L'amore e poesia (love is poetry) is a song cycle for soprano and orchestra, built around four vocalises and an orchestral interlude. The various pieces were written over the course of nearly a decade and at very different stages of Flavio Motalla's life but they are all connected with each other by the underlying theme set forth in the title. The compositions feature a wordless soprano, even though I was urged by several of my friends to use a libretto at first. However, it occurred to me early on that the music could be vocal but without relying on words. Not only might a written text present a distraction for the audience, but even more so it's rhythmic pattern would have interfered too much with the organic flow of the composition. Also, given the subject matter, I strongly felt that the music should speak for itself. The pieces are written in a very lush, romantic style, both lyrical in expression and epic in scale. At times notably nostalgic, sometimes opulent but never cloying. The soaring melodies are clearly a nod to the likes or Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner, whose film music from the golden era of Hollywood has always been an inspiration to Motalla.
