An introduction to “foto-musica con foto-suoni”

Index p. 2 Character p. 5 Music of the sunrise (1st CD) p. 8 Air conditioning (2nd CD) p. 12 Missed trains (3rd CD) p. 16 Mine my mine (4th CD) p. 20 Music for Palace (5th CD) 2 R iccardo Piacentini, spaces and “foto-suoni”

The following pages sketch out a deliberately schematic map of the five creations of “foto-musica con foto-suoni”® [music-photos with sound-photos] for soundtracks for which I produced with between 1999 and 2004, and in four out of five cases also with Sandro Cappelletto, on commissions from three institutes: The Italian Photography Foundation (twice), The Province of (twice) and the Piedmont Region (once).

Each production of “foto-musica con foto-suoni”® referred to in the map corresponds to a CD, that was requested and adopted as a museum soundtrack. From the first part of the Musiche dell’aurora we have drawn a sixth CD, attached to the score of Shahar and published by Edizioni Curci of in 1999; likewise from the Arie condizionate, again with Tiziana, we have drawn one of the sections of another CD, the seventh, published on the Stradivarius label with the title La voce contemporanea in Italia – vol. I (2005).

In all the 5 + 2 cases we have highlighted: a) the applicative character requested by the client and by the target of the particular exhibition or individual museum and b) the relationship between space and sound – the latter understood in its many and varied aspects, including that of the “foto-suono” (a sound photograph of an environmental context which, originally at least, does not necessarily pertain to the universe of music) and projected in the direction of music rather than of cinematographic special effects –, from which there follow c) a number of questions, or pre-positions in interrogative form.

a) Applicative character

The thesis I intend to maintain concerning its applicative character is that music – especially the type of music that likes to be defined as “cultured and not only the specific instance of museum soundtracks and of “foto-musica con suoni”® – today has the very precise duty of recuperating the link it has lost with the social and cultural life that develops outside the concert hall and that was taken away with the advent of aesthetics (codified officially in 1750/58 with the publication in Frankfurt of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s archetypal text Aesthetica, though it is worth taking a look at the perspicacious remarks in the collection of essays by Ananda Coomaraswamy Traditional Art and Symbolism, translated with the title Il grande brivido, Milan 1987) only to be saved at the last minute in a Pontius Pilate manner, apparently swept aside by the ideals of liberté, égalité et fraternité but in reality quite alive and working in the positions of “art for art’s sake” and of “music for music’s sake”.

When we claim, or claimed, that music can be applied to nothing but itself, (and Stravinsky was among those who long pretended that this was so for him too, something which happily did not stop him writing such masterpieces of applied music as the Sacre du printemps or the Histoire du soldat) we deny music a role of profound, authentic social utility, restricting it to two types of situations: the gossip of the foyer before, after and during the rite of the concert and the familiar calm afforded by good record compilations. Thus music, reassured by the warm of the home or of a slightly larger room, is prudently anaesthetised, losing meanings and sense so that it loses any further function, especially the function of being a “true” service which overcomes the impasse of aesthetic smugness. Applied music, 1 3

in contrast, is “organic” music, organically thought out for a setting which is not programmed to be “tepid”. This is why in the map that follows we have highlighted, on the one hand, the clientele and the target and, on the other, the semiotic and, where possible, structural adhesion through analytical indications expressing the procedures of musical collation-parataxis-syntax linked to the specific content of the exhibition. b) Space-sound relationship

In many respects the space-sound relationship may be considered a variable of the applicative aspect, and the map, especially in the first page of each “sonorisation”, illustrates a synthetic “identity card” picking out not only the main applicative aspects but also referring to the position of the various spaces, to their architectural features, to their acoustic refraction qualities, to the density of the objects exhibited and to space-objects relationships, the type of acoustic diffusion chosen, etc.

In the 5 CDs that we examine the “foto-suoni” are carefully elaborated using multi-track software (more specifically with a number of channels ranging from 8 to 24 but, where necessary, perfectly extendible) with contrapuntal spirit and technique, and they are set out conventionally in stereo on two channels. Stereophony unquestionably limits the typical impact of technologies like quadriphony (penta-, esa-, hepta-...) or, as the latest cinema trends prefer, dolby surround 5.1, but it does also permit use on a larger scale, representing an accessible standard without any expensive set-ups and does, in any case, offer a recognised high listening quality (the 44.1 kHz of today’s CDs may in future become 96, just as the 16 bits of today’s sampling could be confirmed as 24... we will see). At the same time this focuses attention less on the Hollywood-style special effects and more on the specimen bearing on the music, or if we prefer on the musical composition.

Sound, in the sense of the morpheme that is organisable but in reality not yet syntactically organised (as Varèse liked to define music), can easily be sold off to the “creative” who possess the technological means necessary for fairly complex operations of cut&paste, mixing, editing, mastering.

Nothing necessarily easy and taken for granted, of course, especially if the hand and the ear belong to a professional, but music, unlike sound, can never be sold off, and the most sophisticated of technologies (including the ability to master them) can never be enough to guarantee a good musical result. Technology should always be grafted organically onto a musical thought which, in turn, will derive very important input from the technology, thus forming a biunique correspondence in which, in the last analysis, the helm and the final decision belong to the music and not to the technology as such, however decisive and necessary it may be.

