for accordion

year: 2019

duration: 5'30'' c.a.

published by: Sconfinarte

première: 13 Dec. 2019, Outhear New Music Week, Larissa (GRE), performed by Panagiotis Andreoglou.

dedicated to Panagiotis Andreoglou.

​

program notes:

Responsorio is a piece for accordion and the idea of this composition comes first of all from a reflection on the instrument. Its sound has accompanied many moments of my childhood. I was born in the south of Italy, where this instrument is very common for folkloristic popular music, all village festivals are animated by the sound of the accordion playing tarantella. 

It is unavoidably part of my cultural heritage. So I started thinking about my cultural roots.

I was born exactly in the region Basilicata, where is located the little city “Venosa”, birthplace of Carlo Gesualdo, that was prince of Venosa. I really love the music of Gesualdo, and I deeply feel that his music is part of my cultural heritage. The Responsoria (1611) by Gesualdo are for sure one of the highest moment of his production.

I took the second responsory for Maundy Thursday, Tristis est anima mea, as basis for my composition. My intention was not to set the text to music, but to use it as inspiration for the form and for some internal structural mechanisms. Some parts are strictly related to the Gesualdo’s responsory, some parts are simply inspired by the text and some other parts refer to the ancient psalmodic form of ​​Responsorio, within there is the voice of a soloist followed by the answer of the choir.