Roderick (Rigu) Bovingdon, writes:
In the late 1960s I got embroiled in a lengthy correspondence with the Australian Broadcasting Commission, arguing successfully for the inclusion of Charles Camilleri's music to be given its due airtime exposure.
Charles was impressed by my unflinching nationalistic efforts on his behalf and from there on we were friends for life. We corresponded for several years, and on my visits to Malta, never once did I miss out calling Charles on the phone or by paying him a visit at his home at Targa Gap or at the University, or indeed at one of his many brilliant concerts.
Although the nation has lost Charles' physical presence, our small yet ancient and proud people have gained a solid and healthy musical repertoire thanks to his persistent research into our (then) relatively unexplored national and collective musical tradition.
One of Charles's great masterpieces, Missa Mundi (1971) has aptly been described by his lifetime friend and confidant, the philosopher Fr Peter Serracino Inglott, as "a fulfilling of Teilhard de Chardin's aspirations to express the universe as longing for convergence of the cosmos upon a divine centre".
Charles's Hemda (1962) was considered as the maestro's "emancipatory emergence from a yet undeveloped oeuvre of traditional melodic themes into its inevitable maturation of the nation's soul". And hence, Taqsim (1970?) was regarded as "the ultimate expression of Camilleri's emergence in Hemda, from the national womb, in giving birth to the child with a genuine indigenous genome".
Charles's individual musical contribution to the world of classical music is his daring abandonment of the traditional European modality, the narrowness of the scale range, the resultant imposition of the bar line and the traditional concept of harmony.
In his quest, he claimed to have found a new concept - that of universal symmetry in bringing together an all-inclusive sound reflecting the relationship of humanity with creation.
To Charles, rhythm, melody and harmony no longer complied with a traditional semantic concept. In his mind they were an intrinsic part of the whole, as one sound, rather than separate, signal, musical effects, each vying for a space.
Charles's lifelong friendship with Fr Serracino Inglott embellished our national musical repertoire with a rich blending of two of our nation's finest minds - a profound intellectual encounter evoked in the mellifluous melody of our nation's musical soul.
Until we meet again (perhaps?), goodbye my Maltese friend.