This programme contrasts some of the wonderful pieces that Gioacchino Rossini created in the last decade of his life with two works by two of the greatest twentieth-century Italian composers: Luigi Nono and Salvatore Sciarrino. Having recovered from the twenty-five year creative dry spell that followed the premiere of William Tell, and released from his professional burdens and artistic expectations, Rossini devoted himself to the creation of compositions that he would share with the guests attending the Parisian musical soirées that he offered weekly on Saturday. Today’s concert will allow us to enjoy a varied and entertaining sample of these works, which brilliantly showcase the great skill and creative versatility of Rossini, whose advance in years didn’t keep him from displaying a free and adventurous spirit, nor from evoking humour, tenderness and passion in compositions of great subtlety. In contrast to these works of Rossini’s, the Quantum Ensemble introduces in its repertoire two works for a single soloist, one for clarinet, the other for piano, created, respectively, by Sciarrino and Nono. We find ourselves in an aesthetic universe that demands from both interpreters and the audience maximum concentration: there is nothing routine or predictable in works in which every sound, every phrase and every articulation is part of a profoundly introverted sound reality, a reality that follows no other direction than that established by the music itself.

Víctor Durà-Vilà