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ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVES ON A COMPLEX SOUNDS GRAMMAR
IN GIORGIO NETTI’S NECESSITÀ D’INTERROGARE IL CIELO
by
Vicent Minguet
A thesis submitted to the faculty of the Hochschule für Musik Basel
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Music
Advisor: Prof. Marcus Weiss
Basel, April 2010
2010
Vicent Minguet
II
Heimische Wohnung und Ordnung, durchaus bündig,
Dürre Schönheit zu lernen und Gestalten
In den Sand gebrannt
Aus Nacht und Feuer, voll von Bildern, reingeschliffenes
Fernrohr, hohe Bildung, nemlich für das Leben
Den Himmel zu fragen.
Friedrich Hölderlin, 1805
Kolomb
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................... p. 2
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. p. 3
1. PART: THE MUSIC OF GIORGIO NETTI ...................................................... p. 5
1.1. About Giorgio Netti ............................................................................. p. 5 1.2. The music of Giorgio Netti ................................................................. p. 7
2. PART: THE MUSICAL LANGUAGE OF NECESSITÀ................................... p. 9
2.1. The map is not the territory................................................................... p. 9 2.2. Historical background in the complex sounds research ...................... p. 12 2.3. Towards a Grammar of the complex sounds ...................................... p. 17 2.4. On Necessità d’interrogare il cielo ..................................................... p. 20
3. PART: ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVES ON INTUIRE LA DISPIEGATA FORMA DELLA LUCE ............................................ p. 23
CONCLUSSION ................................................................................................... p. 34
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................. p. 36
MUSICAL EXAMPLES LIST .............................................................................. p. 37
2
AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Very special thanks to Giorgio Netti for his generosity in sharing his experiences with
Necessità d’interrogare il cielo in each of our interviews; to my friends and family, for
their patience, encouragement, and kindness; to my partner, Clara Agusti, for her love
and support; to Julie Reier and Markus Wenninger, for his help with the German
translation, and specially to Marcus Weiss, for introducing me to Necessità
d’interrogare il cielo and for his insightful observations and suggestions throughout the
writing of this paper and the practice of the piece.
3
INTRODUCTION
My motivation behind writing my dissertation on Giogio Netti’s Necessità
d’interrogare il cielo is simple: I wanted to understand better Netti’s music. I first came
to know the piece in the summer of 2006, while studying at the Darmstadt Summer
Courses for new music. Marcus Weiss was giving a concert there and he played the
second part of the cycle, called …affrettandosi verso il centro della luce risonante
(hurrying towards the centre of the resonating light). It was stunning: I had never heard
anything like that. What I heard was captivating, ranging from aggressive to delicate,
complicated to simple, and yet also somehow always changing, always moving forward.
This was my introduction to the music of Giorgio Netti. I knew I wanted to perform this
music.
Necessità d’interrogare il cielo (1996-1999)1, for solo soprano saxophone, is one of
Netti’s longest works written for an instrument alone. Because of his great complexity
the work has been and will be rarely performed in its entirety and Marcus Weiss is
nowadays the only saxophonist having played the whole cycle in concerts given in
Europe between 2002 and 2007, more than 12 times. When I began with the practice of
the piece there was few information regarding the work or about the composer.
Currently, in winter of 2010 this appears not to be the same; a recording of the whole
cycle made by Marcus Weiss in 2003 is available at the Austrian music label Durian,
together with some notes about the piece written by the composer.2
1 In English: ,,The need to interrogate the sky“ 2 See http://www.durian.at and http://www.giorgionetti.com
4
This paper is also intended for use by musicians who are interested in Necessità
d’interrogare il cielo, regardless of their prior knowledge of the multiphonics complex
technique in general, or of Netti’s music in particular. Although I have attempted to be
as thorough as possible, my interviews and analysis are by no means conclusive; rather,
they provide starting points for further approaches. It is also my hope that this paper
will be of value to performers, theorists and musicologists alike.
