Fra cello e terra

The title Fra cello e terra (Between cello and earth) contains a pun between the Italian terms cello, the string instrument, and cielo, heaven. These two words have almost the same pronunciation. There are some slight differences, but they would nonetheless be omitted by a beginner or a non-native. The phonetic connection cello-cielo matches perfectly when considering the wide register of the violoncello as well as its intrinsic musical capability. In Western Music History much music plenty of high pitches (and other contents too, of course) has been regarded as “celestial’ or heavenly. On the other hand, music able to move our emotions almost in a corporal way, or simply taken as the opposite of the heavenly one, has been called “earthly”.
The piece, therefore, moves among these realms, giving to the instrument a virtuoso discourse that goes through many different steps in between.