In 1996 I found in a newspaper a tiny little article with an Italian poem: O Falci di luna calante of Gabriele D’Annunzio with a translation in Dutch. I was captured by the beauty of this language and in the library I found a volume with other poems of this remarkable spirit.
I could not prevent myself from putting several pieces to music. I was not yet composing on the computer so I wrote a simple piano accompaniment by hand. Especially La pioggia, which was extremely long, was a beautiful challenge. I followed the scene as precisely as possible in music as illustration for the text.
Then I found out that the man was a fascist and I felt confused. I put it on hold. Many years later the project came in sight as a German composer approached me to create a piece together. I made an arrangement for computer and, although I am not a singer and not Italian, recorded the song.
But the project failed and the songs disappeared again in the cupboard.
Again, years later, apparently in a pause between two projects, I passed a shop with the name: Tamerici. I had a flashback to La pioggia and I couldn’t get rid of it. I kept singing the song in my head.
So I sat down and did this job. I took some Italian lessons in order to approach a little bit of that delicate pronunciation of real Italian and I made a slideshow. I hope some of you will like it.
It was only in 2020 that I met the pianist Ikel Dienske and started to write the official piano scores of the 4 songs.
Scroll down for the videos .