5
1. PART
THE MUSIC OF GIORGIO NETTI
Dall’opaco, dal fondo dell’opaco io scrivo, ricostruendo la mappa d’un aprico che è solo un inverificabile axioma per i calcoli della memoria, il luogo geometrico dell’io, di un me stesso di cui il me stesso ha bisogno per sapersi me stesso, l’io che serve solo perché il mondo riceva continuamente notizie dell’esis- tenza del mondo, un congegno di cui il mondo dispone per supere se c’è. Italo Calvino 3
1.1. About Giorgio Netti
The Italian composer Giorgio Netti was born in 1963 in Milan. He studied composition
with Sandro Gorli4 at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory of Milan. At the Contemporary
Music Section of the Civica Scuola di Musica in the same city he attended courses with
Brian Ferneyhough, Gérard Grisey, Wolfgang Rihm, Emmanuel Nunes and Iannis
Xenakis. Among several awards in the composition field he received special mentions
at the Wieniawski Competition in 1990 and at the Casella Competition in 1995. He has
worked with ensembles like the Klangforum Wien and has got commissions from
Elision Ensemble and great Festivals like Tage für neue Musik Zürich, Stockholm New
Music, Musica Viva München, Wittener Tage für neue Musik and Musik der
3 Italo Calvino (1923-1985), in Dall’opaco (1971): …From the opaque, from the depths of the opaque I write, reconstructing the map of a sunniness that is only an unverifiable postulate for the computations of the memory, the geometrical location of the ego, of a self which the self needs to know that it is itself, the ego whose only function is that the world may continually receive news of the existence of the world, a contrivance at the service of the world for knowing if it exists. 4 Sandro Gorli (b.1928), Italian composer, studied composition with Franco Donatoni, at the same time he pursued an university course in architecture. After undertaking research at the RAI's Studio of Phonology in Milan, he studied orchestral conducting first in Milan and then in Vienna with Hans Swarowsky. Currently, he teaches composition at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan.
6
Jahrhunderte Stuttgart. Some fellowships include the Uchida Fellowship from the Japan
Foundation of Tokyo, in 2004.
Giorgio Netti lives nowadays in San Giovanni Rottondo, a little village renowned for its
important hospital and medical research center “Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza” (Home
for the Relief of the Suffering), in the Province of Foggia, Plugia region, on the east-
southern Italian coast.
Although the contact with the music was present in his life since the very beginning, he
did not choose it as principal interest until aged 17, after hearing a concert where
Boulez’ work Pli selon Pli was performed in La Scala. The thought came into his mind,
if it was still possible to write works with a blast of such magnitude, he should then
make his own attempt. Influenced by the study of philosophy, literature and poetry, the
mixture was expanded with the practice of Yoga and the study of musical composition.
As he points out, we easily can understand that his path through this cocktail of
influences was quite unusual and mostly self-taught. However, studying the basics of
composition in Milan, while attendind to seminars with the most important living
composers was a fundamental influence on the development that followed.
From 1986 Netti has written a total of 13 pieces that represent nearly 7 hours of music,
which in his own words can be considered as ,,intense“. With hindsight, he can feel that
his listening (and thus consequently he and his work) has changed significantly, while
maintaining some constants. He uses to say that his listening is ,,more accurate“ today,
and so that can he feel the benefits of such reward every day.
7
1.2. The Music of Giogio Netti
Talking about morphology and form in music, for Giogio Netti a piece of music is like a
plot of interacting relationships, ,,more similar to an organism than to an object to be
taken apart“.5
Works – not only in the realm of art – that leave the most powerful mark contain
a measure of mystery. By opening what is too closed while at the same time
closing what is too open, they hint at a new measure, a mobile balance there in
the middle. It could be said perhaps, more generally, that every work of this type
is the materialization of a well-defined question about the context: an initially
instable place which brings everything into question, and in so doing disperses it
all in order to re-orient it.6
In Giorgio Netti’s music, ,,the aim of a morphological investigation, in its search for
sense, is to describe the constants within a structure that, by becoming references, allow
us to comprehend its order and hierarchy“.7 He is particularly interested in those
constants that he ,,managed to identify at the source of the specific developments in
each piece“. In speaking of art, for him it is essential to refer very precisely to the
practice, because ,,art is praxis (as opposed to the straightforward application of a
technique, insofar as it is an instrument acquired by experience). It should be
remembered, however, that the heart of the practice stimulates relationships, not
mechanisms“.8
5 Giorgio Netti: D’istante la durata. In: Mahnkopf, Claus-Steffen (Hrsg.): New Music and Aesthetics in the 21st Century Vol.2. Wolke, Hofheim 2004, S.177. 6 Ibid., p.177 7 Ibid., p.178 8 Ibid., p.178
8
Giorgio Netti’s music asks the listener to become receptive to the listening, in the sense
of suspending momentarily one’s own needs, habits, not to rush, to find time, to leave
space, to pay attention to what he calls ,,the other“, that is, everything that takes us by
surprise, the missing link, emptiness– nothing spectacular, an active difference or rather,
a difference compared to before which we still not know how to interpret but that is
already at work transforming us. The work will become the hollowed out trace, mark,
form and track of the passage of this heard and circumscribed emptiness.
