• 6 violins, 2 violas, 2 celli and 1 contrabass (six bells and five paper cranes in the case 2nd ending is performed).

• Duration: 10'
• Composed in 2025

This composition comes in two versions, opus 148A for six violins, two violas, two celli, contrabass and piano of a duration of 9’40” and opus 148B for six violins, two violas, two celli, contrabass and piano of a duration of 10’20” with six bells and five paper cranes. The number of strings may be increased as long as a balance is maintained. The music of the two versions is identical until bar 197. Ideally the six bells of indefinite pitch are selected among European metallophones (finger cymbal, singing bowl, small church altar bell, small bell tree, small triangle) and Japanese metallophones furing, dõ-byõshi, ennen, chappa, kin, oroguru...). The composition is to be played without a conductor.

 La Campana della Pace (or the Peace Bell) is a dense composition written by Robert Casteels in response to I Musici’s 2025 International Call for scores for the project “Notes for peace, new music for Hiroshima and Nagasaki”. Born in Belgium, Casteels emigrated to Singapore in 1994. His growing corpus of compositions has reached 150 opus numbers (more info at www.robertcasteels.com). After In Praise of Sake (2012), Kaze ni Noru (2013) and Arch (2024), La Campana della Pace is Casteels’s 4^th composition directly linked to Japan. The composition is a journey from darkness to light, from despair to hope. Part one briefly expresses the military preparation under the code name Manhattan Project, the take-off of the bombers, the dropping and explosion of the nuclear bombs, the radiation waves and the ensuing black rain. The musical language of part one is atonal and microtonal. Part two is tonal and consists in a sad chorale questioning the degree of suffering humans inflict on each other. During part three, the music opens up gradually and becomes soothing to lead into a peaceful modal melody. During the whole composition, two rhythmic themes, derived from the exact date, year, and time of the explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The nine letters of Hiroshima are converted into a melodic theme. During the whole composition, a war bell consisting in a dissonant interval tolls forty times and a peace bell consisting in a consonant interval also tolls forty times. The entire music unfolds in 80 gestures, in reference to this year’s 80^th anniversary.

(Conclusion in case opus 148A is performed)

La Campana della Pace ends with texts written by students of the Hiroshima Middle School, the sound of little bells and the sight of symbolic paper cranes. The ultimate message of hope is: Never Again.