Like Luciano Berio, Manzoni studied composition at the Milan Conservatory where he was subsequently to teach harmony and counterpoint. In addition, he enrolled at Bocconi University in the same city to devote himself to foreign languages and literature.

It is no wonder, then, that so much of his oeuvre should comprise settings of texts by a wide variety of writers: one of his operas is based on Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus (1989) (premiered at La Scala, with Robert Wilson directing and Gianni Versace providing the setting and the costumes); for Musica per Inferno di Dante (1995) he engaged the services of a close collaborator of Berio, Edoardo Sanguineti, to write the libretto.

His orchestral compositions, too, frequently employ vocal soloists, to sing words by Nietzsche, Hölderlin, Beckett, or Bruno Maderna. Apparently, Manzoni needs inspiration from the outside, so to speak, to set his creative imagination in train: his purely instrumental compositions are often homages to composers like Varèse or Nono. The same applies to chamber music with settings of Rilke or Emily Dickinson.

Manzoni has kept in close touch with languages on another level as well: he is a noted writer on music and has also translated works by Schoenberg and Adorno into Italian.

I.

I can only recall a few moments which could be likened to Lutosławski’s Cage experience. However, they have not been associated exclusively with contemporary music. They have been evoked by Perotinus, Wagner, and Berg as much as by Ives or Xenakis.

Experiences like that cannot be confined to music alone. I for one have received stronger impulses from certain external and internal impulses of the environment. Most recently, for instance, it was the San Giovanni degli Eremiti church in Palermo which impressed me with its majestic and solemn nave: I could almost hear sounds streaming from the stones. My earliest experience is linked to the Baptistery in Pisa: Giovanni Pisano’s enthralling, almost magical sculptures not only inspired me to hear sounds but also conjured up scenes of music theater.

Finally, many years ago, on a gorgeous autumn afternoon, on the Campidoglio, an intoxicated stupor came over me and it seemed as if the surrounding hills, the Roman palaces and churches were inundating me with sonorities which joined in a fantastic sinfonia, merging with light, colors, space, and movement.