Piano Concerto by late 20th century Russian composer Alfred Schnittke is combined with the text from the chapter Report on the Blind of the contemporary Argentinian writer Ernesto Sabato’s novel On Heroes and Tombs narrated by John Malkovich.
Ernesto Sabato is bringing a realistic allegory of all times tragedy through the paranoiac idea of the character Fernando Vidal that THE BLIND RULE THE WORLD.
The character expresses his reflections on God’s existence and the power of the Blind Sect. The music responds to those ideas by avant-garde interpretation of Schnittke’s Concerto full of dissonant harmonies and sharp expressions. As Alfred Schnittke was living at the most severe times of KGB control in his country, the general paranoiac idea of Sabato’s novel “the blind rule the world” is strongly bonded between music and text through a fear of the unknown, inescapable fear of the prosecution and control.
John Malkovich and pianist worked carefully through the musical and literary text selecting word by word those moments of collaboration between piano, voice and the orchestra. The text complements the music and produces a dialogue where the voice is a part of the music; it plays a role of a musical instrument rather than a narration. Today John Malkovich performs this project with young Russian concert pianist Anastasya Terenkova.
Reviews
For those who have listened to it, Report on the Blind was the occasion - yes - of a meeting between the words blown by the devil Malkovich and the music that I Solisti Aquilani and the pianist Terenkova were able to make real sound dramaturgy.
