Salvatore Sciarrino: Studi per l'intonazione del mare (Studies for Tuning the Sea) (2000)

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Salvatore Sciarrino: Studi per l'intonazione del mare (Studies for Tuning the Sea) (2000)

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This astonishing project originally came about through the Holy Convent of Assisi and its intention to mark two then-imminent events due to take place at the same time: the inauguration of the Upper Basilica, now restored after its collapse In the earthquake of 1997 and the Roman Catholic Jubilee of 2000.
Today, the sense and value of this project are apparent whenever it is performed to mark a celebration and the themes with which it deals come across increasingly strongly. These are travel as an Image of the life of the Individual and of society and solidarity, which is becoming more and more alien to our modern way of life. Excessively so.
The integrating factor in this composition, in much the same fashion as a chorus, is provided by the words of Saint Francis, seeking the stones to restore his church and the work Is based on the infinite call and response between the small and the great. There Is undoubtedly a spectacular side to this composition simply in the number of performers involved. Yet this becomes secondary when the music itself begins to bloom or when the spell is cast of those gigantic natural acoustic phenomena which arise out of the multiplying of the tiniest of sounds. Think of a river, the song of the birds, of the crickets, the hubbub of a market, the hum of the traffic and the pitter-patter of the rain.
To the ears of those who open their consciousness, the desert comes alive: those are the voices of the intelligent silence. Everything is in tune, even what appears too vast and blurred. How can the sea be tuned?….
Salvatore Sciarrino

from the attached booklet