Nicola Elias Rigato
Ianua Caelis
Duration: 6'
Instrumentation details:
1st violin
2nd violin
3rd violin
4th violin
5th violin
6th violin
7th violin
Ianua Caelis
Sample pages
Video
Work introduction
Written at the time of the death of the composer's first Piano Teacher, Paolo Ballarin (2013), the piece represents an ascending and devotional procession.
The seven violins perform a rigorous canon entering one after the other for a total of five minutes, creating a dynamic and emotional wave. From the elegiac to the intimate to the reflective, to the spiritual, up to the momentum of the question of death and the pain of the incomprehensibility of separation.
This continuous upward motion reaches an acute apex like a door in the sky, to bring the listener to knock and return step by step to the ground, filled with new questions and our limited human measure.
the modal flavor of the first entrances leaves room for a repetitive and obsessive cadenced perception. The seven voices therefore begin as pure counterpoint, and while following horizontal lines they end up amassing themselves in vertical columns of sounds rich in harmonic weights.
Since the piece is a very long pure canon, it can be performed by arranging a group of seven arches in a semicircle. But it was also easily performed by a solo violinist through the use of a machine capable of acting as a loop machine.
What is necessary to perform this work?
The piece can be performed by a septet of violins arranged in a semicircle. It is also possible to perform the piece with a solo violin through the use of a loop machine.