an Artistic Score Engraving update from October 2024

Dear all,

Welcome back to the monthly update, the first one since our coming back to Italy. The last few days in Belgrade were chilling cold (10-13 °C) after two months of non-stop 35+ °C. Temps here in NW Italy are a bit less extreme, and we finally entered the best season of the year, Autumn! Stunning colours, gorgeous food, and so much more I am longingly expecting to enjoy!

What are your plans for this season? Please reach out to me down below in the comments, I would love to hear from you.

The Gratitude Corner

This month’s Gratitude Corner spans the whole summer and is dedicated to the Serbian people as a whole. I have been spending the last thirteen summers there, where my partner’s family still lives, and this year was just another confirmation: there is no other place where I have felt as welcomed as in Serbia. Now that my Serbian is more fluent, I am enjoying an even more inclusive experience. It should be said, though, that in all these years, I had zero issues in finding people who could understand me in English—something that cannot be said for Italy. Their spoken English is flawless—much better than mine—and we all agree that the greatest factor contributing to this is having been raised by non-synchronised movies. If you exclude the cartoons for the younglings, everything is original with subtitles—which is the proper way, no discussion allowed here, my fellow Italians!

This year, thanks to my progress in Serbian following my blogging journey (starting here), I officially got promoted to микеле србине (Michele the Serbian in vocative case)! Ever since the very beginning, though, I have always been their зет (zet = son-in-law), since I am the one who “took away” one of their daughters. I am therefore officially charged with taking good care of her, and I have no intention of disappointing them.

There is something special about the warmth of the Serbian people, the energy they put into everything, the extreme emotions with which they face every challenge, no matter how small. It is indeed a country of extremes, either too hot or too cold, with incredibly tasty (and fat!) food (which one rinses down with rakija!), with a walking pace that I have never seen anywhere else. Then, on the other extreme, they can sit down for hours in front of a coffee to just talk.

Thirteen years ago, I was scared to death about even setting my foot in there—the Western propaganda still strong in me; today, seeing also how far right my country’s boat is tilting, I am starting to harbour doubts about where I truly belong. To close this: thank you to everyone in Serbia for making me feel at home always and everywhere, with no strings attached! Thank you!

NEWS

Back to Pastaland!

Yes, I am back here and, yes, pasta here is better! Pizza? It depends, given how low the Italian standard has fallen. The keyword of my country, though, must be inefficiency. We came back on September 16th and, since then, I have never been able to keep the same rhythm I had in Belgrade. There, by 2 PM, I would have completed 2/3 of my daily planned tasks. Here, by 2 PM, I may call it a good day if I reached 1/3. There is always something getting in the way, be it a tech or bureaucratic issue, or something to fix that should have just been working in the first place.

The general rhythm, then, is so slow, and yet everyone around is nervous—of course, since you cannot get anything serious done! Kids went back to school on 9/11, and they are already tired. Three months of holidays and you are tired? Simple, you lose the rhythm, and then it’s hard to get back to speed. You still need to achieve the same things kids in other countries do, but in one month less, which creates unnecessary stress. It would be much better to start on 9/1 and end on 6/30, like most other countries do.

For the first time ever this year, we got asked to delay the start of music lessons because the last week of September was “too soon”. Now that I have seen some alternatives outside of Italy, I can tell you exactly where the problem lies: lunch break! Kids finish school at 12.45 PM, someone needs to go fetch them, rush home, cook pasta, feed them, and drive them back to school by 2 PM. This just doesn’t make sense, but here lunch break times are an institution almost to the level of “La mamma italiana”. I can tell you how it works in Serbia, and please share how it works in your country: they go to school from 8.30 AM to 2 PM or from 2.30 to 8 PM with short breaks between each lesson—something we also miss. They alternate this each week and so do all other activities, and they have zero issues with doing so! I smile at the thought of what that would be like were it to be applied here!

Of course, there are plenty of positives in Italy, just they do not involve work, school, bureaucracy, infrastructure, and anything else you need to live if you are not a millionaire! There, I said it!

Early celebrations!

