Search - Bruno Maderna, Mauro Ceccanti, Contempoartensemble :: Maderna: Don Perlimplin; Serenata per un Satellite

One really odd duck

Personne | Rocky Mountain West | 10/23/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Don Perlimplin" was one of the last pieces written by Maderna. It's an opera/pantomine/ballet created for television. The story line (based on a play by Lorca) is a somewhat more tragic version of "Don Pasquale" in which an old man finds a lusty young wife. She only falls in love with him at the end, as he is murdered.



Maderna's piece has a little bit of everything. Perlimplin himself is played by a flute. There are elves and a jazz band in addition to the more traditional components of opera and musical theater. The piece is too eclectic and not integrated enough--at least to my ears. The elves' voices are electronically altered by pitch shifting. The effect is grating: why could Maderna not have used children's voices? The jazz ensemble is a saxophone quartet playing atonal music in swing rhythms. It's a corny effect and once again takes you away from the drama.



Still, there's some fine music in the middle of all this hubbub. The flute music is wonderful. There's a pseudo-choral section, sung a small-voice manner by women, that's really quite special. And we're surely missing something by not seeing the drama performed.



The CD also includes "Serenata per un Satellite", a fairly brief piece for large chamber ensemble. I like this piece quite a bit. It's hard not to hear it programmatically. The opening and closing sections are quite active, with zero harmonic motion. The music swells from complete silence and disappears the same way. It's impossible not to imagine the sound of telemetry from a satellite passing overhead. The middle section contains some thorny wind solos.



As I continue to survey Maderna's music, I find him to be a restless composer, jumping from style to style and not settling down. This would have served him well had he lived a normal span of years. I'm sure there would have been a period of integration when fertile ground was plowed and non-necessities discarded. In spite of this, he left us with some good stuff. "Perlimplin" may be a little too scattershot as a whole, but there are bits inside that are well worth hearing."