Anna Mobene, Alessia Scilipoti - Fragile: Contemporary Works for Flute, Breath, and Voice (2025)

Tracklist

01. Voice
02. Dolce Tormento
03. Dying Words II
04. Incauto incanto - fantasia reticente
05. 72 Tape Machine
06. Der Umriss
07. Alpha Waves
08. Dia Nykta



In the contemporary world, the flute transforms from a mere instrument into a sonic portal, a space where breath and silence, matter and light, meet and dissolve. With profound sensitivity and uncompromising rigor, Alessia Scilipoti leads us on a musical journey that transcends the boundaries of technique and delves into the realm of gesture as a poetic and meditative act. Her flute does not simply produce sound—it tells stories of fragility, tension, mystery, and revelation.
In this vast and complex landscape, Alessia Scilipoti emerges as a figure of rare balance, capable of merging interpretive sensitivity with technical precision in a project that becomes a deep investigation into the flute’s multifaceted expressive possibilities. Through a repertoire that comprises composers of diverse geographic and generational backgrounds, this work takes you on a journey that unfolds between landscapes of intense introspection and moments of pulsing energy, between suspended silences and rich timbral flows.
The artistic vision behind this album engages with contemporary flute repertoire by following a subtle thread that weaves together music, word, and literature into a dialogue that crosses epochs and cultures. This is not a mere technical exercise or a simple collection of pieces—it is an intimate and rigorous voyage into the expressive power of the instrument as a medium capable of translating into sound the depth of poetic language, the silences of memory, and the tensions of the human soul. The repertoire selection reflects this vision, presenting works that establish a profound connection with literary texts or with poetic and philosophical suggestions, often at the edge of presence and absence, speech and silence.
The journey starts with Voice by Tōru Takemitsu (1930–1996), a key figure in 20th-century Japanese music whose poetics are nourished by the Eastern concept of ma, the empty space that gives meaning and value to sound. Here, Takemitsu employs a fragment from a poem by Shuzo Takiguchi (“Handmade Proverbs”), recited in fragmented fashion in a curious bilingual blend of French and English: “Qui va là? Qui que tu sois, parle, transparence! Who goes there? Speak, transparence.” Beyond its literary source, the music is founded on a poetic idea of absence and presence, a silent yet deeply expressive dialogue reminiscent of Zen meditation. The suspension between silence and sound becomes an invitation to perceive the invisible and to be permeated by what remains unsaid—an opening gesture that sets the tone for the entire album.
An elegy of contrasting emotions unfolds in Dolce tormento by Kaija Saariaho (1952–2023), shaped by the rhetorical figure of the oxymoron, so dear to Petrarch and eternally relevant. Inspired by Sonnet 132 from Petrarch’s Canzoniere (1304–1374), the music embodies the complexity of a love that is both sweet and painful, expressed through a musical language that abandons poetic linearity in favor of emotional tension and nuanced timbral expression. Perhaps the choice of the piccolo—a bright and lively instrument par excellence—to trace a delicate, loving, introverted line reflects the Petrarchan oxymoron? Or perhaps the selection of this poet, a cornerstone of European lyric tradition, is a reminder of how contemporary music remains rooted in a fertile and living literary heritage, constantly renewed through sound?
The sense of dissolution and the fragility of language find expression in Dying Words II by Richard Barrett (b. 1959), a meditation on the end of language and the transience of meaning. In this constellation of sounds interwoven with words, Barrett ventures quite far already in the title: “Dying Words – Solo female vocalist with flute”, suggesting the flute as a kind of corollary—perhaps not even essential—to the vocal performance by the flautist (who may not, in fact, be one…). Here, music becomes a liminal space where words unravel and are transformed into pure sonic matter, evoking the boundary between speech and silence, between what can be said and what remains inexpressible.
A central figure in contemporary English music, Barrett explores the poetic of loss, suggesting a path that becomes a metaphor for existence itself. In the performance notes for the piece, Barrett offers instructions of such precision that it is worth quoting them here in full, by way of an introduction to listening:

“The Japanese text (from the Heike-monogatari, ed.) is presented in transliteration and should be performed with the greatest possible attention to the pronunciation of the Japanese language,(…) in giving each phoneme (…) an individual ‘colour’. Plosives at the beginnings of phrases should generally be very strongly articulated, to the point of producing an exaggerated transient in the flute sound, depending on the dynamics (…). The performer of Dying Words (II) will be primarily a vocalist, with a contralto vocal range and some proficiency in flute playing as well (…)”