While the “creative” figure – be it the recordist who has risen to the status of sound designer, or the architect, the painter, the sculptor, the photographer, the multimedia and/or information- technology and/or lighting-technology expert, the performer himself (professional or amateur), the lawyer or accountant or refuse collector whose hobby is reproducing or even assembling sounds on his own computer at home – may in all cases and with differing results manipulate the universe of sound and feel that he is legitimately authorised to do so, music and composition in its syntactic sense (cum-positio apart from positioning “by ear”), whatever type and style they belong to, are not available to those who lack the cultural background and studies that only a musician, and particularly a composer, can have. It is not enough to have a “good ear”, just as to be a painter it is not enough to have a “good eye” nor, in technical terms, to have good brushes or simply a “good hand”. There is an illuminating study on the relationship between the terms “art” and “creativity” in the study carried out by Cor Blok in Art and Creativity (in 1 4

Kunst und Wissenschaft [by aul Feyerabend and Christian Thomas], Verlag der Fachvereine an den Schwiezerischen Hochschulen und Techniken, Zurich, 1984 (tr. it. Arte e Scienza, Armando Editore, Roma, 1989 Art and Creativity (by Paul Feyerabend and Christian Thomas, Milan 1987), from which it emerges that this is a fairly recent partnership, proof of which has been found only in the second decade of the twentieth century.

The fact that the composer should ideally also have an “acoustic” and (in the opinion of many) a psycho-acoustic training, together with a solid background in technical-musical studies sustained by a thorough historical knowledge of how the various techniques were born and took root in their various social and cultural contexts, is a fact that should be taken as an integral part of the cultural DNA of all those who are engaged today in composition and not just in acoustic assembly. This much was stated over thirty years ago by Murray Schafer and demonstrated even before then by Pierre Schaefer and by the musique concrète of the Fifties or by leading composers working alongside the engineers of the first electro-acoustic musical works of the Fifties and Sixties (Stockhausen, Maderna, Berio, Boulez...). c) Pre-positions

I will conclude this introductory section with two groups of questions, which I will call (interrogative) pre-positions that are a consequence of the considerations expressed above.

First group: is the model of cinematographic sound (where any music becomes a “soundtrack”) really the one to follow wherever we seek to reproduce an acoustic humus deemed meaningful and interesting? Or again: is the acoustic virtuality of three-dimensional sound – dolby surround etc. – with its specific standards of equalisation really the only one deserving to emerge on a “global” scale without our taking into consideration the cultural and environmental peculiarities of each particular society? Should the technological race be run on the lines of a single, exclusive type of standardization and music necessarily go along with this?

Second group of pre-positions, connected to the first: will the dominant fiction of virtual sound not annihilate, sooner or later, other “sound landscapes” which still do belong to the “wealth” of our living experience and are seen to be no less important if not indeed vital? (cf. Paul Feyerabend, Conquest of Abundance, The University of Chicago Press, 1999 [tr. it. Conquista dell’abbondanza, Milano, 2002]. More explicitly, in the age of the reproducibility of sound, but also of its declared falsification, where the copy can be both a clone and the emphasising ad infinitum of features of the original such that it may become a caricature that is in many ways more effective, will we still be able to distinguish a sound that is “true” from one that is not? And if this distinction is still not only sensible but also possible, what difference will there be between original, clone and caricature? Will the latter two be perceived as something different from the original or will our ears be destined to the most global of levellings? Will the acoustic universe have a boundary between the real and the virtual, or will one become the equivalent of the other? And who will determine this boundary? (cf. Douglas Hoffstadter and Daniel Dennet, L’io della mente [The ego of the mind], Milan 1991). Will confusing art, artifice and manipulation, playing at fiction without even having the spark of irony, swapping what is deformed for what is beautiful and true simply because someone with enough influence has done it and liked it, not serve to generate “dead caricatures” without contributing to a better plan of sound in space, our space, the space we live in daily and which, to some extent, lives in us? 5

usiche dell’aurora M“foto-musica con foto-suoni”® for the “sonorizzazione” of the 8th International Biennial of Photography

Place Torino (Italy), Palazzo Bricherasio.

Type of museum Museum of modern and contemporary figurative Art.

Type of exhibition Temporary exhibition of photography (8th International Biennial of Phography: The imperfect Occident).

Period September-October 1999.

Commission Fondazione Italiana per la Fotografia.

Target People interested in Art Photography.

Expected audience Not more than ten visitors per room.

Type of “sonorizzazione” Original score for voice and bass flute expressly Arrangement written for the exhibition + elaborations on multitracking software with live and studio Arrangement of the museum spaces recordings and MIDI counterpoints. About ten rooms of little / medium dimensions Acoustic materials shared on two floors. a) “Foto-suoni” recorded • in the popular market Spaces with “sonorizzazione” Chorsu Bazar in Tashkent (Uzbekistan) and in the Seven rooms of ten with “sonorizzazione”; popular market of Porta Palazzo in Torino (Italy), corridors and stairs without “sonorizzazione”. as well as • in the foyer of the Frankfurt aeroport, • along the sea side of the Naples gulf, • in domestic Density of contents / relation space-objects ambients with crumples of paper for eggs, Photographs principally exposed on lateral walls, pecussions of spoons, forks and knives, whispered about ten-twenty per room; in the middle of the (and not) voice of child. rooms, almost always free space. b) Voice of soprano, bass flute, Uzbek “tambora”. c) MIDI sounds, both sampled (plucked strings, Sound technical diffusion harpsichords, sitars, hautboys etc.) and synthetic. HI-FI equipment with CD player and about twenty little speaker “Bose” supported on metallic Textual materials bars orizontally disposed ten centimeters from Texts by Nadar, Quand j’étais photographe [When I the ceiling, two stereo speakers for each room was photograph], 1900. directing sounds to the crossing zones (doors Performers and openings) or, in some case, to a wall and a Tiziana Scandaletti (soprano), particular exposed work. Anna Maria Morini (bass flute), anonymous blind wayfarer of the Chorsu Bazar in Reverberation time Tashkent (folk voice and Uzbek “tambora”), Minimum. The rooms are generally tight and Leonardo Piacentini (voice and actions of child). limited in height. The materials + people favor an immediate absorption of the acoustic vibrations. 2 6

Musical analysis of Musiche dell’aurora [Music of the sunrise]

