Instrumental· 2025

A song without words

for prepared piano

Program note

The Void

The lights slowly fade, while the streets fill with shadows. I walk between faded memories, and the void follows me from afar. I get lost along these streets, I do not know where I am going, I can no longer find the way back, until a slow heartbeat guides me.

The endless emptiness remains, like infinite rooms with neither doors nor windows. As I gather the debris of life and courage, your name fades into nothing.

The hours pass leaving their marks, as I slowly sink slave to my own thoughts. In silence, I see myself reflected in old photographs, my face no longer belongs to myself. The words I wish I could say to you become trapped on the border between who you were and what remains of you.

Perhaps time heals, perhaps time is not merely an illusion. Time is an unbreakable thread that allows me to cling to your memories.

The endless emptiness remains, like infinite rooms with neither doors nor windows. As I gather the wreckage of myself, your name fades into nothing.

Arianna Pittino, April 2025

More about the piece

This piece stems from the exploration of two aspects of the piano: extended techniques, understood as gestures and forms of physicality, and their relationship with the prepared piano.

Throughout the piece, gesture, the use of objects, the sonorities of the prepared piano, and natural sounds overlap, intertwine, and transform one another. What emerges is a sonic path that moves between more noise-based and material sections and moments of a more melodic character.

The rhythmic elements produced through the use of brushes alternate with those generated by the sonorities of the prepared piano, creating a progressive dialogue that culminates in the most cantabile and melodic section of the entire piece.

Performed by Maria Grazia Bellocchio

Premiered in Milan, Fabbrica del Vapore, 10 July 2025.