Movimento perpetuo – Preludi per pianoforte

The "Preludi per pianoforte" – four volumes with twelve pieces each – were composed several years after the Venetian composer Renato de Grandis decided in 1987, shortly after his 60^th birthday, to stop composing. He then moved back to Italy after having lived in Germany for twenty years and in Brussels for ten years. At that point, he had been a successful composer for many years, when he ranked among the major composers in Europe's avant-garde music scene. During his retreat de Grandis dedicated himself to his philosophical interests; he wrote both prose and poetry, painted, taught and traveled while also immersing himself in Buddhism, the Kabbalah, and theosophy.

His withdrawal from composing lasted only a few years, however; it appears traveling led him back to music. In the Introduction to the “Preludi per pianoforte” he wrote: “The characters of the preludes have to do with a great multiplicity of situations, moods, direct experiences, and encounters, which come from a life full of traveling far and wide, a life of uninterrupted learning, research, and discovery, sometimes concerning subjects which are unknown to most people.” The many situations and moods, brought out by de Grandis here, correspond to the compositional variety: Every single one of these pieces which are very free and different in dimension and form presents its own special technical aspect. Considered as a whole, but also in view of his life’s work, one finds in the “Preludes” almost the entire spectrum of de Grandis' musical thought in an extremely restricted space and in spite of their often only miniature-like nature.