2 sections, 2 tracks, total duration 60’27” I. Musica prima (Shahar) [First Music (Shahar)] (17’23”) Thescore of Shahar for bass flute is the thread on which all the other elements are grafted: • at bar 2 the soprano voice begins • at bar 25 the “foto-suoni” together with the recitation of the texts by Nadar, • at bar 35 the counterpoint with the Uzbek folk melody, at first integrated with the soprano part and finally performed by an “Uzbek aèdo” directly in its native environment progressively mixed with that of a popular Italian market. Some indications of fundamental techniques: • the bass flute part moves in 27 micro-interval subdivisions of the octave D#2- D#3 which, in the course of the piece, gradually tend to “temper” into the western scale of 12 semitones; • the soprano part takes up the same micro- interval subdivisions and leads them up to the higher octave singing only the phonemes of the word “shahar” (In Hebrew “dawn”), which will appear complete only at the end of the piece; • from bar 35, the Uzbek folk melody, based on the tetra chord E flat-F-G flat-A flat is “bounced” by the bass flute part and the voice and, together with the progressive “tempering” of the scale, gives rise to a chiasmus which, translated into music, leads metaphorically from the West to the Orient and vice versa.

II. Musica seconda (Chorsu bimbo) [Second Music (Chorsu child)] (43’04”) Single long track calling for intensive use of “foto-suoni” whose intermediate pauses, panning etc. are modulated on the basic relationships of the Uzbek folk melody chosen as the archetype. We distinguish: • at the beginning – first section – a four-part canon with whispered recitations of Leonardo, 7 years (single words or very short phrases from the writings of Nadar pronounced in alternate ways and with pauses following a code of interpretation connected with the pitches of the Uzbek melody); • at 4’32” pizzicato strings are added, again on the pitches of the Uzbek melody, and at 5’02” “foto-suoni” with the lapping of waves in the Gulf of Naples; • at 7’12” a slow “stroll” of harpsichords-sitars begins (the elements develop into 4: whispered voice, pizzicato, “foto-suoni” of waves, harpsichords- sitars); • at 12’56”, on the reiteration of the word “appaiono” the “foto-suoni” of the waves prevail, proceeding with a “panpot” panning that re-reads the Uzbek folk melody in code; • at 16’22” a second section begins, 2 7

dominated by “foto-suoni” of rustling egg paper, percussion of table cutlery, distant voices, “foto-suoni” from the biggest open market in Tashkent and MIDI rattlings (on the pitches, also transposed, of the tetra chord of the folk melody) that become increasingly obsessive; • at 17’14”, as the “foto-suoni” of the waves disappear, the ear catches the voice of a child, then an adult voice, both quietly reproducing the Uzbek melody; • at 18’45” there appear again the “foto-suoni” of the market where the Uzbek folk melody was recorded; • between 20’57” and 31’30” the rattling sounds are reinforced by the percussion of table cutlery, gradually reaching a dynamic peak and then “disappearing into the water” of the waves of Naples; • at 31’30” the aquatic “foto-suoni” return, again “panned” in relation to the Uzbek melody; • at 32’48” the third section begins, com-posing in an insistent crescendo a dense counterpoint on 24 lines (once again an elaboration of the Uzbek melody in which every contrapuntal part is drawn from another preceding part) with the MIDI timbres that had already appeared both in Musica prima and in Musica seconda; • at 40’58” the tempo suddenly slows down and simplifies the Uzbek melody pronouncing the final words “lontano, luce” [distant, light].

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rie condizionate Air conditioning A“foto-musica con foto-suoni” for the “sonorizzazione” of the 9th International Biennial of Photography

Place Torino (Italy), Palazzo Bricherasio.

Type of museum Museum of modern and contemporary figurative Art.

Type of exhibition Temporary exhibition of photography (8th International Biennial of Phography: Border Stories).

Period September-October 2001.

Commission Fondazione Italiana per la Fotografia.

Target People interested in Art Photography.

Expected audience Not more than ten visitors per room.

Type of “sonorizzazione” Original score for voice and trombon expressly written for the exhibition (working also as music for solo voice or solo trombon) + original score Arrangement of the museum spaces for “virtual” marimba expressly written for About ten rooms of little / medium dimensions the exhibition + elaborations on multitracking shared on two floors. software with live and studio recordings and MIDI counterpoints. Spaces with “sonorizzazione” Seven rooms of ten with “sonorizzazione”; Acoustic materials corridors and stairs without “sonorizzazione” a) “Foto-suoni” recorded • inside the spaces of Palazzo Bricherasio (particularly air conditioners), Density of contents / relation space-objects and • tuning in speakers’ voices and journalists’ Photographs principally exposed on lateral walls, on radios and satellite televisions (different about ten-twenty per room; in the middle of the languages). rooms, almost always free space. b) Voice of soprano, trombon, piano, rap drums. c) Samples MIDI sounds (marimbas, harps, jazz Sound technical diffusion drums etc.). HI-FI equipment with CD player and about twenty little speaker “Bose” supported on metallic Textual material bars orizontally disposed ten centimeters from Original texts by Sandro Cappelletto. the ceiling, two stereo speakers for each room directing sounds to the crossing zones (doors Performers and openings) or, in some case, to a wall and a Tiziana Scandaletti (soprano), particular exposed work. Michele Lomuto (trombon), Riccardo Piacentini (piano). Reverberation time Minimum. The rooms are generally tight and limited in height. The materials + people favor an immediate absorption of the acoustic vibrations. 3 9

Musical analysis of Arie condizionate [Conditioning Air]

