Sandro Montalto

Abgrund

Dedicated to Music Director Lorenzo Della Fonte by Sandro Montalto

Wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst,
blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.
(If you look long into the abyss,
the abyss will then look into you)
Friedrich Nietzsche

Music occupies a central position in the reflection of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who also studied the piano and composed some small pieces. In Twilight of the idols we find the famous aphorism according to which "without music, life would be a mistake", meaning extremely subjective music that connects to the immanent and allows man to enjoy his passions. Something close to the idea of ​​mousiké of the ancient Greeks, that is, not only the art of sounds but the set of mental and physical activities that involved all the activities related to the Muses (whose mother was not surprisingly Mnemosine - Memory).

In 1871 the philosopher composed a short page for piano entitled Fragmente an sich (perhaps the title alludes ironically to Kant and the "thing in itself") at the end of which, without the score closing, there is an indication in Italian "All over again with melancholy". And indeed the fragment can be performed seamlessly, with a sense of eternal return imbued with melancholy.

Abgrund uses this fragment, which is proposed twice with different orchestrations, immersing it in a foggy, dark atmosphere, devoid of reference points, as if to predict the madness that will strike the author's mind. The original fragment emerges, now complete, now in turn fragmented, while the whole becomes more and more nebulous, even painful, and the original idea of ​​the unfinished becomes general dissolution.