A profile
Edited by
Anna Maria Ioannoni Fiore
Stefano Taglietti’s musical activity (Rome 1965) is the immediate manifestation of his intimate expressive need: to compose and improvise at the piano – like a “desk of experimentation” [Taglietti] – are the natural and necessary gestures of someone who, in a pleasant and fertile silence, catches fire finding in the sound, as well in its images and languages, the full affirmation of his own identity. His approach to music consists in an attitude of permanent emotive astonishment which, free of preconceptions, lives by an open perception of sounds, in which the surprise of an ever new sound landscape affirms itself.
Trained in the school of Sylvano Bussotti, he lived his meeting with Hans Werner Henze as a determining experience for his vocational training. Hans Werner Henze has many times referred to him speaking words of lively appreciation and flattering encouragement: “Stefano Taglietti’s music […] is the spontaneous expression of a pure tender soul and of a great talent […] Personally I wish him a lot of success in his work, so creative and original”. [H. W. Henze, autograph letter of March 28th 2002]; “I like Stefano Taglietti’s music” [from an interview to H. W. Henze by V. Cappelli in “Amadeus”, a. XIII ( 2001), m. 7 ].
In 1994 he started a close collaboration with visual artist of Iranian descent Bizhan Bassiri; from such a partnership came three theatrical concerts La divina devastazione [The divine devastation] (1994), Il pensieromagmatico [Themagmaticthought] (1996), Palingenesi [Palingenesis] (1999) and a Sinfonia scenica [Theatrical symphony] for chorus and orchestra “La battaglia dei centauri” [“The battle of the centaurs”] (1999-2002) apart from many other compositions. The sought after and longed for relationship between musical and visual language, fulfills that ideal of unitariness and comunicative complexity, in a remarkable result of expressive strength, according to a joint transmission relationship between arts.
Even the bond with the written text has a strong evocative power: Il marinaio [The seaman] listening theatre for actor, string quartet, percussion, live electronic and taped music, taken from F. Pessoa in the translation by A. Tabucchi (1996-1997), can be legitimately included among the most significant Italian compositions about poetical or literary texts of the second half of the 20th century [cfr. M. Moiraghi, Per un catalogo di musiche italiane del secondo Novecento su testi letterari italiani novecenteschi [M. Moiraghi, For a catalogne of Italian musics of the second half of the 20th century about Italian literary textsof the 20th century], in G. Salvetti - M. G. Sità, La cultura dei musicisti italiani del Novecento [G. Salvetti - M. G. Sità, The culture of 20th century Italian musicians] Guerini Studio 2003, p. 234].
The 95 works now included in Stefano Taglietti’s catalogne are, therefore, stages of a path of growth addressed to the constant exploration of all possible parameters of research, of instrumental, harmonical or timbre techniques which, far from being mere sound decorum, make clear his evocative, expressive and communicative willingness.
In a climate of “creative urgency” [Taglietti] – not instinctive but complex and contemplative of the inherent richness of the sound material - Stefano Taglietti faces his “daily composing” with the same curiosity as that of a pioneer. His music is not made for the lazy listener, but it addresses to whoever, like him, escapes from safe shores of often worn out linguistic conveniences, as if inspired by an oneiric experience, and reuses his experiences shaping them through new paths. That’s the key to reading one of his latest works, After pop suite (2002-06), in which all the physicality and the universality of the sound is affirmed, from the choice of the ensemble – open and modular – to the choice of the sound – strong and compact.
Web:  http://www.stefanotaglietti.com/profilo.html