Cristiano Porqueddu

Concertino di Alghero

The Concertino di Alghero is a tribute to the Alghero poet Maria Chessa Lai (1922 - 2012). It consists of three movements inspired by lines from the poem En dins de mi (Inside Me). The first movement, Contas de Dolças Rondallas (Legends of Sweet Fairy Tales) is a leyenda that makes use of two main themes whose elaboration is continuously interwoven between the two instruments through prismatic observation of fundamental cells. The brief episode before the reprise while not forsaking the elaborations of the main themes and developing on a rhythmically motionless carpet, takes on the appearance of a concealed subject, uncovered as if by shifting attention for a few moments from the main scene to the context in the background. The second movement En l’Alba Clara (In The Clear Dawn) does not entirely abandon the tonal ambience of the first, but evoking the games and endless chromaticism of the very first light of dawn, it moves on undulating chromaticisms devoid of any staticity that give rise to three short episodes. In the final movement Les Fulles més no Tremolen (The Leaves No Longer Tremble), the dormant impetus of the imagined observer of a portion of existential stillness is brought to the fore by the rutilant progression marked in focus from the very first bars. The tight dialogue between the two instruments and the wide dynamic excursions amalgamate giving shape to a sonic paste; from which the reminders of past themes are as if extracted from a lost memory.