Imagining a piece as a plot of relations, listening must then expand steadily as it
explores, both internally while discovering the complexity contained within the
single elements and externally with the multiplying of the elements, coming to
envision a topography of the places encountered (vibration/relation). In this way a
context will surface, within which a structure can be organized that in turn
(perhaps) will give birth to the singularity of a new form.9
Netti illustrates this expansion as a progression of concentric circles, from the smallest
to the largest, although in reality, the process takes place (almost) simultaneously on all
levels: listening, exploration, writing the places, context, structure, and form.
A progression that the successful piece manages to turn upside down, transforming the
final form into a narrow passage to the other upside-down, larger cone (like an
asymmetrical hourglass) that lies beyond the piece, pointing the way back to the
structure/writing/search/listening in which in turn, in our turn, we are contained.
9 Ibid., p.179
9
2. PART
THE MUSICAL LANGUAGE OF
NECESSITÀ D’INTERROGARE IL CIELO
,, En aquel imperio, el arte de la cartografía logró tal perfección que el mapa de una sola provincia ocupaba toda una ciudad, y el mapa del imperio, toda una provincia. Con el tiempo, estos mapas desmesurados no satisficieron y los colegios de cartógrafos levantaron un mapa del imperio, que tenía el tamaño del imperio y coincidía puntualmente con él…“
Jorge Luis Borges 10
2.1 The map is not the territory
On exactitude in Science is a one-paragraph short story by Jorge Luis Borges, about the
map/territory relationship, written in the form of a literary forgery, which was first
published in 1946. The concept of the map/territory relationship is here a metaphor for
the faculty of reflection. We fail to distinguish that one's capability of reflecting is an
enduring perspective and not simply a fleeting act of examining something. Husserl11
referred to this ability as the ,,transcendental ego“, the mind’s eye or the capability of a
human to reflect and abstract.
10 Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) in On Exactitude in Science (1946) : ,, In that empire, the Art of cartography attained such perfection that the map of a single province occupied the entirety of a city, and the map of the empire, the entirety of a province. In time, those unconscionable maps no longer satisfied, and the cartographers guilds struck a map of the empire whose size was that of the empire, and which coincided point for point with it…” 11 Husserl, Edmund (1859-1938). Philosopher and matematician, Husserl was the founder of Phenomenology. His work influenced, among others: Jean Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Lévinas and Martin Heidegger.
10
Nevertheless, The map is not the territory is actually a remark by linguist Alfred
Korzybski12, encapsulating his view that an abstraction derived from something, or a
reaction to it, is not the thing itself, for example, the pain from a stone falling on your
foot is not the stone; a metaphorical representation of a concept is not the concept itself;
and so on.
The French composer Gérard Grisey quoted Korzybski in the 1980s in order to point
out that the sound was more than its simple abstraction, represented as a sign (notes on
the score) and went further by pointing out that serial composers had confused the map
with the territory.
Gregory Bateson13, in his essay ,,Form, Substance and Difference“, from his book Steps
to an Ecology of Mind (1972), elucidates the essential impossibility of knowing what
the territory is, as any understanding of it is based on some representation:
We say the map is different from the territory. But what is the territory?
Operationally, somebody went out with a retina or a measuring stick and made
representations, which were then put on paper. What is on the paper map is a
representation of what was in the retinal representation of the man who made the
map; and as you push the question back, what you find is an infinite regress, an
infinite series of maps. The territory never gets in at all […]14
12 Korzybski, Alfred (1879-1950) was a Polish-American philosopher and scientist. He was responsable for the development of general semantics theory. 13 Bateson, Gregory (1904-1980) was a British anthropologist, social scientist, lingüista, semiotician and cybernetist. In his book “Steps toa n Ecology of Mind, Bateson applied cybernetics to the field of ecological anthropology and the concept of “homeostasis”. 14 Bateson, Gregory: Steps to an ecology of mind. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1972, p. 54
11
Coming back to our purpose, which is to ask ourselves about the musical source
material in Necessità d’interrogare il cielo and its representation in the score, we can be
helped by this previous information, which apparently has not much to be with the
music, but it is of great value in order to clarify some ideas in the next pages.
So then, we could take the concept of territory as being the many possibilities and
combinations of the vibrating internal body of the instrument producing what we call a
mutiphonic sound. The map would be therefore a written representation of that what is
sounding in every case.
