© Zani-Casadio
Societas Raffaello Sanzio
Études for voice and cello on Dante’s Divina Commedia
Inferno 17, 18 – Purgatorio 2 – Paradiso 1
by Chiara Guidi and Francesco Guerri
in dialogue with Alessandra Fiori
vocal composition by Chiara Guidi
music Francesco Guerri
with
Chiara Guidi voice
Alessandra Fiori singing
Francesco Guerri cello
with the students of the Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali “Giuseppe Verdi”
and participants in the poetic choir of Purgatorio Loretta Colli, Laura Fedriga, Emilia Ferrari, Laura Ferrari, Rita Lugaresi, Giusi Maestri, Patrizia Maioli, Gloria Ramilli, Paola Saiani, Sergio Scarlatella, Paolo Secci, Riccardo Zoffoli
sound Andrea Scardovi
assistant director Vito Matera
curated by Elena de Pascale
production Societas
Italian premiere
Since 2015, we have been trying our hand at setting Dante’s verses to music: for each Canto in the three canticas, we write down the sound of the human larynx on staff paper, with an eye to both the rhythm of the hendecasyllables and the musical notation of the cello, tracing the path of a sonic body in transit over the words of the Divine Comedy. Composition becomes for us the draft of a generating axis that waits, through our interpretation, to give shape to a form in its making.
It is a slow and constant process. We intend to make our way through the whole poem, over time.
So far we have worked out Cantos 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 26, 33, 34 of Inferno, and Cantos 1,5,15 of Purgatorio. We are going to compose Canto 1 of Paradiso to be premiered in Ravenna. C. G.