3 sections, 15 tracks, total duration 56’22” I. Mano mobile clic [Mobil hand clic] (12’07”) 5 tracks (Clic. Il dito grilletto [The trigger finger], Mano tempo scatto [Hand time click] Lira d’Orfeo [Orpheus’ lyre], Conosci? [Do you know?], Apri il palmo [Open the span]). 2 scores, Raep on beta (for female voice and trombone, with the trombone part corresponding to the one in Floppy for trombone solo) and Tips & Fingers (in turn an elaboration for marimba solo of Raep on beta) underpin Mano mobile clic. The vocal part of Mano mobile clic is, in fact, the same as in Raep on beta and the one on tape/CD uses Tips & Fingers several times together with other material. • The first section opens with “foto-suoni” of rap percussion on 7-12,000 Hz which issue from an imaginary headset offering the ear snatches of the rhythm immediately followed by • a “virtual” marimba (whose MIDI origin is “humanised” with selected randomisations), which faithfully reproduces the beginning of the score of Tips & fingers. In the version for live marimba, in reality, this is to be played with the finger tips and the piece takes on another timbric connotation. • Thefemale voice is, after 8 seconds, the third element to intervene in a scale entrance, reciting a rap on the words by Sandro Cappelletto (“rap speech” will be a constant throughout the piece). From bar 13, at the words “Manù. Gesù!”, the voice begins to interpolate sung parts, whilst at bar 36 the “foto-suoni” of air conditioners, which give the CD its title, surprise us with a new colour (fourth “scale” entrance) sustained by the whisperings of the voice, which can somehow be associated with the breath of the conditioned air. The entire vocal part has been overlaid, a posteriori, upon the trombone part and functions “contrapuntally” especially when it matches the trombone’s held notes borrowing its own pitch from the pitch that of the brass instrument (cf. analogously Musica prima (Shahar) of the Musiche dell’aurora). • At bar 61 the second section begins, in which the “virtual” marimba returns and, after a brief silence, the female voice too, its performer returning to recitations mixed with singing and, a new element, “playing” her 3 10

own hands (slapping, clicking fingers etc,), subjects largely present in the exhibition in Palazzo Bricherasio. • On the long 80” pause of bar 87 “foto-suoni” of satellite news broadcasts appear (multi- lingual newsreaders); together with the headphone rap and the turbulence of the air conditioning, these are used as an acoustic representation of the post-global referred to in the text. A few seconds before the break of bar 88 a brief quotation from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice marks the beginning of the piece’s third section, entitled significantly enough Lira d’Orfeo. • This leads off with a rarefied dialogue between the voice, a sort of lost (post-) Euridice, and a “virtual” harp aping Gluck. Then, at bar 120, another “foto-suoni” intervention taking up again the rap in the headphones and the marimba of Tips & fingers. The voice hovers dreamily on the word “accarezza...” • Fourth section: the text speaks openly of “la belle main de l’amour engloutie en ton paradis” and the (female!) voice enters vigorously backed by a reprise of headphone “foto- suoni” mixed with gusts of air conditioning. This fourth intervention of “foto-suoni” is not a random event, but comes precisely on the highest note reached by the voice in the first bars:the entrances of the “foto-suoni” are always “structural” in terms of the music and/or the text. • Fifth section: with bar 181 (lasting 20”) the air conditioning, morphemic leitmotiv of the entire CD, becomes more turbulent and then fades away; it will make one last return in pp, shortly afterwards on the question: “Sei post-global anche tu?” [“Are you post-global, too?”]. The circle closes here amid pauses and questions, in an unresolved, surreal climate. “Click!” and communication is interrupted.

II. Aria di paragone (10’43”) 3 tracks (Pre, In, Post). Thescore of Raep on beta is again the point of departure, but this time deprived of the vocal part and handled in a dramatic rather than humoristic key. The title alludes to the new expressive use of the element air, which will be interpreted by the trombone and new voices. • The first section (Pre) opens with a “photo-acoustic setting” that contrasts strongly with Mano mobile clic; its acoustic morphemes are made up of “foto- suoni” of struck piano cords at the pitch at which the trombone’s “theme tune” will open, “foto-suoni” trombone blasts of the trombone without a mouthpiece (metamorphoses of the “foto-suoni” of the air conditioning) and “foto-suoni” of trombone in the distance again at the pitch of the “theme”. A few seconds pass and the trombone in the foreground steeps itself in this half-light of sounds uttering three pitches corresponding to three positions of the slide, the first two of which set in opposition to each other (7th, 1st, 2nd), providing the origin of the 3 11

organisation of the pitches and of the following rhythms. • The second section (In) is the true expressive centre of Aria di paragone and presents, like Mano mobile clic, “foto-suoni” of satellite news broadcasts among which there emerges the voice of a Rumanian girl recounting the experience of the rape she has suffered. In the fundamental parts the trombone, fil rouge of the entire piece (just as the bass flute was in the first part of the Musiche dell’aurora or as the voices will be in all of Mina miniera mia) is countered by a piano which, working in the lower and medium-low register with the resonance pedal always in action, improvises on the trombone material. The “foto-suoni” intervenea as highly evocative and conditioning acoustic objects, and pilot the sense of the trombone and piano, overturning their original musical nature.

III. Raep on (33’32”) 7 tracks (Era Warhol o era Gluch?, Il dito si fa verbo, La belle main, Connessione, Graal, Tu, Ferma così). Thescore of Raep on beta interweaves with the scores derived from Tips & fingers, Mano mobile clic and Aria di paragone and, in turn, all these scores interweave with “foto-suoni” of satellite news broadcasts, rap (MIDI and audio), air conditioners, virtual marimba and “trombonings” with blasts and pitches in tune. The seven parts take up fragments of the text of Mano mobile clic, highlighting among other things the repetition of the monosyllable “tu”, achieved through references made on the level of musical form. Raep on is connotated as a suite of over half an hour’s length and of experimental character.

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reni persi Missed trains T“foto-musica con foto-suoni” for the “sonorizzazione” of the Train Museum in

Place Bussoleno, Feralp Train Museum.