Albeit the territory exists by itself, the act of writing a map of that huge world is a long
and complex task. The ear must work as a kind of retina, but once everything is
measured in a complex listening process, once every interval relationship inside of one
complex sound is identified and thus notated, then, what is left? Should we call it a
map? Or is it merely a lustrous catalog of possibilities?
At this point, we should not forget that the written signs on the score would only be a
metaphorical representation of sound, and not the sound itself. However it has not been
always the case, and ,,maps“ of multiphonics have been used in many different ways by
composers wanting to include some of those sounds in their work, choosing them in
many different ways and for many different reasons, sometimes as a simple ,,object
trouvé“, or just as a polyphonic-noise effect within an homophonic discours. So, did
they also confuse the map with the territory?
In my humble attempt to trace a kind of history of this map-territory representation of
the multiphonics phenomena, I sought for some researches and previous studies made
by saxophonists in that field. The most interesting and complete of those which I found
were always presented as a kind of catalogues intended to be used by saxophonists and
composers wanting to include these sounds in their works.
12
2.2. Historical background in the research of the complex sounds
One of the most complete published researches and first serious attempt to construct a
kind of map of the multiphonics in the saxophone family was made in the 1980s by
French saxophonist Daniel Kientzy15. In fact, Jean Marie Londeix16, in his book ,,Hello
Mr. Sax, ou les paramètres du saxophone“, refers to Kientzy’s book ,,Les sons
multiples aux saxophones“ those readers looking for a complete catalogue of
multiphonics.
According to Londeix:
Oriental musicians have used simultaneous sounds since ancient times, but they
have however been a more recent development in Western music. The first
musical work of major importance for saxophone that used simultaneous sounds
(double and triple) seems to be the ,,Sonate for saxophone alto and piano“ (1970)
by Edison Denisov.17
Londeix goes further by pointing out that some of these sounds require what he calls a
,,special technique of fingering and sometimes also of embouchure“ and that they can
be affected ,,by the mouthpiece or the reed used“, as well as by ,,the make and model of
the instrument itself“. He is assuming in a way that it is a performer’s task to ,,correct
the variables“.18
15 Daniel Kientzy (1951) is a French saxophonist who undertook unprecedented research into the seven members of the saxophone family. After 1979 he devoted himself entirely to the contemporary music and the fruits of his research were published in several works, most notably the monumental Saxologie. More than 300 works were written or premiered by him. 16 Jean Marie Londeix (1932) is a French saxophonist who pioneered as classical saxophone soloist around the world. More than 100 compositions have been griten specifically for him, and he has published many pedagogical works. He taught from 1971 to 1997 at the Bordeaux Conservatory in France. 17 Londeix, Jean Marie: Hello Mr. Sax ou les parametres du saxophone. Leduc, Paris 1989, p.31. 18 Ibid., S.31
13
In addition Londeix suggested the way the multiphonics could work within a musical
discourse, as a kind of advice for composers:
In certain cases, one sound of a multiphonic can be isolated in order to adjust, for
example, the timbre of a note, or in order to make a transition from one
multiphonic to another; the notes of the multiphonic can also be arpeggiated more
or less rapidly.19
However, he is not giving more substantial information, just a list of multiphonics with
their fingerings, which could have been compiled by Massimo Mazzoni, who according
to Londeix contributed to the paper by selecting the ,,most easily examples of
simultaneous sounds which require no special preparation“.20 The list is including 39
multiphonics on the soprano, 45 on the alto, 46 on the tenor and 42 on the baritone.
Coming back to Kientzy’s research ,,Les sons multiples aux saxophones“,21 such as
suggested by Londeix, which refers to it as ,,an excellent reference source in the study
of the variety of treatment of simultaneous sounds“,22 we can find a larger catalogue,
together with some information concerning the treatment of the sounds: possible
dynamics within which they are playable, trills, as well as combinations of pure sounds
within the multiphonic itself. See Example 1
19 Ibid., p.31 20 Ibid., p.31 21 Kientzy, Daniel: Les sons multiples aux saxophones. Salabert, Paris 1982. 22 Londeix, Jean Marie: Hello Mr. Sax ou les parametres du saxophone. Leduc, Paris 1989, p.31
14
Example 1. The first multiphonic for sopran saxophone in Daniel Kientzy’s book Les sons multiples aux saxophones. Salabert, Paris 1982, p.8
Kientzy found 88 playable multiphonics for soprano saxophone, and a similar number
for the sopranino, alto, tenor and baritone saxophone. He went further and recorded
every one of them in a couple of cassettes, which were offered with the book in the
1980s and nowadays are out of stock. Kientzy’s seems to have been the more complete
catalogue until now. His has been used by many composers who found it really helpful
and even used to write the number of the multiphonic refering to Kientzy’s catalogue
when they wrote them in their compositions. Sometimes composers do not write the
fingering. Then the performer should search for it by himself.
