Anamorfosi

Allegri’s Miserere, its heartbreaking harmonies, its verses alternately chanted and ornamented, its seraphic voices: sheer Baroque magic. Since its composition in Rome in 1630, the work has constantly been transformed. Le Poème Harmonique approaches the score through the prism of its metamorphoses, the ornaments and transpositions added since the time when Mozart himself transcribed the piece, then jealously guarded by the Vatican, which punished publication of it with anathema. From the Renaissance onwards, musicians dressed up the finest secular tunes of their time in sacred words.

A special and intriguing concept: ultra-short (one minute plus) piano pieces by 50 composers, encompassing 3 centuries, starting with Rameau and ending with Sciarrino, Crumb, Ligeti and Berio. Much can be said with few words, and so much can be expressed in a few notes; some composers struggled with large forms but could say a deep truth in one page.