After about 120 compositions, in which almost all musical genres are represented, NUVOLE represents my first solo concerto. It is borne by the idea of making the solo instrument sound preferentially, quasi primus-inter-pares-like, without being appreciably interested in virtuosity as such - especially within the solo cadenza, which has been framed for a long time by the 6-4 chord. In interaction, the orchestra is not only underground and cue-giver, but also a body of reaction and an equal counterpart. The oboe, which I often find too "tortured" in "new" music, should be made to sing and shine in NUVOLE, whereby the differentiated shaping of the tone is important and not its alienation.
As art in time, music is at every moment no longer what it was just a moment ago - just like the clouds, which even in their soundlessness have always inspired musical references. Both exist in the incessant tension between growth and dissolution. The feather cloud, the cumulus cloud, the rain cloud, the veil cloud, one constantly merging into another: sometimes they chase each other seemingly weightlessly, sometimes they drift along like Eichendorff's "difficult dreams".
In antiquity, the idea prevailed that the earth exhales the four elements, which then configure themselves as clouds in the sky, where they subsequently signified the threshold to the afterlife in Christianity. In the meantime, it would be more important to restore the mystery of the clouds beyond metereology, to take back the disenchantment of the sky, to be open for their colours, for the light that refracts in them, for the birds that have always circled beneath and within them.
NUVOLE consists of four movements, three more solemn and in third place a very rapid one. The titles of the movements, which designate different types of clouds, point less to a transformation from the visual to the audible than to what the contemplation of such a play of forms can trigger in us in terms of emotions and resonances - expanding our inner being. Possibly the oboe represents this observer in such an encounter and is also the bearer of the events and the focal point of musical developments.
At first, a wide-ranging singing dominates, transforming the recurring over and over again (I.), followed by a strangely dance-like gesture (II.). A breathlessly chasing and hymn-like ending (III.) is followed by a multi-stage swan song, the characteristic of which is finally intensified by the change to the oboe d'amore (IV.). Several motifs run through the entire piece, whose movements they link, whose differences they emphasise. In the third movement, the ominous 6-4 chord appears several times at structure points, but in a certain irony merely as a kind of hinge. The two outer movements begin in a corresponding manner, while in the middle movements larger formal sections return after related internal sections, but now fused with elements from these (II.) or leading into something entirely new (III.). All four movement endings open up an unknown space, suggesting new possibilities, new formations, new continuations.