For several years now, my partner and I have abandoned the practice of gifting each other objects for our respective birthdays. Instead, we aim for a new experience. My choice for my birthday (October 16th) was the private hippo-feeding experience at the nearest zoo! Given the risk of getting bad weather in mid-October, we anticipated it by two weeks, and it was just spectacular. Learning more about animals is a refreshing experience, and it shows how the concept of humans being the superior or dominant species may be overrated—or, at least, misinterpreted.

We then had a kind of pizza that is typical for Napoli, but for which one of the best—if not “the best”—places in Italy is in Torino. This is called “pizza a portafoglio” (wallet pizza) because it is a slightly smaller one (25 cm) which gets folded in four, placed in a cone folder, and normally eaten standing or walking around. It was just gorgeous and, yes, I think that when they nail it, there is no better pizza outside of Italy.

Now, assuming some of you are still here reading this and have not gone away to fetch something to eat, let’s briefly talk about music, shall we?

New Editions!

Only one new edition made the cut this month, but it is something I have been working on for the last 18 months, and it is a piece that has hopelessly captivated me. Drumroll, please… I am thrilled to present you the Trio for Piano, Violin, and Cello, in E minor, Op. 180, by Justus Johann Friedrich Dotzauer! Here is what I can share with you about it, taken from the promo material.

Throughout his composing career, Dotzauer experimented with a plethora of chamber music settings: from the most basic solo instrument with piano accompaniment to the string quartet (25 exemplars), from solo woodwind with string trio to quartet with two cellos and several vocal settings.

One piece, though, was missing to make his puzzle complete: a chamber piece where the piano would’ve been the main actor. Dotzauer eventually completed his quest with the last chamber piece he would ever write, in 1851 (aged 68): a majestic Trio for piano, violin, and cello (Op. 180).

This monumental, 32-minute-long piece in four movements, is dedicated to his elder son Bernhard (1808-74), piano virtuoso and chamber music teacher in Hamburg from 1835.

Dotzauer’s passion for counterpoint that traverses all his production can be found here as well, especially in the Finale, whose theme is based on a fugue. The third movement, then, shows a usage of harmony whose chromaticism predates much more blazoned composers by about 25 years. This should come as no surprise, though: Dotzauer was the first solo cello in the Dresden Court Opera, where both Wagner’s Rienzi and The Flying Dutchman were premiered (1841-2). His curiosity and talent for writing did the rest.

This edition represents the first modern publication of the Trio, and includes a detailed introduction and analysis alongside Critical Notes that list all editorial choices (it’s an 80-pages book with two 16-pages inserts!).

A free excerpt including the Exposition of the first movement will be gifted to everyone who joins (or is part of) my mailing list or to any professional trio who would like to give this a try (contact me here).

For the first time, this piece will be available exclusively in printed form until a publicly documented performance and a recording are realised. Following that, a digital version will be released.

The Editorial Notes will be available as a free download on this product page, where you can also pre-order the digital and physical version (shipping included).

Meanwhile, you can listen to how each of its movements sound in these videos:

Allegro non troppo: https://youtu.be/ziM7QCp2VEI

Andante cantabile (available Oct. 2, subscribe to the channel!): https://youtu.be/faeXmhqyYro

Scherzo: Allegro non tanto — Trio — Scherzo (available Oct. 3): https://youtu.be/2ga49wyGt-I

Finale: Allegro (available Oct. 4): https://youtu.be/41WUy2yyGfY

What’s next?

Honestly? Plenty! I still have a few details to complete on the promotional side of the Dotzauer’s Trio, then I need to get the next four ASE editions ready for print. Thereafter, I have seven shorter editions plus a book comprising all of them to realise in the shortest amount of time possible. I am really running against time, so I hope you will excuse me if I am cutting this instalment short.

Bottom Line

Thank you for reading so far. As always, I value your input, comments, and feedback but, as a dear friend told me, if already you are not unsubscribing, it means you are interested in what I do.

You can join my mailing list here to get weekly gifts and promotions, browse my editions here, and check what’s available for print in the HNE Store. My YouTube channel, finally, contains video renditions of most of my editions.

See you next month for the November update, and I would love to hear from you about what you are doing and where your more or less musical endeavours are bringing you.

Michele

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