LA NUDA VOCE – PROGRAM NOTE

The title of my piece “la nuda voce” (the bare voice) stems from the idea of being able to inhabit that moment when the voice separates from the body to become song. The voice is itself the root of all sound, being the primordial vibration that generates a sound, but also our first representation of “music” itself (when learning an instrument we are always taught to “sing” metaphorically).

I was drawn to the idea of finding that moment when the intimate vibration of the vocal cords — the primordial essence of all sound—becomes singing, when “the bare voice” becomes the singing human voice. For me there is always a moment — a very brief moment — when we realise that this sound we are listening to is a human voice singing. There is a threshold, so brief but so crucial. With this piece I dreamed of inhabiting that brief moment as long as possible.

How is it possible to sing? How can the voice make this bold and violent gesture — a political gesture par excellence — of detaching itself from the body and becoming song?

This means inhabiting a significant text, of course, but not only that. It also means that the vocal vibration is no longer an internal state of our being but establishes a connection to others.

I chose a text from the oral poetry of my region. These texts were never written, since they come from poets who could neither read nor write, but they are improvised and act as a binder of the human community for which they are sung.

This particular text is a song about singing. More specifically, it is a song about the loss of voice, about the feeling of voicelessness and, through this loss, about what voice itself is.

Here it is in one of the variants that can be heard, and in my rough English translation:

Dov’è la voce mia, ch’era sì bella?

Dov’è la voce mia, ch’era sì alta?

Era sentita da tutta la terra

era sentita da una villa all’altra.

E da una villa all’altra era sentita:

dov’è la voce mia, dove l’è ita?

E da una villa all’altra era ascoltata:

dov’è la voce mia, dove l’è andata?

——————

Where is my voice, which was so beautiful?

Where is my voice, which was so bright?

It was heard from all the lands

It was heard from village to village.

And from one village to another it was heard

: where is my voice, where has it left?

And from one village to another it was hearken to

: where is my voice, where has it gone?