On the Traces of I Vaganti
Project leader: Giovanni Cestino
In 1950, within the Music High School of Alessandria (now the “A. Vivaldi” Conservatory), a youth polyphonic choir called “I Vaganti” was founded through the initiative and under the direction of the institution’s librarian, Mario Panatero (1919-1962). Panatero was a composer of solid training and great refinement. A student of Ettore Desderi (1892-1974), he was particularly close to Dallapiccola and the composers of the Second Viennese School, whose twelve-tone method he adopted. He translated Arnold Schönberg’s Models for Beginners in Composition into Italian and attended the International Ferienkurse in Darmstadt in the early fifties. Despite this, his music did not achieve widespread recognition. Panatero unfortunately suffered from rather fragile health and thus led a short and reclusive life, mostly confined to his city. However, he contributed to the cultural life of Alessandria with various initiatives, one of which was the chamber choir “I Vaganti,” active in the early 1950s and consisting of twenty-nine singers.
For them, Panatero selected a repertoire that, while not extensive, was highly varied. It ranged from the well-known medieval canon Sumer is icumen in to the choral music of his teacher Desderi, encompassing both sacred and secular polyphony of the 16th century and works by major composers such as Bach, Mozart, Brahms, and Verdi. Panatero personally prepared the transcription of each piece, frequently adding dynamic and expressive markings. These notations not only documented his interpretation but also provided practical guidance for his singers. The transcriptions have not survived as full scores but only as separate parts in facsimile copies, contained in booklets that Panatero personally created for each singer. Today, only five of these booklets remain: two for Soprano, two for Alto, and one for Bass. They were discovered almost by chance a few years ago during an inventory of the Conservatorio di Alessandria’s archival collection.
Each “Book of I Vaganti”—as noted by the maestro’s handwritten label—provides a snapshot of how each individual singer worked on their part. The “Vaganti,” like all choristers, added annotations and comments related to both their personal needs and the director’s instructions. Each singer made these notes in their own way and to varying extents, depending on their skills, inclinations, or personality.
The ITER Research Ensemble project on these remarkable sources proceeds by studying the pieces from copies of the original materials (and, in the case of the Tenor part, reconstructing it conjecturally from the surviving parts). The aim is to reproduce Panatero’s transcriptions of works like Palestrina’s Sicut cervus and Arcadelt’s Il bianco e dolce cigno as faithfully as possible. Inevitably, this approach, based on a transcription, creates a sort of “interpretation squared,” starting not from the original text but from a version that represents a historical moment of its reception, as evidenced by the Vaganti books.
Simultaneously, in each of ITER’s working sessions—recorded and documented with a multi-camera system—whenever a member annotates their part, they are required to take a photo of the annotation. All annotations are then collected and cataloged by chorister. This method allows the group to conduct a “controlled” investigation into the practice of annotation, developing a method to study it over time and reflecting on their own annotating practices.
The pieces studied in this manner are then performed in concert: this research is a key component of the multimedia performance Chants, Places, Sources. The performance not only brings to life the transcriptions of a 20th-century Piedmontese composer but also, by using the same parts as “I Vaganti,” adds a profound emotional dimension. It aims to ideally reconnect the voices and musical experience of two choirs (ITER and “I Vaganti”) that, despite being separated by time, are not ultimately so different.