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.