L’infinito is Giacomo Leopardi’s famous and emblematic poem. The choice of this poem as the sole textual material for the composition of this set of vocal pieces was dictated as much by the evident musicality of Leopardi’s verses as by the immense dreamlike openness of his imagination. The musicality of this language, the tonic accents specific to Italian, of course, but also the rhythm provided by the particular scansion of these fifteen verses.

The multiplicity and diversity of the themes addressed by Leopardi, in only 15 verses, offer the composer a range of perspectives, paths to follow, and characters to explore, such that the challenge required diversity in the vocal treatment as well (since this is only a question of song, without instrumental intervention). This also justified the formal division into several pieces, each treating an aspect of the poem, sometimes fragmented, in a particular mode of vocal expression. After exploring registers ranging from simple declamation to the greatest vocal virtuosity, from the extremely low to the very high, from one single voice to several, the work concludes with nothing but the singers’ respiration (breathing) ­ recorded in an anechoic chamber ­ the body’s own rustling, now voiceless, expressing itself solely through breath. This music was originally written for the choreographic performance entitled ‘Sanguine,’ choreographed by Nadine Hernu. - P.M.