Unusually for a violin and piano work, A riveder le stelle is accompanied by poetic quotations: the piece was inspired by Canto XXXIV of Dante's Inferno: 'Literature is another great passion of mine', says Rodrigo, and I often try to unite it with music.' Indeed, he is currently studying for a doctorate on the subject of mythology and hints that he has potential operas in the pipeline for which he is writing his own libretti.

The main these of this piece is conceived as a setting of the words 'Vexilla regis prodeunt inferno', announcing the inexorable approach of Lucifer's standards through the mists. 'I tried to recreate the idea of that misty expanse, suggested in Dante's poem', Rodrigo says. 'Then I break up the themes: he's hearing it at first at a distance and I imagined what it would be like to hear it in a great cavern from far away, where you can't see very well, you hear bits of it, there's an echo …' The result is a rapt, bleak, inwards piece that exploits a range of expressive violinistic effects, including natural harmonics and col legno bowing.

from notes by Jessica Duchen © 2021