The Sound of the Dolomites, the primordial music

Special Project

What did the first hunter-gatherers who travelled the Alpine highlands listen to? The sounds of nature? The sound of the wind in the trees and on the meadows, the cries of the animals? Was this their music?  

This is the question that Alessandro Baricco asks himself. Together with the French ensemble Diabolus in Musica, he is bringing a project dedicated to the sound of the Dolomites and to “primordial music” to the Fuciade mountain hut, in the presence of the Monzoni-Costabella range, the Pale di San Martino and Col Margherita.  

Baricco’s love of music is well known. He is one of Italy’s favourite writers, but also an intellectual who has always been sensitive to changes in society. It is evident in his novels, such as Novecento (his monologue that inspired the film The Legend of 1900), in his essays on music criticism and in his journalistic collaborations. 

On the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of I Suoni delle Dolomiti, Baricco invites us to reflect on the path taken by men and women who “had no tunings, hardly used names to indicate notes, had very poor harmonic rules, did not know what a melody was, and who in five hundred years achieved a linguistic and technical progress comparable to what Beethoven achieved in 24 years, between his first and last symphony.

All this because they were not on earth to possess it, but to receive it…”.

Accompanying him on this fascinating journey are the singers and instrumentalists of Diabolus in Musica (named after a musical interval known as the ‘tritone’, which can have a particularly menacing effect), who can draw on decades of experience gained mainly in the vast medieval repertoire, from Gregorian chant to 15th century polyphony. Their task will be to translate this intense and evocative vision into music. All this against the backdrop of the Dolomites.

Source: https://www.isuonidelledolomiti.it/en/events/alessandro-baricco