Peter Longworth
Composer
Fiabe Cavalleresche (Knightly Fables)
Orchestration: 2(picc).2.2(bcl).2(cbn)/2.2.2.1/2perc/hp/pf/str(3.2.2.2.2)
Duration: 8 mins
Composer's Note
Literature is often an inspiration for my music and whilst writing the following piece I read various novellas inspired by medieval chivalric poetry or history – Italo Calvino's The Non- Existent Knight and The Castle of Crossed Destinies and Antonio Tabucchi's The Passion of Don Pedro – as well as some of Ludovico Ariosto's Sixteenth Century epic poem, Orlando Furioso. Robert Louis Stevenson was one of the model's for Calvino's The Non-Existent Knight. In his introduction to the novella, Calvino states that for Stevenson 'writing meant translating an invisible text containing the quintessential fascination of all adventures ... scattered throughout the books of hundreds of writers ... into his own prose'. As a composer, I have attempted to translate some of this fascination into music in Fiabe Cavalleresche.
Fiabe Cavalleresche was composed for the London Philharmonic Orchestra's Young Composers Programme and premiered in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in June 2015, conducted by Magnus Lindberg.