non vogliono, camminano

  1. ri­torno dal nulla [re­turn from noth­ing­ness]
  2. danza degli uo­mini spenti [dance of dead men]
  3. come il vento sosp­inge le foglie sec­che [like the wind blows dry leaves]

non vogliono, cam­mi­nano draws its in­spi­ra­tion from a pas­sage in Primo Levi’s Se questo è un uomo [If this is a man], which de­scribes the music and sound­scape of the con­cen­tra­tion camp. The title and move­ment ti­tles are drawn from this text and cor­re­spond in a loosely pro­gram­matic fash­ion to the music. There is a cer­tain beauty in the col­li­sions of cul­ture and cat­a­stro­phe, in the ex­tremes of things that meet, from the breaths of a slowly wak­ing man to the crash­ing chords of the march­ing band, and it was this beauty that fas­ci­nated me.

Pre­miered as part of the Uni­ver­sity of Man­ches­ter’s Stu­dent Show­case of new works on May 12th 2008 at the Mar­tin Har­ris Cen­tre for Music and Drama, Man­ches­ter.