At the end of Twentieth Century, the Italian composer Giorgio Netti and the swiss
saxophonist Marcus Weiss made together one of the most interesting researches in the
field of the complex sounds grammar.
15
While working on his piece Necessita d’interrogare il cielo in the late 1990s, Netti
started to practice himself a soprano saxophone, and day after day he wrote every
possible and playable combination of fingerings. He realized that it was possible to find
some inner intelligence within that material. It could be said that those sounds were
organized in a particular way, being possible to find out the same families of intervals
and distances within their body, something that helped a lot in order to build up a kind
of new organization paradigm.
After the work on Necessità, a new project came to born. Talking about this project,
which became a book, should we refer to the words of swiss musicologist Michael
Kunkel23, who defined it in a very apropiate way:
Das Projekt entstand in intensiver Zusammenarbeit eines Interpreten (dem
Saxophonisten Marcus Weiss) mit einem Komponisten (Giorgio Netti) und
versteht sich unter anderem als Beitrag zur (Wieder-)Vermittlung zweier
Bereiche, die infolge musikbetrieblicher Arbeitsteilung weit
auseinandergedriftet sind. Die umfassende Darlegung der Spieltechniken auf
dem Saxophon (mit Schwerpunkt auf dem Gebiet der „Mehrklänge“) richtet
sich daher ebenso an Instrumentalisten (unter Berücksichtigung von Konzert-,
Übe- und Unterrichtspraxis) wie an Komponisten; Forschungsziel ist, die aus
der langjährigen interpretatorischen und kompositorischen Arbeit am
Instrument Saxophon gewonnenen Erkenntnisse in einer Publikation universell
darzustellen und anwendbar zu machen.24
23 Dr. Phil. Michael Kunkel is a swiss musicologist and researcher. He is responsible for the ,,Forschung & Entwicklung“ Department at the University of Music Basel. 24 http://www.musikforschungbasel.ch/fe/index.php/neuemusik/the-techniques-of-saxophone-playing (consulted on March 12, 2010): The Project was developed in close collaboration between a Performer (saxophonist Marcus Weiss) and a Composer (Giorgio Netti). It considers, among other things contributing to the (re)placement those areas that the music industry had drifted apart. The full
16
Marcus Weiss and Giorgio Netti write in the foreword of the book:
In der Zusammenarbeit zwischen Interpret und Komponist an einem ‚,Traktat“
wie diesem ergab sich die Möglichkeit, verschiedene, ja sich scheinbar entgegen
gesetzte Erfahrungsbereiche auf ihre gegenseitige Durchlässigkeit hin zu
erkunden. Die Erfahrung von demjenigen, der Musik spielt, und demjenigen,
der Musik schreibt, sind aber in besten Sinne Polaritäten derselben
musikalischen Erfahrung. In diesem Sinne scheint uns gerade dies wichtig: dass
der Spieler ein tieferes Verständnis der Bedingungen und Zusammenhänge
seines Tuns erfährt und dass der Komponist einen direkteren Kontakt zum
Material erfahren kann, mit dem er sich beschäftigt.
Die Praxis ist der Kontakt, die tägliche Beziehung mit dem Instrument, sind
Tausende mit dieser oder jener Passage erlebten Minuten; das Hören ist die
Losgelöstheit, die nötige Distanz vom Instrument, eine Art parallele Zeit ohne
Mass. Wir versuchen in diesem Buch für fortgeschrittene Saxophonisten und
auch für Komponisten einige der Hauptgebiete des zeitgenössischen
Saxophonspiels, der heute gebäuchlichen Spieltechniken zu behandeln. Zum
Teil ist das Buch Nachschlagewerk für Komponisten und Saxophonisten, zum
Teil auch Lehrbuch für fortgeschrittene Studenten.25
Chapter 3 is in its entirety devoted to the complex sounds. A written introduction is
there given, in order to explain the way those sounds may work, with a special emphasis
placed on the internal relations existing between the individual sounds within the
complex ones, confirming that these materials have their own grammar.
explanation of the saxophone playing techniques (with an emphasis on the multiphonics) is intended here for instrumentalists as well as composers. The goal was to present in a comprehensive publication a research which has been done through a compositional and instrumental work during many years. 25 Netti, Giorgio; Weiss, Marcus: The techniques of the saxophone playing. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2010.
