Fabio Vacchi’s new composition Sull'acqua (Sotto di noi il diluvio): l'acqua che illumina Milano for speaker and orchestra will be performed in Milan on 3 October by the Giuseppe Verdi Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Claire Gibault. Lella Costa will recite the text written by Michele Serra.

Commenting on the composition, which was commissioned by the Giuseppe Verdi Orchestra for EXPO, Fabio Vacchi writes:

Water has a history in Milan. And the history of Milan is entrusted to water. Michele Serra unleashes its memories: delightful and unexpected, like the city’s popular quarters, where in the evening the inhabitants used to meet to tell stories about industrious folk, of entrepreneurs and labourers… 

Water that flows down from the mountains in which the marble of the Duomo had formed, the same mountains on which the Italian resistance fought and founded the Republic of Ossola… Milan, hell-bent on business and fashion, covered over its canals, its stories, and its factories. But the water did not fall silent, it percolated up and re-surfaced, it surged forth and broke through into the basements and the underground. Composed of sounds, water is part and parcel of a primitive force that is placing us with our backs against the wall. Either we listen to the music of man and the environment, either we understand that we must live with and respect other animals on this earth that we all inhabit, or nature will perish, dragging us with it into nothingness, emptiness, and – well before that - into horror… A musical score born out of the words of Michele Serra, destined for the voice of Lella Costa, and overflowing with corporeality. The stuff on which my writing has always been based… music that believes in the body, in the healthy and sustainable food that nourishes it and in the water that suckles it. From the bowels of the earth water must flow again to the surface, and not just through the canals… As if it were a font of thought… Let us immerse ourselves in water and its sounds, so that that which is not solid might envelop us, spur us on, caress us, amuse us, purify us, give us energy.

Let us tell stories with words and with sounds. Let us distrust those who think that telling stories is useless or out-of-date. In art and in life. Let us listen to the story of Milan’s water and work together so that it might enlighten us.