The record of the day: Francesco Pennisi, “Glimpse of memory”

Francesco Pennisi
“Glimpse of memory” (Cd Ricordi CMRCD 1055)

A very refined artist of the pentagram, Francesco Pennisi left us in his too short existence a production not
very numerous, where the subtle sound interweavings that unfold with airy lightness in his scores resemble the splendid graphic works that he traced with equal mastery.

A musician deeply linked to his own Mediterranean culture, of which he often evoked climates and landscapes in his titles, Pennisi loved to give life to fairy worlds inhabited by kind and imaginative musical figures who often intertwined with silence.
Stranger to any power lobby or ideological clique, this composer has incorporated into his personal language the research experience of the post-war avant-garde together with his love for the Petrassian arabesque and the delicate atmospheres of early twentieth-century French music. His music hates the spectacular obviousness, the big voice, the massive developments, the sentimental ramblings, the useless nostalgias; it is inevitably (I would say almost proudly) intended for a small audience, who know how to listen carefully and grasp every most vibrant nuance of these musical butterflies; among so many composers thirsty for cheering crowds, Pennisi is one of the very few who prefers to converse amiably with a group of sincere friends.

Contrasts and tensions certainly exist in his music, but they are always sublimated by a search for timbre always aimed at the absolute beauty of sound and often entrusted to delicate instruments such as harp, flute and harpsichord, which carry out chamber dialogues of rarefied phonic amazement. Even in his orchestral pages Pennisi has always maintained
this innate elegance of sounds, where sudden flashes of timbre pass through the softness of the musical fabric like phosphenes, sometimes relying on a very sweet, exhausted singing style, conceived just like that “glimpse of memory” of which the title of the album tells us (taken from the beautiful ” Three pieces for clarinet, viola and piano”).

This CD created by the Ensemble Alter Ego presents us with various pieces of Pennisi’s colorful mosaic, alternating duo compositions (the stupendous Introduction to the Grecale for flute and harp) and trio (“Étude-Rhapsodie”, “Sesto
Trio”) until arriving at the enigmatic final quintet of “Se il lavoro apparere”.

Carlo Boccadoro, composer and conductor, was born in Macerata in 1963. He lives and works in Milan. He collaborates with soloists and orchestras in different parts of the world. He is the author of numerous books on musical topics.

This text is taken from “Lunario della musica: A record for every day of the year” published by Einaudi, courtesy of the author and the publisher.