Luigi Serafini is an eccentric Italian artist whose major work, the Codex Seraphinianus, is a compendium of imaginary animals, landscapes, buildings, fauna and inventions – each illustration meticulously annotated in a made-up script, as if we had come across a systematic encylopaedia from a world that doesn’t exist. The fantastical inventions include trees uprooting from the ground and swimming into the sea, circular fish that skim across the water like frisbees, men whose eight faces spin round like weather-vanes, and elaborate helicopter-like machines for shooting rainbows through the sky. Serafini’s goal – to create something imaginative, fantastical and beautiful yet essentially meaningless – is one that I identify with as a composer. Like one of Serafini’s illustrations, then, my piece has no discernible function except to hopefully charm and beguile the listener.
Instrumentation:
symphony orchestra: 3(III=picc).3(III=ca).3(II=Ebcl.III=bcl) .3(III=cbsn) – 4.3.3(III=btrbn).1 – timp – perc(3): I:BD/vib(shared with II) II:2 tpl.bl/tam-t/vib(shared with I)/snare drum/susp.cym/whip III: susp.cym/tam-t/crot/mar/xyl/glsp – harp – strings (14.12.10.8.6)
Duration:
12 mins
Commission:
Commissioned by Sound and Music as part of an ‘Embedded’ residency with BBC Symphony Orchestra
Performances:
20 June 2019
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Cristian Măcelaru
Cadogan Hall, London, UK
14 November 2013
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Garry Walker (cond.)
BBC Maida Vale Studios, London, UK
World premiere