Gli anni-luce (The Light-Years) (2022)

Duration: 4:00 minutes

Instrumentation: solo piano

Premiere: June 22, 2023 by Daniel Anastasio at Greenwich House Music School in New York, NY

Notes:

      Le cosmicomiche (Cosmicomics) is set of musical responses Italo Calvino’s collection of stories by the same name. Each story takes as its starting point a scientific fact (some of them disproven by now) and proceeds to spin out a whimsical tale with bizarre characters, all narrated by a timeless, multiform character with the improbable name of Qfwfq. Though each story begins from a strange place, and though they are often very funny, these stories speak clearly to universal themes of loss, loneliness, and yearning. To me, the very absurdity of each story’s premise makes these underlying truths more vivid.

While there are many specific connections to each story, the approach in these pieces ranges widely, from character pieces, to impressionistic and atmospheric works, to much more abstract interpretations of the ideas in the stories. These pieces may be performed individually, or as a complete set, or in subsets of the performer’s choosing.

Gli anni-luce (The Light-Years)

This story is about Qfwfq receiving and sending messages across vast expanses, which means that in the time it takes for light to reach these distant galaxies, millions of years pass. While the story is primarily about Qfwfq’s embarrassment at being seen doing something shameful, and his worry about what these distant voyeurs might think of him, I was drawn to the fact that the distance and time-lag first created tension, then ultimately relief, when Qfwfq finally realized that the distance was simply too great for any messages to be sent back and forth. My piece involves an echo in the high register, which increases in distance each phrase. This process creates tension which is finally relieved in the last portion of the piece, as the number of notes in the echo process decreases and the texture becomes simpler.