Portrait Beat Furrer & Lisa Streich

What sounds did St. Frances of Rome hear on her deathbed? This was the question composer-in-residence Lisa Streich asked herself as she viewed a fresco depicting the death of the city’s saint in the Tor de’ Specchi nunnery, in which she is shown ascending to heaven on a carpet of flowers. Streich’s ensemble piece Francesca attempts to provide an answer: with intimations of angelic music resounding above and a piano that morphs into a celestial plucked instrument by means of small motorized devices. For his part, Beat Furrer, an enthusiastic reader, refers not to an image but to texts with ... cold and calm and moving, the title of which echoes the rhythm of a Petrarchan sonnet and quotes an early Joyce novella. Flute, harp, and string trio contrast “images of numbness” with frenzied, wildly upsurging passages. linea dell’orizzonte in turn proves to be a study of the shadow, which doubles, alienates, and distorts (sonic) reality.