Katerina di Čeka

Caterina Di Cecca (Leiden, 1984) is the winner and finalist of many international competitions in composition (The Biennale College Music Project – Biennale di Venezia 2016, Franco Donatoni International Meeting of Young Composers 2016, Feeding Music – Music for Expo 2015, Premio San Fedele 2015, Salvatore Martirano Award 2013). She has received commissions from numerous institutions, including the Biennale di Venezia, Contrasts Festival (Lviv), World Exposition 2015, Collegium Music Chamber Orchestra of Lviv, Stagione Rondò, Centro Culturale San Fedele, Pontino festival, and Fondazione Spinola Banna per l’Arte, where she was also Composer-in-Residence in 2015. Her pieces have been performed and programmed in Germany, Italy, Mexico, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United States by renowned ensembles and orchestras, such as Neue Vocalsolisten (Stuttgart), Ensemble Mosaik (Berlin), Divertimento Ensemble (Milan), Lviv Virtuosos String Orchestra, Collegium Music Chamber Orchestra (Lviv), Ensemble Nostri temporis (Kiev), Ensemble Alternance (Paris), and Ensemble TEMA (Karlsruhe).

The text of this Lied comes from the novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, written by Rainer Maria Rilke. In the scene, the female character sings these verses starting from silence, in which she lifts up her voice, which gradually acquires confidence and conviction culminating at the final sentence (‘because I never stopped you I hold you fast’). The music follows the same path and presents a slow conquest of richness of timbre, harmony and register, where each situation stems from the preceding situation and turns into the next.