17
2.3. Towards a Grammar of the complex sounds
From the exploration of new territory with the increasing confidence gained through the
work on Necessità, Giorgio Netti and Marcus Weiss could conceive, on the basis of the
relationship between the similarities and differences encountered along the way, an
initial, approximative topography.
The identification or distinguishability of the individual singularities resulted
from having established relations between the similarities and differences
encountered in the explorative phase – relations that would condition
subsequent developments.26
Apparently it looks that the intention was more to show the hidden relationships whithin
the internal behavior of the multiphonics, rather than to write a simple catalogue of
fingerings –a thing that had been successfully done.
If we focus on the way in which the multiphonics are presented in the previous books,
we can notice here some new information, which was missing before (Kientzy,
Londeix). When looking at the first multiphonic for the soprano saxophone in the
Weiss-Netti book, we can realize that for one fingering we have more than one option
of the multiphonic possible sounds, each one advisable in a different dynamic level.
In addition to that, several letters are written down for every possible combination. This
is in fact what makes their research completely new. See Example 2.
26 Netti, Giorgio; Weiss, Marcus: The techniques of the saxophone playing. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2010.
18
Example 2. The first multiphonic for sopran saxophone in Giorgio Netti and Marcus Weiss’ book
Such letters show what we could all a ,,topographic map“ of the internal behavior of
these complex sounds. The capital letters appear to mean the family to which this
complex sound belongs. The decision was apparently made according to the intervalic
distribution within the internal space of the multiphonics. To explain it more precisely:
- B denotes a classical three sounds-multiphonic that in its internal construction has
more or less an octave plus a fifth or a sixth
- C denotes a family for multiphonics that have two sounds and as the first partial have
a kind of octave, something which is really common.
- D denotes a family that includes three/four/five sounds-multiphonics, sharing many
common features with the B family, but with a rather different sound in the internal
body and behaving very differently in its relationship with the dynamics.
- E denotes a family generally formed by two-sound-multiphonics, which are really
close one to another, showing a small interval (always understood in means of space)
rather than a huge one.
19
The ,,a” letter is considered here to be a ,,subfamily“, as the ,,b“, ,,c“, ,,d“ and ,,e“ are.
This so-called topography is just approximative and the main intention is to show the
diversity encountered in the behavior of these complex sounds more than to establish
classifications in absolute terms, since it seems more logical to understand their internal
relationships, their features or particularities, in order to establish what we could call a
,,grammar”, which would facilitate and rationalize the work with these materials.
Nevertheless, it is curiously the fact that this new huge catalog came after a rich musical
work what makes us think of the fact that the fingerings are not the main issue here, as it
is to understand that these complex sounds have their own specificity (related to
dynamics, to a musical context, etc). They are governed by different rules which arise
only after an active practice guided through the listening, just observing them, exploring
their internal body, their inner space. The inner cosmic intelligence of these beautiful
complex sounds will then take us away for an awesome long trip throughout
undiscovered new lands.
20
2.4. On Necessità d’interrogare il cielo
Giorgio Netti’s Necessità d'interrogare il cielo, was written between 1996 and 2000 in a
collaboration that the composer started with Marcus Weiss. It is a piece which lasts
more than one hour long; ,,a Tour d'horizon for soprano saxophone, a challenge which
takes the performer to his/her borders –and even further“.27 Thus this long period of
intense work would evince that Netti belongs to a tradition of thoughtful researcher-
composers. Creators that, starting with a revision of the intrumental techniques, go
further not only by collecting their results in a quasi-encyclopedic way, but also pulling
out all the formal consequences from the ,,sonic material“.28
Necessità d'interrogare il cielo was thought as a cycle, having four parts:
I ...intruire la dispiegata forma della luce
II ...affrettandosi verso il centro della luce risonante
III ...silenzio dei patri
IV...sottile veicolo dell'anima.
The composer himself shows an interest for the specifity of the instrumental body:
The instrument as an escape point towards which a reading of the world, in
sound, is directed: what attracts me is how it can be crossed by the most
unexpected currents from rooted traditionalism to the most daring
experimentalism with its body remaining unchanged.
