Each little waterfall has its own voice
And they all blend in a delightful concert
That lulls your thoughts and, like music,
Gives them an even, rhythmic movement.

Elisée Reclus, 1869

This is the result of ten years of original photographic shots, a symphony specifically composed around this opus, literary and scientific research, and two years of work with musicians, photographers, video operators and actors.

Each theme is a musical piece that corresponds to a phase in the metaphor of life and is introduced by quotes chosen from the book Histoire d’un Ruisseau by Eliseé Reclus, performed by theatrical actors. The vocal introduction to each of the 16 pieces is accompanied by a mathematical formula, chosen because it explains the most significant phenomenon taking place in a specific stage of the stream (hydraulics, geomorphology, chemistry, optics, biology…) as represented in the images that follow.

Two versions of the symphony have been composed: the first in 2010-2011, which lasts 75 minutes and is made up of 16 parts; the second was composed in 2012-2013, lasts 50 minutes and is made up of 6 parts, with the introduction of new sounds and musical enhancements. The differences between the two versions makes them adapt for different contexts.

TRAILER – 2016 SYMPHONY

TRAILER – 2013 SYMPHONY

TRAILER – 2011 SYMPHONY

The name “Symphony” gives the idea of the multitude of sounds which harmonize in nature’s grand orchestra; “Water” is the full immersion in a specific world. Music is the soundtrack that describes, along with the images, words and formulae, the construction of a new perceptive dimension.

The musical piece was composed ex novo in 2010-2011, following a succession of 400 photographs divided into themes that represent the details of phenomena that take place in bodies of flowing water. The approach chosen for the construction of this work is a fusion of reason and sentiment, following an itinerary based on the artistic intuition and the holistic but also sentimental vision applied and theorized by Eliseé Reclus.

Following a selection among more than 10,000 photographs, the images were painstakingly composed by means of computerized dynamic video editing.

Video, music and text become the narrative of an ancestral memory of the self.

The musical score is varied and cannot be arbitrarily placed in one category or another. It is in fact original and dedicated to this work, so we could say it is the “Water Symphony” genre, certainly not a Hollywood-style soundtrack, but a musical narration influenced by many ideas rather than by genre or form.

The main instruments are piano, saxophone and clarinet.

Here is the video with the complete performance of Reclus’s quotes, recited by the actors Valentina Grigò and Stefano Filippi.