‘Mediterraneo 36.2’ (for cl. in Bb and live electronics) is a composition inspired by the ‘ladàta’: an original musical text that belongs to the repertoire of traditional songs for several voices of Sicily.
The ‘ladàta’ is a religious song of the oral tradition.
Emerged between XIII and XVI century, into small countries and villages of the centre of the island, the ‘ladàta’ seems to have the oldest and most complete structure (texts, lyrical expression, melodic lines) of the folk songs “of the land
and of the sea” of Sicily.
The ladàta is the lament (the Lamentatio, in Sicilian dialect: lamentu, lamintanza) for the Passion of Christ and the distress of Mary, still today sung during the rituals processionals of the Holy Week in the area of Caltanissetta – a small town in the centre of Sicily – by groups of male singers consisting of one or two solo voice(s) with accompaniment of more voices.
The groups of notes, the musical’s figures, the scales and the intervals which are typical of the ladàta and that belonged to the modal system of the world Arab-Turkish (the Maquam), are at the bottom of the musical material, instrumentals
lines, sound objects and colour’s eff ects of the composition.
In this sense, the ‘ladàta’ has been the “dramaturgical platform” in order to organize each of the “dimensions” (acoustic, instrumental, electronic) of the composition and to define also several kinds of sound’s transformations and the
interactions into the live electronics system.

Francesco Maria Paradiso