My friend Nicola Campogrande, a talented composer, writer and music organiser based in Turin invited me to write this ‘melologue’ – a narrated text accompanied by music – for Paola Roman and the Toujours Ensemble. The required theme for the work was “L’amore dei vecchi” – love in old age. I have put together a collection of five very different texts, to show five contrasting facets of love.

narrator
flute [doubling alto flute and bass flute in C]
clarinet [doubling bass clarinet and Eb clarinet]
guitar
cello

On texts by Thomas Moore, Russian folklore, Simone de Beauvoir, Aristophanes, Maynard d’Aubigné.

Premiered in 1994 in Turin by the Toujours Ensemble with Paola Roman as narrator.