Type of museum Train Museum.

Type of exhibition Permanent exhibition on trains and e railway materials.

Period Continuous since 2003.

Commission Province of Torino.

Target People interested in trains and railway materials.

Expected audience Not more than thirty visitors per ambient.

Type of “sonorizzazione” Original score for voice, strings and percussions Arrangement of the museum spaces expressly written for the exhibition + elaborations Two huge “paralleleped-containers” made in on multitracking software with live and studio reinforced concrete (Officina [Workshop] and recordings and MIDI counterpoints. Deposito [Old Train Depot]).

Acoustic materials Spaces with “sonorizzazione” a) “Foto-suoni” recorded on moving and not Officina [Workshop] and Deposito [Old Train moving trains (“rolling” on tracks; puffs of brakes; Depot], with possibility to position two stereo whistles and trumpets of ancient and modern speakers at the main entrance of the museum. railway engines; vociferations of travellers; sound landascapes of stations; opening and closing doors Density of contents / relation space-objects of waggons...). Instruments, machines and mechanisms b) Voices of soprano, hostess, railwayman; positioned laterally in the Officina, ten and more percussions (vibraphone, glockenspiel, wood- old engines cramed on three rows in the Deposito. blocks, cymbals, tom-toms); strings orchestra. c) Pre-sampled MIDI sounds (pizzicati of strings, Sound technical diffusion harpsichords, sitars, hautboys etc.) and synthetic HI-FI equipment with CD player and about twenty MIDI sounds (realized with the software Native speakers high disposed in both the spaces of Instruments Reaktor). Officina and Deposito, always by stereo couple, someones directing the sound to the access Textual materials openings and other ones to the middle spaces Original texts by Sandro Cappelletto. where visitors walks.

Performers Reverberation time Tiziana Scandaletti (soprano), Wide, especially in the huge “parallelepiped- Orchestra Milano Classica (strings + percussions), container” of the Officina. In the Deposito there Massimiliano Caldi (director). is more absorption of the acoustic vibrations because of the expo. 4 13

Musical analysis of Treni persi [Missed train]

3 tracks, 10 tracks, total duration 62’57” I. Treni persi [Missed trains] (25’55”) Thescore of Treni persi (Cantata for travelling voice, voice that has travelled, strings, percussion and “foto-suoni”) is divided into 1st train, 2nd train, 3rd train. Originally the score already included a) the presence of “foto-suoni” of railway material, all recorded live by the composer and combined syntactically with b) voices (among which the leading part is the “travelling voice” of the soprano), c) acoustic instruments (strings and percussion) and d) MIDI elaborations converted into audio. The texts guide the formal construction, which where possible refers to the consolidated forms of “cultured” western tradition: introductions, expositions, bi-thematic dialectics, recapitulations, codas, macro-forms of passacaglias and da capo arias etc. The three-part division of the entire piece is in itself to be understood in this sense as is the recovery of euphonic stylistic features. And yet the codes of composition are strictly non-tonal and organise the various parameters on the basis of a proliferation of rhythmic-melodic cells whose macro-form is controlled by the inputs of the text, and in a couple of cases, by the numerical games that this suggests. In short: • The1 st train includes an introduction with 44 seconds of “foto-suoni” on which strings and percussion are overlaid following the indication “con slancio e buon umore” [“with dash and in a good mood”]. Before this section is concluded a new trace of “foto-suoni” departs in cross fade-out with the voice of a hostess apologising for the delay. A response comes “with feigned calm, tensely” from the soprano (n° 3 in the score), who mocks and disconsolately complains re-reading, in terms of musical syntax, the rhythmic and interval material expounded by strings and percussion. The (two-part) section dozes on a crowned beat (1 minute and 8 seconds) preceding number 11. Now the “voice that has travelled” appears – almost a second theme, in the sense of the Klangfarbenmelodie, in contrast with the “travelling voice” – with the contrasting indication of “truly calm”. Orchestra and “foto-suoni”, and from n° 13 the first violin solo “lyrically” engaged, work together on a landscape opening that translates into music the “travelling voice” that tells us of splendid views through the windows... Here again, in syntactic-musical terms we have a reinterpretation of the material expounded above: the three trains incessantly elaborate the same rhythmic-interval material that we have already heard at numbers 1 and 2. With n° 16 the “tail of the train” in a “slower and freer” tempo closes the 1st train in a rarefied, transparent game of numbers, “foto-suoni” and MIDI contributions. The wager made with the author of the texts was that the numbers could become musically intense and expressive, especially if referred to the emotive 4 14

