Salvatore Sciarrino (b. 1947), a Sicilian living in Rome, is perhaps the best-known living Italian composer. A brilliant self-taught prodigy who mastered every musical instrument on his own, he has deliberately created his own world of musical breath barely flickering deep within the ruins of culture – a world of the profound solitude of a soul living on the verge of non-existence in a society that unrestrainedly consumes meanings long since lost in a sea of meaningless words. The outward economy of the means with which Sciarrino creates his worlds is striking: otherworldly, quiet sounds of wind instruments, the rustle of bow hair, the barely audible whisper of the tiniest percussion. Yet what Sciarrino does is far removed from the fashionable construction of simulacra. His music demands exceptionally attentive listening into oneself, the engagement of our gift for reconstructing lost (or perhaps never existent) sounds, a spurring of experience and imagination. If one listens very closely, the discreteness of the sonic matter disappears, and coherence and beauty emerge.