By Sarah Maisey — thenational.ae — Lebanese-French composer and pianist Rami Khalife has unveiled a new composition titled New Time, penned exclusively for Italian fashion brand Brunello Cucinelli. Released alongside footage of Khalife playing the piece on a piano among the poppy fields of Castelluccio di Norcia in central Italy, the piece is said to allude to the changes brought about by the seasons. An original composition written and played by Khalife, it was recorded in Paris, at the Abbey Road Institute.

The title of the piece is taken from a letter written by Cucinelli in response to the Covid-19 crisis in April, when the large-scale impact of the pandemic was becoming clear. Addressing his shareholders, he wrote: “The rising of a new time has already begun from the shadows of a painful night; this new time, my esteemed friends, I see it brimming with fabulous opportunities, a bearer of new lifeblood, a creator of ideas revolving around a renewed desire for life … at the end of this all we will be different; we too, like time, will be somehow new. “Until a few days ago, the time that flows from one daily action to the next was driven by the frantic urgency of an ongoing haste and frenzy without a conscious reason; today time has changed its pace like in a melody where every musical beat falls where the score of creation wants it to be, and generates a music of memories and future that we won’t easily forget,” he said.

To turn these words into reality, the brand reached out to the composer, who in turn created the haunting melody, which features an urgent note running through it. The video begins with Khalife emerging from the mist to take his place at the piano, as the camera cuts to different images of the Italian landscape. The final words are by the 18th century German poet Novalis and say “nature is a musical instrument whose tones resonate with the deepest keys within us.”