content of a tale. • The 2nd train (at n°17 of the score) opens with a duo of wood-blocks and double basses, followed by scale entrances of cymbals, cellos, violas and violins, soprano, 1st violin solo. The formal structure is that of a passacaglia in five sections applied to a sound that is extraneous to the age traditionally associated with this musical form. The “strabismus” arising from this, confirmed by the initial expression indication “between desire and bitterness”, seeks to represent the equivocal condition of the “travelling voice”, looking forward to her next meeting with her lover and at the same time embittered by the untimely train delay. The “foto-suoni”, absent at first, only reappear one bar before n° 23b and, with the return of the voices of hostesses announcing the snacks of the chef express, a fragment of the 1st train is taken up again (n° 9) on the same textual leitmotiv: in other words re-evoking a similar or identical text calls forth the evocation of a similar or identical piece of music. At n° 25, “longing, splendid”, the bitterness now compensated and gratified by the snacks yields to desire and this is translated in the repeated notes and chromaticisms vaguely reminiscent of Mozart of the fleeing vibraphone and strings, to which the soprano adds her outbursts on the word “amore”. With the calories now consumed, desire is wholly converted into bitterness (n° 28) in a dialogue between the “travelling voice” and the 1st violin solo, again rhythmically marked and lyrical, as near the end of the 1st train. • The 3rd train (n°29) starts off with the ticking metronome sound recorded as a “foto-suono” from the clockwork mechanism of an electric locomotive of the Thirties. Over this the strings enter in a precise 144 tempo and the soprano, now neither longing nor bitter but simply angry and cursing, sing/recites in Sprechgesang with “stomach voice” produced by adding 2-3 lines below the stave. For the voice, reciting over an orchestra in crescendo, the score indicates: “talking loudly and with a microphone, louder than the orchestra” and then “talking loudly, as though in the corridor of a moving train”. Then all of a sudden, a sharp quadri-chord on the glockenspiel at n° 34 blocks the rising anger and, drawing on the text that tells us of the mobile phone tragically left behind in the toilet overlaid by an inexplicable stoppage of the train, opens into the following “Aria col da capo” in which we are given further perplexities of the unfortunate traveller suffering from a comical stutter (A: “Was it a breakdown? Are we off again? It wasn’t a breakdown? Are we off again?” B: “My love, don’t be cross with me...” A’: “Was it a breakdown? Are we off again? It wasn’t a breakdown? Are we off again?”). With n° 41 the episode of strings and percussion instruments of the beginning of 1st train takes up again and thus, one bar before n° 44 the catharsis of all this tragicomedy, with the unflappable voice of the railwayman lauding once again the beauties of nature that can only be enjoyed from the windows of a train, closing on the “Coda/Tail of the last train”, which again plays with numbers (as at the end of 1st train) in a hallucinatory ecstasy of numbers.

II. Un petit train de plaisir [A little train of pleasure] (15’12”)

Thescore of Un petit train de plaisir (Divertimento for reciting voice and strings) from the piano original by in Riccardo Piacentini’s elaboration for reciting voice and string orchestra is embellished with railway “foto-suoni” (the “chuff-chuffs” of steam engines, carriage doors slamming etc.). On the one hand the new version adds to the original a weft of seven-part counterpoint conceived ad hoc which significantly increases the initial pattern without ever altering its basic structure; on the other hand the “foto-suoni” edge the piece in acoustic “fragrances” of old and new locomotives, puffings and bangings of the railway, revitalising the sense of humour already present in the original and rendering it explicit in evocation. 4 15

III. Gioco-treni [Game-trains] (21’50”) 6 tracks for sampled “foto-suoni” (Sinfonia, Recitativo del ferroviere, Aria-danza del freno, Ricercare antico con fischi e trombe, Cori battenti dei pendolari, Sinfonia II). Thescore of Treni persi [Missed trains] is read and recomposed with the application of three groups of sampled “foto-suoni” with durations varying between about 1’ and 7’. Only the Symphony and Symphony II present not just the sampled “foto-suoni” but also a more extensive railway texture, an extension indeed of one of the sampled “foto-suoni”. • In Sinfonia, Aria-dance of the brake, Ancient ricercare with whistle and hoots and in Sinfonia II the first and richest group of samples is applied, distributed across the whole range of pitches in the score. In all 16 samples: 14 samples each occupy two pitches at a semi-tone distance; two samples, at the extreme of the range, occupy the rest of the pitches, one towards the bass register the other towards the high. This group of “foto-suoni” contains whistles and horns of old and modern locomotives (all recorded live by the composer), various types of brake hisses, the “click-clack” of mechanical parts of carriages and locomotives etc. The 14 samples are all used in Sinfonia and Sinfonia II, but are selected again in Aria-dance of the brake (especially hissing brakes) and in Ancient ricercare with whistles and hoots (clearly, mostly the whistles and hoots). In Railwayman’s recitative the second group of samples is applied with 13 sampled “foto-suoni” including utterances at varying speeds by a Trenitalia railwayman (cf. image); the words appear and disappear, at times they are nothing more than brief phonemes, at times they hint at a speech that will never be completed; the word is pure sound here and, if it evokes anything, it does so in a stuttering unresolved manner; in this second group not all the pitches are “covered” by the samples. The third group of sampled “foto-suoni” is applied in Slamming choruses of commuters, in which nine samples are spread, even more than once, on one or two pitches and in the extreme regions of the remaining pitches; this group contains recordings of passengers, taken as “sound photographs”.

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ina miniera mia Mine my mine M“foto-musica con foto-suoni” for the “sonorizzazione” of the Museum “The Iron and the Diorit” in Place Traversella, Iron and Diorit Mines and Factory. Type of museum Ecomuseum. Type of exhibition Permanent exhibition of the mines and the objects connected to the life of the miners. Period Continous since 2004. Commission Province of Torino. Target People interested in the mines and the objects connected to the life of the miners. Expected audience Not more than ten visitors each time in the Galleries and ten in the Opificio [Factory].

Type of “sonorizzazione” 4 original sketch-scores elaborated on 2 popular melodies by Valchiusella (doubly translated and re- codified) + elaborations on multitracking software Arrangement of the museum spaces with live and studio recordings, also from a 70’s 2 Galleries of entry to the mine traversable for LP with a choral version of the 2 popular songs + about 100-200 meters and the Opificio [Factory], MIDI counterpoints of sampled “foto-suoni”. 2 floors building made in reinforced concrete with machines and various exposed objects. Acoustic materials a) “Foto-suoni” recorded • inside and outside the Spaces with “sonorizzazione” mines, • between dripping walls of the galleries, • The 2 Galleries. Waiting for the Opificio [Factory]. in the workshop of the blacksmith, • on the fields of the pasture land, • in dairy farms and stables. Densità dei contenuti / rapporto spazio- b) Voice of soprano, voices of ex-miners, oggetti amateurish local horus. Under construction. c) MIDI sounds got through extracts of sampled as well synthetic “foto-suoni”. Sound technical diffusion HI-FI equipment with CD player and, at the Textual materials moment, 2 speakers positioned at the bottom of Original drama by Sandro Cappelletto on tails of the first straight of each Gallery, directed to the the ex-miners Ferruccio, Giorgio, Giulio, Giuseppe, entrance like a sonorous magnet for the “visitor- Stefano. listener”.

