“To Rome!” they said to Charlotte Seither, when she was awarded one of the scholarships for a stay at the famous Villa Massimo in Rome. The composer has been in the ‘eternal city’ since spring and reports on her impressions and experiences for [t]akte.

A year at the Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo! Nine scholarship holders from the fields of music, fine arts, literature and architecture are nominated annually by the German Minister of Culture for a one-year stay. And so, nine lives and totally different expectations meet every day between figs and the Forum Romanum, prosciutto and the passato prossimo. But what does it result in?

Above all else, an unforgettable love for Italy. This could be put even more simply: the ambience of the pretty Renaissance villa with its own park in the Nomentana area of Rome; the freedom to be able to work for a whole year unencumbered by the pressure of external commission deadlines; living together with exciting contemporary thinkers from other branches of the arts, not least on pressing matters about making pasta and coordinating use of the washing machine – all these form the parameters which by far exceed the possibilities offered by a normal (short-term) scholarship. A year of life, particularly spent in such a vibrant cultural and linguistic environment, is existential, and remains deeply ingrained in the memory. Everything in this year simply has an extra something. Everything concerned with art is more deeply rooted in this city. It is incredible how the need to create art (that is: to articulate and conceive the dignity of life, in whatever form) is evident through the centuries and in every square inch of this city.  Why have people expressed themselves here time and again in the most highly skilled artistic ways? Why have they always chosen particularly powerful materials and through their intellectual power, created a value to humanity beyond calculation? 

“Troppo era matura in me la sete di vedere questo paese”, is the inscription on the wall of the Casa di Goethe – “how great in me was the thirst to see this country”. That is to say, even in the Villa Massimo fruit is only borne out of what falls on fertile ground, on the ploughed field of inner readiness, to move and to be moved. Everything simmers. Everything moves about and crunches. A great deal of what is brought here in hand luggage, which seems so important and existential at home, falls away, is suddenly completely expendable and simply vanishes into thin air. You can live and work in a quite different way when you are here.

To date I have composed two pieces in a period of increasing concentrated thinking for me. Deixis (2009), a new work for violoncello, was written for Rohan de Saram, who gave the first performance on 23 June here in Rome. It is a 15-minute solo piece in which, after grappling with it for over ten years, I have once again articulated afresh my examination of what “cello solo” represents for me. I am engaged in a further piece at present for a first performance by the Ensemble Modern (18 players); their performing possibilities always inspire a composer to something new. The piece will be premiered on 11 December in the Auditorio della Musica here in Rome. My works Far from distance (2008) and Champlève (1994) will be performed as part of a chamber concert on 15 October. The interlinking of musicians and institutions, as occurs completely naturally here in the city, is a great bonus.

A third commissioned work for 20 strings and soprano will be written here in the valuable working period in Rome. This is a commission from the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn which will receive its premiere on 22 September 2010 as part of the opening of the season for the Kleist Year in Heilbronn. Other commissions which don’t necessarily have Italian connections are being planned here, but will only be fully worked-up after I return to Bonn. Kleist in Rome? Oh well, Goethe was also here. And if the Villa Massimo had existed then, then the two of them would certainly have enjoyed a glass of frascati together on the terrace of Studio 3.                

Charlotte Seither
from [t]akte 2/2009