Luca Francesconi: First, there was no Word
On his latest album, Italian composer Luca Francesconi goes all the way back to the beginning. “Etymo” contains four compositions for a variety of line-ups, including voice, acoustic instruments and electronics, dealing with such essential questions of what constitutes language and what the world would be like without it. Speaking about “Etymo” in the linernotes, Colin Roche writes: “What is there before the word and what is it that shapes language? And finally, what is it that permits us to transcend language? In the beginning was pre-language, its premises. Etymo, a work with “great white wings”, begins in the first babbling of language, in phonemes. Nothing intelligible, alliterations that roll and slide (or sail) and an orchestra that seems suspended, as though it were waiting. These phonetic and musical particles aggregate in contrapuntal superposition, finally exploding in a sea of profundity from which the first words rise.”
A short extract reveals “Etymo” to be a dramatic, dynamic and atmospheric work: “Just like Baudelaire, Luca Francesconi appears to be crying out in the apparent stasis in the middle of the work: ‘The beautiful life! The beautiful life!’”, Roche writes, “Then everything is reversed in a mirror process, with the energy being reborn of its own antimatter, or perhaps of its memory.”
The release of “Etymo” is just one highlight in a year full of upbeat activity for Francesconi, who enjoyed a long run of performances well into July of this year – including collaborations with the likes of Hakan Hardenberger.
Homepage: Luca Francesconi
Homepage: Kairos Records
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