Performers Reverberation time Tiziana Scandaletti (soprano), Typical like in a gallery high about 2,5 meters and Coro Bajolese directed by Amerigo Vigliermo. similarly large with walls in reinforced concrete (first Gallery) or in stone (second Gallery), rather wide for the Opificio [Factory], parallelepiped in reinforced conrete mostly high. 5 17

Musical analysis of Mina miniera mia [Mine my mine]

2 parats, 11 tracks, total duration 31’31” I. Musica nelle gallerie [Music in the tunnels] (20’28”) 7 tracks with evocative titles (I minatori arrivavano al primo lavoro e poi... [The miners was going to their first work and then...]; Quattrocentoventi metri questo pozzo [Four hundred and twenty meters this well]; Ecco un colpo solo [Here only one shot]; Si facevano tre turni [Three work- turns]; Il manovale prendeva due e quarantotto [The hodman was gaining two and forty-eight] etc.) 4 draft-scores composed ad hoc on two original folk melodies from Valchiusella are, together with a dense weave of “foto-suoni” (narrating voices of ex-miners, acoustic settings inside and outside the mines, etc.) the supporting axis of the work. Fiction is denied on principle: the folk melodies

are authentic and the “foto-suoni” are all registered on the spot, in the mines, in the streets of the town of Traversella, in the surrounding alpine pastures; music, voices, characters, sounds are all “true” and recuperate the memories of a place that exudes life and emotions. The dramatic line that steers the musical choices is based on the tales of five ex-miners. • At the beginning drips and steps in the mud, followed almost immediately by the tale of the first of the five ex-miners, define unmistakably the “photo-sound” connotation of the piece with the miners walking to their place of work. • Rolling stones and a female voice in the distance (symbol of the wife waiting for the miner in the farmhouse up on the pasture) open the second track, followed then by the voices of two more ex-miners and the first entrance of thefolk chorus with the splendid Sun sì dëscunsulà [I am so disconsolate] upon which the female voice weaves its own synthesis of the melodic paths in coded counterpoint (see examples above with the two elaborations of the original melody). 5 18

• The sound of thealarm bell of the lift with the voice of a fourth miner leads us into the third track in which the peals of the bells are also given MIDI treatment to obtain a swarming effect of rapid ringing sounds. • The fourth track represents theminers at work and they talk livelily with each other, immersed in the “foto-suoni” of hammers and chisels, wagons moving on the rails, footsteps, dripping noises etc. Recurrent timbric leitmotivs characterise the setting of the mine. • The fifth track calls back to mind the melody Sun sì dëscunulà linked to fragments of a second folk song with a vaguely “inter-war” flavour, in contrast with the poetry of the first. • The sixth track introduces athird folk song, again different from the two preceding songs, on which in an analogous code procedure, the female voice multiplied by four (with the assembly of four separate recordings) sketches out melodic gestures this time of markedly more extroverted character. The song is overlaid with the “foto-suoni” of the blacksmith (the miner who did this job at the time and who reproduced the sounds of time past for this recording). • The seventh track brings us back to the acoustic universe of the first, but with renewed vigour as it closes the circle of this first part of the CD.

II. Musica nell’opificio [Music in the works] (11’03”) 4 tracks (L’incudine, la forgia, il martello [Incus, forge, hammer]; Il minatore contadino [The peasant miner]; Elvira; La festa e le campane [Feast and bells]) Here again the 4 draft-scores composed ad hoc on two original folk melodies from Valchiusella serve as a supporting axis to the work, but it is the story of the “foto-suoni” that becomes the true protagonist, no longer sustained by the dramaturgic organisation of the ex-miners’ tales (appearing here with an almost didactic function accompanying the sounds produced by objects, animals, things). • The “story” begins with the catalogue of the blacksmith’s tools linked to the voice of the workman himself and the relative sound set (“foto-suoni” of the blacksmith). • We move on to Il minatore contadino[The peasant miner] with his voice (whose timbric impact is more important that what one can actually understand of what he is saying) set upon his own acoustic background (“foto-suoni” of ruminant noises from the cowshed, already inserted in the second track of Musica nelle gallerie). • Elvira is a four-part counterpoint on the folk song of the same name, in which each line, scored for a soprano voice suitably equalised and reverberated, is given from a coded reading of the original material, wholly comparable to the reading of Sun sì dëscunsulà, but for this very reason with different results: the same procedure applied to different materials and thus with different consequences. At the end the counterpoint flows into the original melody sung by a folk choir from Valchiusella. • The “story” concludes with another catalogue, this time recounted by the“foto-suoni” of the village festival (voices and band with drums) and a concerto of bells.

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Music for Venaria usiche della Reggia di Venaria RealeReale Palace M“foto-musica con foto-suoni” for the “sonorizzazione” of the Venaria Reale Palace

Place Venaria Reale Palace (Torino).

Type of museum Royal palace.

Type of exhibition ...

Period Supposedly continuous. CD available since 2004, waiting for the complete restructuration of the palace.

Commission Piedmont Region.

Target People interested in Savoia’s Palaces and, generally, in royal castles.

Expected audience Maximum thirty visitors per each ambient, except the courtyard.

Type of “sonorizzazione” Original score for voices, flute, strings and harpsichord expressly written for the palace with Arrangement of the museum spaces quotations by Vivaldi + Sonata in trio by Giovanni Numerous spaces on a wide surface, also on 2 Lorenzo Somis + elaborations on multitracking floors, including a big central yard, a spacious software with recordings in outdoor ambients and chapel like a church, a huge pavilion by Filippo in the St. Uberto Chapel. Juvarra and the 18th century gardens.

