Chloe
for violin
Instrumentation:
vln
Duration:
4’
The title, Chloe, referrers firstly to the novel, Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino. The story centres upon an explorer, Marko Polo, and an emperor, Kublai Kahn. Kahn employs Polo to describe to him in detail all the cities he has passed through on his travels; one of which being the city of Chloe. However, since they do not speak the same language as one another, Polo must use the objects surrounding him to help depict the fantastically diverse and exotic cities that he has visited. It later occurs to Kahn however, that these cities only really exist through his imaginative interpretation of Polo’s gestures and he therefore realises that each of the cities Polo is depicting could in fact be the same city, or indeed, the city of which he is emperor. I found this notion of presenting a single idea in vastly contrasting and imaginative ways extremely interesting.
Recording available on Architectures, performed by Carmine M. Rizzi.
Performances
7 December 2015 Darragh Morgan, The Forge, London
15 May 2013 Darragh Morgan, Austrian Cultural Forum, London