In the ambivalent character of the “reticent fantasy for flute” Incauto incanto, Mario Garuti (b. 1957) brings forth a dimension where enchantment is tinged with uncertainty, tracing an emotional landscape suspended between beauty and unease. Based on a poem by Jean Cocteau (Foudroyer, 1954—translatable as “to strike” or “to blast”), the piece evokes a poetic imaginary fed by internal contrasts and tensions. It plays with transparency and shadow, inviting a careful reading of subtle sound shades, enriched by the vocalization of the text, which becomes an added and enriching element of the timbral palette. Garuti himself states that the text “should seem in-formed by the sounds, just as it informs them.”
The relationship with memory and with a sort of acoustic technology finds expression in ’72 Tape Machine for alto flute by Vincenzo Parisi (b. 1984), a composer straddling classical and rock traditions. A verse drawn from a ritual chant from the Moroccan village of Oulmès (“Issur Rabbi Attiahthr Awa!”—“We must not worry, God will fix everything!”) serves, much like in Garuti’s work, as a mere pretext for expanding the instrument’s timbral potential. The deliberate choice of the alto flute enhances the resonance of the text fragments, used here with extreme sparseness. The piece becomes a reflection on the materiality of sound and its persistence over time. Even in the absence of a literary text within the composition, the music narrates a past that reveals itself in the present—an invitation to reflect on the imprints left by memory, on the layering of experiences rooted in sound, without dictating a definitive conclusion, left instead to the judgment of each listener—and perhaps to the divine: Inch’Allah.
At the heart of the album pulses the intensity of Der Umriss, composed in 1984 by Antonio Giacometti (b. 1957) for the Darmstadt Ferienkurse. In this piece, the poetic text by Nelly Sachs (1891–1970) is inseparably bound to the musical material. A significant voice in 20th-century German literature, Sachs’s work addresses exile, Holocaust memory and the search for redemption. Her key expressions resurface powerfully from a lush vocabulary of extended techniques, typical of the 1980s: “Komet des Todes,” “Der Schatten kalligraphie als Nachlass.” The title, difficult to translate precisely into English, could be rendered as “outline” or “contour,” alluding to the painful attempt to give shape to an unspeakable sorrow—to what remains after, to a past that escapes definition. The music thus becomes a profound interpretation of this poignant poetry, sketching with the flute the contours of a harrowing experience of loss.
The reflection on the threshold between mind and body, between consciousness and release, reappears in Alpha Waves by Malin Bång (b. 1974), inspired by alpha brainwaves, which mark a state of inner equilibrium. Although absent from literary text, the piece offers explicit instructions regarding the muscular, respiratory, and ocular states associated with the alpha wave state. The performer is led to use their voice as an extension of the instrumental body. The music becomes a meditative or even paralyzed experience—a search for inner harmony translated into fluid and enveloping sounds capable of evoking a state of stillness and suspension, down to the final exhalation.
The journey closes with Dia Nykta by Fausto Romitelli (1963–2004), which plunges the listener into a nocturnal and visionary world, populated by archetypal images and mythical imagination. Based on a fragment from the Greek lyric poet Ibycus (quoted in the score as: “Flegéton, ài per dià nykta makràn/séiria pamfanòonta,” translated by Quasimodo as “They blaze through the night, endlessly/the most radiant stars”), the piece evokes an ancestral and mysterious dimension, transforming music into a wordless tale that draws upon the deepest roots of the collective unconscious. Composed at a very young age, Dia Nykta remained Romitelli’s only solo flute work, as his life was tragically cut short by illness. A luminous example of his crystal-clear musical imagination—like the stars conjured in Ibycus’s verse—the piece reveals a maturity and craftsmanship far beyond his years.
In this interweaving of music and literature, of word and silence, Alessia Scilipoti crafts a coherent and profound project that invites us to rethink the flute not merely as a musical voice, but also as a poetic and narrative one. Her repertoire choices and her sensitivity in approaching each composition restore a new density to musical gesture, one capable of awakening listening and transforming our perception of the present through the resonance of both ancient and contemporary memories and words. In this path, music becomes an act of living presence and an unceasing dialogue between epochs, cultures, and languages.

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