IVAN FEDELE (b.1953): Suite francese, Études boréales, 2 Moons for 2 Pianos and 2 Virtual Instruments, 2 Notturni con figura for Piano and Electronics.

Description: The Suite was originally a work for harpsichord, which is reflected in aspects of the keyboard figuration and a certain pull toward tonal harmonies, suggesting a nod to tradition. The vocabulary is chromatic to the point of approaching atonality, with an overall feel of a modernistic take on an impressionistic idiom. The Études are atonal studies in timbre and resonance, incorporating some subtle extended techniques for added color. Two Moons started life as a work for four pianos; the composer later reworked it by assigning two of the parts to a highly processed, spatialized electroacoustic presentation of the material, allowing a complex polyphony of intersecting rotating and orbiting sound objects, at times oddly reminiscent of the coruscating note-torrents of Nancarrow's player-piano studies. The Nocturnes are sonorous aquatic sub-marinescapes, the fluid piano sounds submerged in electronic sounds derived from the piano, but heavily processed to emulate whale songs, the cries of seabirds and the motion of deep waters. Maria Grazia Bellocchio (piano).