ALESSANDRA SALVATI
composer
PER MOTUS
“Per motus” in Latin means through movement. The idea is exploring the movement and time of the soul, through the colors and tones of different feelings. The three movements represent three aspects of our human and spiritual experience. The first movement refers to our life as we actively shape it, through our choices. The second movement explores different ways human beings relate to their yearning for infinite and to dimensions they are not able to control. “Motu proprio,” the third part, is expression of the perpetual motion of life, beyond human desires.
The first movement “Andante affettuoso” has a circular structure. Its first (bars 1/92) and third sections (bars 173/190) are characterized by intense lyricism and the same thematic materials come back after a vivacious and rhythmically tight central core.
The frequent unisons and the passages from unison to other intervals and return (See the incipit and bars 74/82, see “Da capo” bars 173/181) form very strong attraction poles, around which the texture of the composition unfolds.
The series stated at the outset of the first movement contains all the materials developed in the following two movements. This series has been freely used to build both melodic and harmonic structures.
With subsequent projections from the series and its inversion and retrograde, closely related successions are obtained.
The score of the second movement “Introitus and a prayer” bears annotations referring to an ideal sacred representation, with two vocal quartets on the right and the left of the altar, a male voice and a large crowd. These indications are only an emotional suggestion. The words “Miserere nobis,” put in brackets in the score, should be sung just in the mind and the heart of the players. The piece moves from the indistinct prayer of the multitude to the rarefied and almost inaudible prayer of the saints. The third movement, “Motu proprio,” originates from a rigorous geometrical structure based on projections of the initial theme. It summarizes all the materials used in this work.