27 Marcus Weiss about the piece, in the program notes for the concert given on 27.01.2006 in Berlin. 28 Marcus Weiss about the piece, in the program notes for the concert given on 06.06.2002 in the Minoriten Kulturzentrum Graz [English translation is ours].
21
For me, what distinguishes a musical instrument from a sound object is
precisely this capacity to contain events which can be very different from one to
another, and, through the unity of the vibrating body, of succeeding in
modulating its local specificity and managing to create and unimaginable
continuity between the extremes.
Writing for solo instruments has always been a special situation […] on a
constant knife-edge between aestheticism and pyrotechnics, two different orders
of difficulty with a few traits of continuity between them. Paul Valéry spoke of
,,aestheticism as an exploration“.29
When talking on his research, the composer refers to it as ,,a radiating outwards from a
centre to which it cyclically returns, renewed, only to depart even further once again, a
container of Distance, possibly an exploration where verticality rather than horizontality
predominates: it is hardly worth mentioning that the Suites, the Sonatas and Partitas,
some of the late Sonatas, a few Preludes, and the pyrotechnics, these too an exploration,
in which technical virtuosity, coloratura, special effects and other wizardries end up no
longer being restricted to the outlet of the objective instrumental economy of an
ensemble or, even worse, of an orchestra: Pagannini, some of Liszt are part of
contemporary experimentalism and linear exploration, attempting to take stock of a
locality, rarely renewing itself from within, and which changes locality once the
inventory is finished“.30
29 Giorgio Netti about Necessità d’interrogare il cielo. 30 Ibid.
22
According to Netti, everything began with ,,the attraction by/towards the extremely high
pitched harmonic sounds, the image in sound of a body which whittles itself down
without losing its potency, transforming the mass into energy, suspended, with no
direction.“ 31
For Netti the piece results of a “Gravity of the High”, which would otherwise be
,,incomprehensible if classified by the bottom up, if, that is, we consider these
connections as single separate units.“ The image and the practice of the high pitched
sounds for him are ,,the continuity of the column of air passing unobstructed through
the instrumentalist and the instrument, a special channel leaving behind the infinite
variations of mechanical traces; a special channel leaving behind the infinite variations
of mechanical traces.��� The harmonic sound is at the same time governed by and different
from the point where it originates: growing, moving away vertically from it, it gradually
enters a no man’s land where multiple origins lead to a single result.“ 32
31 Ibid. 32 Ibid.
23
3. PART
ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVES ON INTUIRE LA DISPIEGATA FORMA DELLA LUCE
The Inner listening emerges from a need for silence – silence from sounds, images, opinions, expectations, deadlines, controls; from the need to (re)discover a measure, a distance. It precedes any distinction between the senses; it is not yet hearing. It is capable of containing the single sound or the entire music, an image, a perfume, a taste, a physical sensation, an emotion. This listening makes space, it is space, a space of attention, and is the only one for which distance (in space, in time) is experienced as a simultaneous presence and not as a separation. Giorgio Netti 33
The title of the first piece of the cycle, …intuire la dispiegatta forma della luce… (to
guess the unfolded form of the light), is taken from the fragment 145 of the Chaldean
Oracles. As the Composer himself observes, it is an exploration without purpose ,,like
following a song towards the places which will come, towards all the places
simultaneously“.34
It is then possible to build up a kind of catalogue thinking about the intevals which can
be found between two sounds that apparently have the same features (Timbre, Dynamic
and Duration) in a special context. Giorgio Netti prefers to think about such space
between sounds and their volume. His interest finally became a research through those
inner spaces and their extremes (spaces showing unprecedent possibilities). A reseach
which has been a constant during years.35
33 Giorgio Netti: D’istante la durata. In: Mahnkopf, Claus-Steffen (Hrsg.): New Music and Aesthetics in the 21st Century Vol.2. Wolke, Hofheim 2004, p.181. 34 Giorgio Netti about Necessità d’interrogare il cielo. 35 Ibid.
24
[…] I interpret the attraction which the extreme high pitched harmonics exercise
upon me as the ultimate expression of this space: the entire harmonic column
vibrates silently up to that point, and at that point it appears opening up into the
sound, just as the whole solar system is essential to the orbit of Uranus [...]36
There, according to the composer, the body/instrument may become a means of access
to a listening which almost succeeds in transcending the ear,
perceiving the different qualities of vibrating, feeling the threshold which
rationally separates a sound from a light from an emotion from a memory and,
through the positioning of the threshold, to sense the possible continuity
between them. Finding oneself alone, faced with the human precariousness of
these (multiphonic) sounds, feeling the need to listen to them and reflecting on
the reason for this need. A questioning of the distance, which they carry within
themselves -living nucleus- of the sound which appears there. The birth of a
resonant world, in which nothing is lost.37
The opening gesture of ..intuire la dispiegata forma della luce... shows already the
physical space between the fundamental and its first partial (a special octave, as in the C
family), which becomes the first motion to be governed by the different dynamic levels
making possible these sounds. See example 3.
