Alberto Secondo Gallo

Il viandante (Der Wanderer)

This Aria for wind orchestra is a one-movement piece, structured in the form of a pentapartite song (A-B-A1-B1-A2), lasting about six and a half minutes. The work is inspired by the ancient musical theme of Folly, but it consists of an original composition, and not a series of variations.

As is well known, Folly is a dance of Portuguese origin probably dating back to the late Middle Ages, which has been subject to numerous elaborations over the centuries. From the 16th to the 20th century, in fact, more than one hundred and fifty composers used this melody as the basis for writing collections of variations or other pieces. Among them, to name only the most important, are Girolamo Frescobaldi, Arcangelo Corelli, Alessandro Scarlatti, Antonio Vivaldi, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marin Marais, Johann Sebastian and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Georg Friedrich Haendel, Antonio Salieri, Luigi Cherubini, and in more recent times Franz Liszt and Sergei Rachmaninov, all the way to Vangelis.

The Folly has thus traveled a long chronological and geographical path, crossing the centuries and spreading throughout Europe. The title The Wayfarer, therefore, expresses the idea of the great musical journey of this theme, which has been going on for over five hundred years.