L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S le 12 litanie di NICK CAVE & NICHOLAS LENS
Nick Cave, mitico cantautore e frontman dei Bad Seeds, ha scritto 12 “litanie” come libretto per una nuova opera da camera del compositore belga Nicholas Lens.
L’idea dell’opera è stata concepita durante il lockdown: il silenzio, la pace regnante, il contatto con la natura nel corso delle passeggiate, ha riportato alla memoria di Lens la visita tempio Zen di Runzai in Giappone. Una sensazione condivisa da Nick Cave che ha accettato immediatamente di realizzare il libretto scrivendo 12 litanie “che sono delle suppliche religiose” commenta Cave “e mi sono accorto di aver scritto litanie per tutta la mia vita”.
Lens descrive L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S (in uscita il 4 dicembre) come “una forma pura di poesia … una forma lirica di minimalismo che potrebbe portare a uno stato di trance”.
A causa del lockdown gli 11 musicisti dell’ensemble di L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S hanno registrato le loro parti separatamente a casa di Nicholas Lens. All’interno del gruppo è confluita la figlia del compositore Clara-Lane suonando le tastiere, aiutando la produzione e cantando alcune parti vocali.
Con L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S Lens continua a coltivare un rinnovato approccio alla composizione collaborando con scrittori dinamici e celebrati al di fuori del mondo dell’opera per la realizzazione dei libretti. I suoi lavori precedenti includono Slow Man (2012), con il vincitore del Premio Nobel e Booker J.M. Coetzee, e Shell Shock (2014), sempre con Nick Cave.
April 2020 – I was in lockdown, my world tour had been cancelled and I was adrift in a kind of strange malaise, both apocalyptic and boring. Nicholas called and asked me if I would write ‘twelve litanies’. I happily agreed. The first thing I did after I put down the phone was search “What is a litany?” I learned that a litany was ‘a series of religious petitions’, and realised I had been writing litanies all my life. Over the next week I wrote Nicholas twelve lyrical pieces that tracked the birth, blooming, fracturing and rebirth of a human being—petitions to a divine maker demanding some sort of cosmic acknowledgement and finding it beautifully rendered in the gorgeous music that Nicholas composed. Such a privilege. Such a pleasure. Such an honour. – Nick Cave –
You almost did not dare to leave the house to go to the bakery. Sitting on a bench was forbidden, even for elderly couples needing a short rest. The few people you came across were staring, at you, at nothing. There was fear in their eyes, fear for the unknown, like they weren’t ready. Fear combined with a violent yearning for past events, for a renewed inner calm, perhaps a conscientious impassiveness. So it seemed. The notes came quickly, almost too fast to write down. Like a parallel world suddenly revealed itself, hasty, provoked by this new lockdown city-silence. No complexity in rhythm and tone this time, nothing like my usual operatic structures. But the simplicity of sometimes just tunes, singular humming tunes trying to transform a vague, inward tristesse into a glow of warmth. Like rays of sun, prudent at first but then bright, interrupted by long and straight, dark pencil lines, the way Hiroshige drew black rain. I am so grateful for the time I was allowed near the Kita Kamakura hills in the Japanese Kanakawa prefecture, a place where the idea for L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S originated. Both writers had their reasons to write Litanies. They did not even need to know the reasons of the other. Sometimes it is just like that. – Nicholas Lens –
