Un concerto dedicato exclusivamente al compositore Ermano Maggini (1931 – 1991), hosted by Ticino Musica under the direction of Janos Meszaros in the Chiesa parrocchiale San Gottardo in Intragna and performed by the prodigious ensemble of Ticino Musica e i giovani delle masterclasses and Roberto Dikmann (there is a live CD recording of the concert). The newspapers reported extensively on these memorable performances.

As already mentioned, in 1994 the Fonoteca Nazionale had included this composition by Ermano Maggini in its collection (CD- Sunà ligrìa Campane del ticino – Tessiner Glockenspiele 1994 Fonoteca Nazionale Svizzera – Documentazione Archivi – Comano). The recording manager Werner Walter, who was responsible for this and during the composer's lifetime had already been in charge of the radiophonic transmissions of his works and later of the posthumous recordings on Radio Studio Lugano RTSI Rete due, He writes in the CD-booklet for this composition: „Intragna is a special case in several respects. The only known original composition by a 'serious' composer for Ticino carillon. In 1973, Ermano Maggini, author of many instrumental and vocal works, wrote 'Meditazione su una tomba' for the six bells of his hometown. The work was undoubtedly intended for a hand-played carillon: in the meantime the campanile has also been fully electrified. Nevertheless, this very special music should not be left out in spite of the noise of the electric motors. Roberto Dikmann plays one of the few carillons on the electromechanical keyboard that is tuned to a minor key.“

Today one may be surprised that this composition has not yet become part of the new electronic repertoire of the campanile in Intragna. Adhering to convention seems to live on in electronics. It would be an opportunity to catch up and create an unusual but worthy souvenir for this son of the village, to be heard on feast days, in the Marian month of May and during Advent.

Ermano Maggini would have been pleased to find his composition on this CD with the last still hand-operated carillons of the Ticino. Because in his last hours, in the evening in Advent, he moved both arms wide – listened to the chimes – and said almost as if in a dream: battono a mano (struck by hand) … The composition for the six bells of Intragna was not the only one in that year, it had been preceded by 'Schläfentäler' for baritone, flute and violoncello (premiered at the Zurich Tonhalle and in the Theater am Kirchplatz in Schaan). In this vocal work is the sentence 'Sterben ist leicht' (Dying is easy…). Already there is a memento mori, which only finds its resolution in Torso I for two violoncelli from 1973/74; Maggini had written the work as a counterpart to the Tre Canti Sacri for violoncello solo. As if the violoncello, as if the strings were the first to bring a new light of its own to the sound. With Torso I and the first Canti, a double, lasting prelude was given, the initiation of the great cycles of work: the Torsi (there would be ten) and the Canti up to the Ultimo Canto XXI. The composer had found his language and knew exactly, this is it.

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


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