Microstories publication with composer Fabrizio Paterlini
‘Internationally acclaimed Italian pianist and composer Fabrizio Paterlini creates melancholic musical compositions, predominantly working in the vernacular of Neo-classical or minimalism. His unique sounds are both visceral, emotive and indeed offer a complexity which is sometimes regarded as ethereal.’ – Microstories
Composition #40 is melancholic, lingering and intensely sad.
Paterlini’s most recent project ‘Microstories’ emphasises the notion of the current moment, posing the question ‘How many emotions can you feel in one minute?’. For the Microstories publication, I responded to composition #40 which you can listen to above.
Paterlini’s melancholic composition #40 inspired me to reflect on my own melancholia and relationship to loss – or rather the anticipation that preludes loss. The heartbreaking knowledge that everything is fleeting; everything will end.
I responded with a poem entitled ‘In Anticipation of My Loss’.
I chose to respond to the composition specifically because it lingered with me long after hearing it. It seemed to contextualise something within me. A moment of anxiety, followed by the thrill of acceptance. The score summarises the pain that loss brings and the appreciation of experiencing something worthy of the pain that loss provides us with.
My poetry is accompanied by experimental darkroom photography. The image was created by manipulating water over photographic paper during the exposure and developing process. It is a physical response to the composition. I am attempting to capture movement and light in a static image.
Attempting to capture fluidity is futile. The image presented is the echo of a moment, a flashback, a visual description of loss.
What we take from the image is experience, the knowledge that as we leave things behind there is more to come. We can anticipate loss, savour it and then move beyond.
Paterlini asks his listeners to ‘absorb themselves in his music for as little as one minute, in turn, we feel the seductive response of the visceral impact music can consume within us.’ Composition #40 has impacted me and I look forward to responding to more of his work.
Click to see more of my experimental darkroom photography