Nel giardinetto della villa
Chester Biscardi
About this work:
Nel giardinetto della villa (In the Little Garden of the Villa), for piano four hands (1994)
Published by Biscardi Music Press: No. B48-94-2
Recorded: Music By My Friends, Albany Records TROY695-96 (Chester Biscardi and Bennett Lerner)
This work was inspired by the daily life in the garden of the Villa Corsi-Salviati in Sesto Fiorentino, Italy (which is also where the first opera, Dafne, was written in 1597). You can hear birds, ducks, frogs, lizards, mosquitoes, bats and a bee, and you can visualize a maze (one of those proper English gardens in which you get lost), a pond, water lilies, a Water Nymph, a gardener on his bicycle who meets one of the frogs, a greenhouse, a Cypress tree, the planet Venus, bonfires, and, finally, a sad moon. Where’s the cat?
Nel giardinetto della villa was written in 1994 for my friend, the pianist James Goldsworthy, and his then mostly eight-year old students. So, it’s a student/teacher type piece in eight short movements that explore different keyboard techniques and musical styles (for instance, hand positions, use of fingering, grace notes, etc., and different types of minimalism - e.g., Meredith Monk style in III, ostinato in V, etc.) as a way of introducing new music to young pianists and audiences. All of the pieces are interrelated musically and within an overall narrative. There’s also a kinship in the piece with Maurice Ravel’s five-movement Ma Mére l’Oye suite.
Nel giardinetto della villa
In the Little Garden of the Villa
I. L’alba: Un cinguettio d’uccelli
I. Dawn: A Chirping of Birds
II. Le tre anitre e le lucertole nel labirinto
II. The Three Ducks and the Lizards in the Maze
III. Lo stagno e le ninfee
III. The Pond and the Water Lilies
IV. La gatta Biancaneve e la rana
IV. The Cat Snow White and the Frog
V. Bruno, il giardiniere, in bicicletta
V. Bruno, the Gardener, on His Bicycle
VI. Le zanzare e i pipistrelli nella limonaia
VI. The Mosquitoes and the Bats in the Lemon Tree Greenhouse
VII. Il crepuscolo: Il cipresso e Venere
VII. Twilight: The Cypress Tree and Venus
VIII. La luna triste e i falò
VIII. The Sad Moon and the Bonfires
Year composed: 1994
Duration: 00:10:00
Ensemble type: Keyboard:Piano 4 or More Hands
Instrumentation: 1 Piano
Instrumentation notes: one piano, four hands; student/teacher; adult/beginner