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The title relates to this composition's structural foundation. The work's left hand part is, with two exceptions, the exact inversion (the mirror image) of its right hand part; and its pitch material is compounded exclusively of lines derived from the succession of four notes which in the German musical alphabet spell the name of Bach. These notes allow for two transpositions within the dodecaphonic ambit. The retrograde form is identical to its inversion and each four-note group allows for 24 permutations. The juxtaposition of the original BACH group with its transpositions gives rise to the most varied chordal combinations of triadic type. These can have major, minor, or modal flavor and can be related to septatonic, octotonic, and totally chromatic scales. The chords which occur most frequently are the perfect triads on B flat minor, D major, C minor, and E major.
The work is structured in two sections. The first section bears the title "Toccata delle durezze e delle ligature", with obvious allusion to a well-known Toccata by Girolamo Frescobaldi. The music demands a performance based mainly on a dry touch of crystal-like sharpness. The latter part of this first section unfolds a motive that Ferruccio Busoni used near the end of his "Fantasia contrappuntistica", and derives from one of the most complex pages of Bach's "Art of Fugue". A dodecaphonic transformation of the original motive of the "Art of Fugue", interwoven with the BACH motive, generates the second main section of the work, which is entitled "Fuga quasi una Fantasia". Conceived as a free fugue in four double parts, this section of the composition presents a polyphonic texture in eight real parts. The traditional episodes of the fugue are replaced, in two cases, by variations on the "Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr' " chorale, in a way that recalls how Busoni used it at the beginning of his "Fantasia contrappuntistica".
Immagini speculari sul nome Bach is dedicated to Carlo Grante.
[Program note by Roman Vlad]
Roman Vlad, most recently the Artistic Director of La Scala, was born in Romania but has lived in Italy since 1938, the year he came to Rome to study with Casella. He was, among other things, Co-Director for Music of Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo (1958-62), President of the Italian Society of Contemporary Music (1960), consultant to the Third Programme of RAI, Artistic Director of the Maggio Musicale (1964) and of the Teatro Comunale of Florence (1968-72), President of the Società Aquilana dei Concerti (1973-92), Superintendent of the Teatro dell'Opera of Rome, Co-Director of the Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana (since 1967), Artistic Director of the RAI Radio-Televisione Italiana Symphony Orchestra of Turin (1973-89), President of the Confédération Internationale des Auteurs et Compositeurs (1980-82, 1990-94), and President of the Società Italiana degli Autore ed Editori (1987-93). He is on the administrative council of the C.I.S.A.C and the management committee of National Academy of Santa Cecilia, and is a consultant to the Ravenna Festival, the Festival Settembre Musica, and the Festival Musicale of Ravello. He is Commandeur des Art et des Lettres of the Académie des Arts et des Lettres of France and Commissario Straordinario of the S.I.A.E. In addition to being a composer and a pianist, Vlad is a widely-respected writer on music. His essays on Busoni remain unsurpassed in any language, most notably the one which appeared in L' "Approdo musicale" in 1966. [Program note by Carlo Grante]
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