Acoustic materials Spaces with “sonorizzazione” a) “Foto-suoni” totally recorded inside the spaces It is conjectured for the future the effective of the Venaria Reale Palace, since November 2003 “sonorizzazione” of the visited places stategicly till May 2004 (sounds of the yard and the workers, remarkable, such as the arc of entrance with the of the gardens, of the instrumental reverberations Clock Tower, the St. Uberto Chapel, the Palace of in the St. Uberto Chapel). Dyana and the Hall of the Telamòni, the Diana’s b) Voices of soprano and bass-baryton + telling Gallery and at least one front of the palace facing voice + flute, strings and harpsichord performed the Royal Gardens. according to the Baroque praxis. Density of contents / relation space-objects Textual materials Under (re)construction. Texts freely pick up from writings of local architects and royal advisers lived in 17th and Sound technical diffusion 18th century + an original text (Picander 2004) by It is conjectured, for the future, HI-FI equipment Riccardo Piacentini. with CD players and at least 30 speakers – 2-8 per ambient – directing the sound to particularly Performers significative zones or intentionally dissipating it Tiziana Scandaletti (soprano), through the reverberating spaces. Mario Tento (bass-baryton), Sandro Cappelletto (telling voice), Reverberation time Academia Montis Regalis (Baroque instruments). Quite always wide. 6 20

Musical analysis of Musiche della Reggia di Venaria Reale

6 sections, 18 tracks, total duration 52’46”

I. La Cappella di Sant’Uberto: “Sonata in trio” [The St. Uberto Chapel: “Trio Sonata”] (11’55”) 5 tracks (Inchino [Bow], Allegro assai, Andante, Allegro, Inchino II [2nd bow]). • From the “foto-suoni” recorded directly in the Chapel and present in all five tracks, including the mixtures of mortars and long acoustic reverberations, • we move on almost by magic to the Sonata da camera op. 2 n°8 by the Savoy composer Giovanni Lorenzo Somis (tracks 2, 3 and 4, with a rapid appearance at the end of track 1) revisited with humorous interventions of “foto-suoni” from the building site of the Reggia at the moments of the ritornellos and reprises (this is the age-old principle of the “varied reprise” applied to the instruments of contemporary building work...), as though the old and the new had discovered a singular understanding. • To all this is added the narrating voice of a guide who introduces us to the visit to the palace, not with images but with sounds and corresponding places.

II La Torre dell’Orologia e la Corte d’onore [The Clock Tower and the Court of Honour] (4’42”) III. La Reggia di Diana e la Stanza dei A single track dominated by: Telamòni [The Palace of Diana and the Hall of the Telamoni] (3’48”) • the “foto-suoni” of the peals of the Clock Tower and by lorries, caterpillar trucks, cement mixers, circular saws and This again a single track. workmen’s voices in the grand acoustic theatre represented • Thevoice of Diana appears, far away by the courtyard of the Palace, from her apartments, anticipating a musical fragment that will reappear frequently in • to which is added the customary narrating voice of the “acoustic guide”. the following part and that has already made an appearance in the first track; IV. La Galleria di Diana: “Picander 2004” [Diana’s • the “foto-suoni” are the ones recorded Gallery: “Picander 2004”] (21’02”) in the same rooms of the building site (percussion of metallic tubes, workers’ 9 tracks (1. Sigla [Signal], 2. Recitativo I e Recitativo II, shouts, hammer blows acting dialectically 3. Duetto delle vocali [Duet of the vowels], 4. Intermezzo I against the sweet vocalisations of Diana (Puzzle), 5. Aria di Bacco e Intermezzo II, 6. Duetto “swingato” etc.); di Bacco [Bach swinging duet], 7. Intermezzo III (Baccànone), • the narrating voice continues with its 8. Recitativo III, 9. Concertato finale di Bacco). guide... 6 21

• The score of Picander, o il grigliabeto risonante is the musical composition, originally written for ten performers, from which this part of the CD of soundtracks is taken, with quotations from Antonio Vivaldi’s La Primavera and with characters like Picander (Bach’s librettist) and a Venetian girl whom we imagine as having fled from Venice and Vivaldi’s female-voice choir. This is a Tragicomic Action on the theme of artistic commissions structured in nine progressive numbers. The novelty of this version lies in the more limited line-up, in its demand for period instruments with historically faithful practices in its declared evocation of a feast held in the Garove Hall which houses the Galleria di Diana and in • the constant presence of modern “foto-suoni” recorded in the building site of the Palace of the Venaria Reale¸ mixed together with the sounds of baroque music practices, as though still today the walls emanated those celebrations and sounds. • Third element, thenarrating voice introduces the Signature tune.

V. I Giardini reali [The Royal Gardens] (4’59”) Again a single track with • “foto-suoni” of twittering birds and ambient sounds gathered in the direction of the oasis of the Palace gardens, and with • the narrating voice which, after the tragicomic action of the Galleria di Diana, invites us to look out onto the Royal Gardens and to continue the acoustic visit, reacquiring peace with ourselves and contemplating the botanic geometry. VI. Il Belvedere Alfieri [The Alfieri viewpoint] (6’20”) A final track with • “foto-suoni” recorded from the top of the Alfieri Belvedere, sound panorama of the place as it can be visited today (in 2004, that is), with • the narrating voice serving as memory and link with the past and • the reprise of fragments of the score of Picander assembled wittily, like a sort of jigsaw puzzle (as we have already seen in n° 4 in the Azione tragicomica of the fourth part of the CD), with fragments of the Sonata da camera. The aim of this last mix is to create a (psycho-) acoustic illusion in which the “listener-visitor” will recreate the provenience of the “foto- suoni” of the site together with the baroque- contemporary music of the Sant’Uberto Chapel, of the Palace and of the Galleria di Diana. 6 22

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