Mozarteum Guitar Ensemble conducted by Arturo Tallini plays “Serenata per un Satellite, by Bruno Maderna
“Serenata per un Satellite” (1969) is always considered as one of the most interesting aleatoric pieces ever composed. Maderna is a particular figure, a true pioneer of contemporary music both as a composer and as a conductor. The “Serenade per un Satellite” is a piece where improvisation, articulated on the basis not of a score but of a graphic work, where the notes are scattered in sections that can be performed in an order defined by the performers and the conductor, plays a fundamental role.
Dedicated to the Turin physicist Umberto Montalenti, director of the ESOC (European Space Operation Centre), based in Darmstadt, who had planned and coordinated the launch, on the night of 1 October 1969, from the island of Vandemberg in the Pacific Ocean, of European satellite ESTRO I for the study of phenomena related to the Northern Lights.
"Serenade for a satellite" is one of the most important pages of European music since the Second World War; certainly one of the few in which the hypothesis of W. Meyer-Eppler and P. Boulez of reconciling chance and composition, randomness of musical outcomes and use of strictly prescribed musical material resulted in authentic artistic results.
The "Serenata" represents to all intents and purposes an open work, in the sense that it requires a notable creative contribution from the performer, whose interpretation is itself open because it changes over time. Interpreting a score with characteristics similar to those of the “Serenata” presupposes a game of recomposing the work, almost as if it were a puzzle whose pieces are interchangeable in an almost anarchic manner.
The international career of Arturo Tallini began in 1987 after winning the first prize in the International Michele Pittaluga Guitar Competition. Two years later in 1989, he won a third prize in the International Radio France Guitar Competition. In 1992 he received a License Superior de Concertiste from Ecole Normale de Musique Alfred Cortot in Paris. Already in 1984 Tallini began his relationship with contemporary music: he began to explore the possibilities of the guitar as an instrument, enlarge the sound and instrumental possibilities. He has been playing concerts as a soloist, in chamber music ensembles and as a soloist for an orchestra in Europe, in the United States and in North Africa. He has been doing a collaboration with several world-class musicians like Michiko Hirayama, Magnus Andersson, Bruno Canino, Nicholas Isherwoo, with various artists from the Choir of Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Dusan Bogdanovic, Eugenio Becherucci, Michele Rabbia, Enzo Filippetti, the Modus Novus of Madrid and Timisoara Orchestra. Many Italian and foreign composers have composed pieces dedicated to him.