Journey through Forgotten Medium Waves: Efebo con radio by Salvatore Sciarrino

Section 1. World music: retrospections and modernity

Abstract

The piece for voice and orchestra Efebo con radio (1981) by Salvatore Sciarrino was one of the composer’s first attempts to implement the principle of tuning the ear to certain waves. This work embodies the post-war Italian society’s fascination with the possibilities that emerged due to the development of radio broadcasting, as well as Sciarrino’s own listening experience from the 1950s. This article is devoted to identifying the specifics of the implementation of the principle of ‘azione invisibile’ (Italian for ‘invisible action’) as one of the key creative methods of the composer. To achieve this goal, historical, historiographical, and comparative methods, the method of intonational analysis, as well as individual elements of linguistic research methodology (in particular, methods of etymological and semantic analysis) were employed. The analysis carried out allowed the conclusion that Efebo con radio is constructed as a peculiar quasi-collage of quotations, embedded by the composer into a sonic frame that imitates radio wave frequencies and movement between them. For the efebo, the main character of the piece, as for Sciarrino himself, sound becomes a means of direct connection with the world, of understanding it and living it intensely. Turning the receiver’s dial, the young boy mentioned in the title travels through sonic worlds, recognizes what is his, becomes acquainted with the foreign, and forms his own linguistic-cultural identity. Sciarrino attempts to concentrate the sequence of events of this programmatic work within a purely auditory frame of the radio ether, which can be considered one of the first attempts to implement the principle of azione invisibile in his oeuvre.