Bruno Maderna

From this combination of ancient styles and arts of the past with contemporary music arises a series of particularly impressive works. In his Ausstrahlung, for instance, Maderna uses texts from an ancient Persian anthology and poems by various Persian authors in English, Italian, French and German translations, which are recited, sung and played from tape. Some ten years before, Maderna wrote the Konzert für Oboe und Kammerensemble out of fondness for the oboe. Another two concerts would follow (see col legno 20037). In the last years of his life, Maderna always found the time to compose, his extensive activities as a conductor notwithstanding. In one of his last pieces, Giardino religioso, he succeeded in treating the aleatoric principle in music not as a restriction but as a “source of new possibilities which does not negate tradition,” said Martin Demmler. He combined it “with the possibilities of the musical avant-garde, thereby achieving a new sound never heard before.” Maderna’s approach thus allows for both melodic ingenuity and cutting-edge compositional techniques: “So wunderbar”.