The essence of man is sound, sound generates light and the spirit manifests itself in it.
This maxim of the Hopi Indians is found in one of the last scores of the Parisian composer André Jolivet (1905-1974) and says a lot about his aesthetic and philosophical ideals, because he sought in his production "to restore to music its original and ancient meaning when it was the magic and incantatory expression of the religiosity of human societies" (André Jolivet, Une enquête, 19).
Overseas, the tireless explorer and inventor of American music Henry Cowell (1895-1965) noted something very similar at the beginning of his early Irish piano legends, where the music tells the story of Manuanaun, the God of movement, who, long before creation, rhythmically moved the particles and materials that the gods then made the sun and the world.
Italian pianist Vittoria Quartararo has decided to present two piano preludes for her open-studio, André Jolivet's Cosmogonie (1938) and Henry Cowell's Les marées de Manaunaun (1917), two pieces where the "magic" element seems to be in the balance between man and the cosmos.
Going back to the beginning means finding a world.
Vittoria Quartararo (Italy) is a recipient of the Music Committee of the Cité internationale des arts.