REFERENCES TO EARLIER MUSICAL GENRES AND TOPICS IN SALVATORE SCIARRINO’S IL CANTO S’ATTRISTA, PERCHÉ?

Abstract

This paper examines Salvatore Sciarrino’s engagement with earlier musical genres in Il canto s’attrista, perché? (2019), focusing on two central references: the military march and the tempo notturno. Situated within a broader operatic tradition of mythological subjects and based on material derived from Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, Sciarrino’s opera reactivates historical genres not as direct quotations, but as transformed dramaturgical and compositional devices. The analysis first considers the march in Scene III, where Agamemnon’s return after the destruction of Troy is accompanied by a stylised and distorted march-like texture. Through rhythmic models such as dotted figures and triplets, as well as references to Verdi’s Marcia trionfale from Aida, Sciarrino evokes the genre’s ceremonial and military associations while subjecting them to fragmentation and theatrical deformation. The second part turns to the tempo notturno in Scene V, relating it to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century traditions of the notturno and nocturne, as well as to Sciarrino’s own sound worlds of darkness and heightened perception. Here, reduced instrumentation, fragile textures, air sounds, harmonic glissandi, and vocal writing create an atmosphere of suspended dramatic tension. The paper argues that Sciarrino fuses historical genre references with his distinctive compositional language in order to intensify dramatic situations and shape the listener’s perception of the action.