A Book of Forms (2014) after Verb List (by Richard Serra) is a spatial composition for six moving players. The frequencies as well as rhythm and dynamics have been composed after a resonance mode analysis of imaginary spaces. This work is to perform in a very resonant space, to allow sounds to melt and shape sonic aggregates. It was performed by the ensemble Vertixe Sonora.

A Book of Forms (2014)

Enfasi Cobalto (2011.2003) is performed by ensemble e-mex conducted by Valerio Sannicandro.

Enfasi Cobalto (2001-2003)

A Book of Depths (2019) first part: Epipelagic for flute, violin and percussion. The series of 5 works fr different chamber ensembles can be performed alone as well together as one work.

A Book of Depths - I Epipelagic

Anteterrae
for 32 voices

An unreal and suspended world, an utopia
Inside it everything is propensity to light and crystal-like clarity, standing out from its opposite, the Shadow, metaphor of Death and captivity.
The poetry writings (Madrigals and Songs) by Campanella, who imagined a social and political ideal, let new and original ways of interpretation that do not follow the theological analysis, spacing thus into a new territory, both human and abstract.
The new significance develops along a trajectory marked by two contrasting ideas: spirit and material.
The sound opens a path that will see a continuous rise as well as sudden falls into darkness. A space is thus defined between extreme and always-changing timbres.

Anteterrae (2005)

Finesterrae (2016) 
for five voices, viola (also electric viola and viola d'amore)
and live-electronics
The title is a neologism (the ends of lands/earth)and is based on text fragments by Tommaso Campanella (1568 – 1639). This work is conceived to precede a work for 32 voices (Anteterrae, composed in 2005 also on texts by Campanella).
In this work for five voices and viola (one performer playing also electronic viola and viola d'amore), moments with live-electronics and/or amplification are alternated to acoustic sections, giving an impression of a constant change of space, of perspectives (sound-sources closer or far, moving or not moving).
Two main parts in form of short movement succession (FINIS I and II, consisting of very different sounds and gestures), are followed by a section where voices produce noises, ideally like single words stretched in time. Within this part, three acoustic sections featuring viola d'amore and countertenor project drastically the atmosphere into an unreal world, made of archaic timbres and voices.
The very last part of the work (LUMINA) opens to an ephemeral, suspended world, where tiny vocal sounds (imitating nature noises like wind or water) are flowing parallel to the resonances of the last viola ricochet.

07 Finesterrae - LUMINA

06 Finesterrae - FINIS II - Oratio II

05 Finesterrae - FINIS II - Abyssus II

04 Finesterrae - FINIS I - Planctus II

03 Finesterrae - FINIS I - Abyssus I - Mors I

02 Finesterrae - FINIS I - Terrae I

01 Finesterrae - Antelogos

A Book of Depths (2019) second part: Mesopelagic for oboe, harp and percussion. The series of 5 works for different chamber ensembles can be performed alone as well together as one work.

A Book of Depths - II Mesopelagic

A Book of Depths (2019) third part: Bathypelagic for clarinet, cello, piano and percussion (ad lib.). The series of 5 works fr different chamber ensembles can be performed alone as well together as one work.

A Book of Depths - III Bathypelagic

A Book of Depths (2019) fourth part: Abyssopelagic for flute, clarinet, viola, cello, piano. The series of 5 works fr different chamber ensembles can be performed alone as well together as one work.

A Book of Depths - IV Abyssopelagic

A Book of Depths (2019) fifth and last part: Hadopelagic for harp and percussion. The series of 5 works fr different chamber ensembles can be performed alone as well together as one work.

A Book of Depths - V Hadopelagic

This work, for solo tuba and live-electronics is the result of a close work with Melvyn Poore. It uses widely morphed sounds (tuba-voice) transformed live and spatialized over 4, 8 or more loudspeakers (at ZKM over the Klangdom).
It is composed on sonnet by John Donne:
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those, whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou’rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ;  why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more;  Death, thou shalt die.

SONNET X

It is interesting to discover how in the ancient mythology woods were always the place where transformations occur, from human being into tree or plant, surrounded by a magical and mysterious environment.
In Ovid's Metamorphoses such transformations are both cruel and full of grace, connected to Death and at the same time to Gods' compassion that gives, instead of life's end, a new rebirth.

Silvae (2013)

for flute, clarinet, piano, violin, viola and cello, performed by ensemble alter ego, conducted by the composer

Odi di Levante (2008)

A work for solo violin (amplified or in a resonant space) performed by Paul Rosner.

Burial Songs (2014)

STRALI (2002) for female voice, electronic sounds and orchestra, performed by Bayersiches Rundfunk Orchester, Monica Jordan, voice Melvyn Poore electronic sounds control, conducted by Udo Zimmermann. Texts by Michelangelo Bonarroti.

Strali(2002) for voice, electronic sounds and orchestra

Limina (2019) was a French State Commission for the ensemble Court-Circuit, first performed in Paris in January 2019. A musical reflection above the sense of "Limen" (seen as human threshold to continuously overcome) and "Limes" (seen as a superimposed boundary that parts territories and human beings). The clarinet performs in several points of the stage (around a diagonal-positioned ensemble) as to mark different zones and identities.

Limina (2019)

Zaubersprüche (2019), composed on ritual texts from old German (Althochdeutsch) features six solo voices performing in various spatial disposition so that acoustic sound projection simulates a sound spatialization.
Each refrain or section is composed on a different text representing an old ritual, whereas singers are placed in various positions in order to create a timbre (and dynamic) variation of a single pitch/word. 
Further tools and small objects will also be used to project the vocal sounds in some peculiar ways, giving to each movement a special timbre and atmosphere.

The character of such texts consists on one hand in their unique linguistic nature: words sounding familiar but are actually rather inscrutable, on the other, in the incomparable mix of christian religion with archaic and popular practices, sort of esoteric rituals suggesting unusual music (sonic) situations.

Zaubersprueche (2019)

The works of the composer and conductor, Valerio Sannicandro, are the product of different cultural influences and of his own reflections about the parameter 'space' that he researches consequently, first as compositeur associé at IRCAM (Paris), then at the Technische Universität (Berlin) where he got a Ph.D. in Musicology and at Experimentalstudio (Freiburg). Compositions like Strali (2002), Fibrae (2005), Ius Lucis (2006/2007) and Forces Motrices (2010) are the most outstanding examples of his interest in large orchestral instrumentations, as well as of his concern with the role and the aesthetic of (live) electronics. He is currently working at Experimentalstudio of SWR (Freiburg) on Finesterrae, a new work for voices, viola and live-electronics. He has been awarded among others the Claudio-Abbado Prize from the Academy of Berlin Philharmonics in 2014, the Musica Viva Composition Prize, München in 2002 and 2010, the Giga-Hertz production Prize as well as the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis (2000). His works have been recorded on CD for Wergo and Telos Music Records. He has been invited at the Villa Kujoyama (Kyoto) and is new music advisor at the Philharmonisches Orchester Cottbus (Germany). His works are published by Edizioni Suvini-Zerboni (Milan).

valeriosannicandro

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