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It's not an artistic rendition about military
conflicts among warring states and peoples, but about the effects
of war in the mind of children and in the mind of adults
fortunate enough to have preserved the soul of a child. What
animals feel or thinks is a mystery to us. However, while I
was sailing once, on the high seas, during the Balkan wars, a bird
landed on my boat, as if seeking refuge from the grenade explosions in
the Bosnian forests. We both recognized the fear in our
eyes. It is likely our silent dialogue was what inspired The
Cathedral’s Fall. Not long after that, in the city of Chioggia in
Laguna Venezia, in a small thrift shop owned by collector Gianni
Rugine, I found a framed children's letter, written at the time the
Allies were advancing along the Apennine peninsula, to the north,
and after fierce fighting had taken Florence. The children's letter can
be read on both sides. The other side not visible, it had to be turned
to see the page on which the letter continues. This, at a time, in the
arts, when such interactive communication with an objet
trouvé would not have been the subject of the same popular
attention as today. In that letter, on the eve of Christmas 1944,
children addressed absent grandfathers who, I guess, were
somewhere on the front lines, in captivity, or perhaps
already six feet under. Donald Duck, Pluto, and Mickey Mouse form part
of the letterhead. For over two decades now I've considered it one of
my family's most precious belongings. If I were asked to choose
the one single thing symbolizing the horrors of the war, I would point
to this framed children's letter from Chioggia written on Christmas in
1944. This letter represents the many layers of the human tragedies
generated by wars .Librettos of musical works, and art in general, very
often just retell history superficially and in a literal manner. Mine,
to the contrary, are so to say, anti-librettistic.
The approach to understanding my music, my radiophonic and acoustic
creations is indirect. If there is a path there at all, it’s not
for me to tell. I believe that a libretto is not written for smart
people but for those either lacking imagination or possessing a very
lazy one.
(translated by Isabel Bau Madden)
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