On 26 September, as part of the Italian contemporary music concert series Play It! at the Teatro Verdi in Florence from 23 to 26 September, the Orchestra della Toscana, conducted by Marco Angius, will perform the world premiere of Claudio Ambrosini’s Morte di Caravaggio, a still-life  for bassoon and orchestra (soloist: Paolo Carlini).

The composer says of the piece: “The only art not to have a model in nature – yes, certainly, there is thunder, and the rustling of leaves, and the crackling of fire and waterfalls and the song of birds, but where in nature is there a diminished seventh chord?, – music has ceded precedence to abstract procedures, often based on axioms derived from numbers, at the expense of those that are intuitive and allusive. Even though nothing is more real than numbers and nothing more abstract than imagination. A beach in the Mediterranean between Tuscany and Lazio, the date undetermined, the last moments of a man in flight.”

Claudio Ambrosini will be awarded the 2015 Play It! Prize for his contribution to music.

Morte di Caravaggio
for bassoon and orchestra
2.1.cor.i.2.0./ 2 2.1.0./ Timp Perc (2) / Piano Harp / Strings
Duration: 10’