Duration
5'
Instrumentation
Ensemble of 13 violins
Publisher
Scripta Manent Editions
Score
Program Notes
The myth of the possessed virtuoso has haunted the history of music for centuries. We remember Niccolò Paganini, whose every concert fed rumors of a devilish pact. Chronicles speak of a body seized by trances, oversized, almost spider-like hands running over the strings with inhuman precision.
But what if the legend had blamed the wrong culprit? What if the possession resided not in the man, but in the instrument itself?
It is said that there is an anonymous violin, a wooden carcass long abandoned in the shadows, that crossed Europe leaving fever and madness in its wake, passing from hand to hand like a curse. It is not an instrument: it is a haunted relic, a receptacle of dark memories, waiting for a breath to awaken and claim the soul of whoever dares to draw the next sound from it.
Version for violin ensemble imagined by the composer.