The Porazzi Fragment

Commissioned by the Primavera Orchestra, and designed for the orchestra’s string formation, this short work for strings alone originates in an enigmatic, and un-published, 13 bar musical theme by Richard Wagner which appears to have been started during the period when he was composing the second act of Tristan und Isolde and finished shortly after the completion of Parsifal in Palermo, Piazza dei Porazzi.