Commissioned by the Basel Sinfonietta, Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini has composed his latest work: Siegel for orchestra with voice. The premiere in Basel on 20 January 2008 with Claudia Barainsky (soprano) and the Basel Sinfonietta under Peter Hirsch was followed by the first German performance on 22 January in Gütersloh.

takte: You’ve entitled your new work for soprano and orchestra ”Siegel” (Seal). How did you arrive at this title, which simultaneously has very different associations?

Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini: a seal has a quite special and, to my mind, very beautiful function: it doesn’t have a function on its own, but rather stands for something else, a message which at the same time it conceals. My orchestral work closes with a text by Rilke; the sonnet seals the piece so to speak, and in its beguiling pictorial language takes a form which can only be imagined, which defies logical grasp and like a seal, refers to something mysterious ”lying behind”.

The last of the ”Sonnets to Orpheus” by Rilke which you chose, is, in fact extremely rich in metaphors, enigmatic and is at the same time fascinating in the way it defies interpretation. Your score demonstrates unusual links between text and music, also of one thing ”growing out” of another. Did that result from the text, or did the wish to compose something exist first and your choice of text revolve around that?

The latter. What I wanted to compose was absolutely clear to me, and I searched long and hard for the right text. As the cultic-ritual is central to this composition, I originally thought I would find something suitable in ancient poetry: but suddenly it emerged that the Rilke sonnet had within it the very aspects I was looking for.

Is this aspect of the cultic, ritual, the formulaic imploring, a continuation of a musical idea, a facet of your opera ”WUT” in which this primitive/primeval, thickly-scored sound similarly predominates in parts of the composition?

I had already written an ensemble piece with the title ”scongiuro” (”incantation”) before I composed my opera. It is precisely these genuine musically expressive forms which interest me. However, that doesn’t mean that it should happen in as coarse a way as possible it is just that the link between the highly specialised vocabulary of contemporary music and a fresh and yet primitive-ritual form is an attractive challenge.

The two part structure of your new work reveals itself to each listener straight away. The contrast between these parts is immediately apparent from the performing instructions: above the first section is written ”archaic, cracked, raw”, and above the second ”tender, mysterious”. Is the basic idea behind the whole that of an espressivo which is reached via two completely differently orientated routes?

The espressivo is in fact one of my central compositional interests and it is, as you say, reached by different ways and means. A conflicting musical character also strengthens the characteristics of the other movement.

To what extent is the gradual varying comprehensibility of the text of the Rilke sonnet part of the compositional concept? Does the listener experience a kind of ”preliterate” stage at the beginning in the formulae which are sung by the soprano to vowels?

Different principles of form are operating. Like spells, at the beginning of the first movement, the singer vocalises, triggering heated, violent eruptions in the orchestra, whilst in the second movement, the opposite route is pursued: noisy, also buzzing passages in the orchestra finally converge into a whispering sotto voce singing by the soprano. At the same time, the vocalises should actually be understood as pre-stages to the text level at the end: or, to quote another metaphor: you excavate like an archaeologist from the fragments to the temple.

Interview: Michael Töpel
(translation: Elizabeth Robinson)
(from takte 2/2007)

Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini
Siegel für Sopran und Orchester (2007). Text von Rainer Maria Rilke, „Die Sonette an Orpheus” XXIX. Besetzung: 3, 3, 3, 3 (3. auch Kfag) - 4, 3, 3 (3. BPos), 1 - 4 Pk, Schlg (3) - Hfe, Flügel, Cel (1) - Str (14, 12, 10, 8, 6; Kbs fünfsaitig) / ca. 12 Minuten / Aufführungsmaterial leihweise
Uraufführung: 20. Januar 2008 Basel: Claudia Barainsky (Sopran), Basel Sinfonietta, Leitung: Peter Hirsch
Verlag: Bärenreiter