Example 3. Opening gesture of ...intuire la dispiegata forma della luce...
36 Ibid. 37 Ibid.
25
Looking for an organical continuity, in a fluid motion, the development of what we
called ,,Introduction“ rotates within this space, trying to enlarge it gradually. The
gesture sweeps from low to high and back down again. See Example 4.
Example 4. Introduction of ..intuire... (Page 1, Line 3)
As a kind of flowing that keeps going until the first line of the second page, it is
remarkable how the dynamic levels are closely related to these sounds, as a part of their
internal construction, more than the rhythms, which have to be nonetheless respected as
they are so carefuly elaborated.
Increasingly attracted by expansive forms, ,,forms bordering on the absence of form,
perhaps resonance forms that resonate with their own silence“, Netti likes to refer to the
image of the filter, a broader initial structure ,,understood as a subtle space of
resonance, that ,,harmonically“ exalts certain components from within the flow,
orienting every single instant in the whole to manage perhaps to complete itself into a
subsequent form, calling it diffuse“.38
Although it becomes tremendously difficult to talk about sections along this vast diffuse
continuum, we have tried to identify some of these places in the piece that act as a kind
of filters. They would be as start points for new processes and further developments of
the material.
38 Giorgio Netti: D’istante la durata. In: Mahnkopf, Claus-Steffen (Hrsg.): New Music and Aesthetics in the 21st Century Vol.2. Wolke, Hofheim 2004, p.182.
26
Thus we came to consider the beginning of what we called Section One in the second
line of page 2, where the material starts to develop itself into more complex rhythms.
See Example 5.
Example 5. Beginning of Section 1 of ..intuire... (Page 2, second line)
The particularity of this first section is the development of the potential contained in the
complex sounds belonging to families C and E. The monophonic lines remain still as a
kind of roots, from which the polyphony emerges in order to explore the similarities
between multiphonics belonging to the same families. See Example 6.
Example 6. Section One of..intuire... (Page 4, line 3)
27
The motion within the internal form of a complex sound (one single fingering for the
performer) appears for the first time in a more developed way. See Example 7.
Example 7. Section One of ...intuire... (Page 6, line 1)
A long process emerging from the low monophonic line in page 7 (crescendo dal grave)
will lead the music to its first loud explosion, coming back to the same soft gesture that
we found at the end of the Introduction. Here we considered it in the same function as
the end of Section One. See Examples 8 and 9.
Example 8. Section One of ...intuire... (Page 7, line 5) First loud figures
Example 9a. End of Introduction of ...intuire... (Page 2, line 1)
Example 9b. End of the Section One of ...intuire... (Page 8, line1)
28
We considered page 8 as being a Transition to the Section Two, fully carachterized by
gestures already presented in the previous Section, with the low F as a new pole. See
Example 10.
Example 10. Transition to Section Two of ...intuire... (Page 8, line 4)
The new gesture presented at the beginning of page 9, which we considered to be the
beginning of Section Two, brings a new rhythmical aspect to the material. More
excited, changing, overlapped and crisped with a considerably gained density of musical
events as a result. See Example 11.
Example 11. Beginning of Section Two of ...intuire... (Page 9, line 1)
29
All along this Second Section the quick motion of intervals will develop all the tension
that was hidden in Section One. But once more, after the forte is reached (page 9, line 5)
the music fades down (spegnendosi) to the softest layer, coming back to the ppp (page
10, line 1-3), emerging like a shadow (ombra mobile) from the light of the first gestures,
with the low D again as a pole note. See Example 12.
Example 12. Section Two of ...intuire... (Page 10, line 3)
Pages 11-12 show a little more light, in the sense that we can clearly notice the
development of the processes towards loud gestures, but coming back almost suddenly
to the soft dynamic levels, like closing them, taking them back to the already familiar
monodic materials with their particular behavior.
We considered that what we called Section Three would begin in the fourth line of page
12. From the bottom note of the saxophone, with gestures which were already used in
the introduction, the composer comes back to a low monodic line in order to start a new
long process. See Example 13.
Example 13. Beginning of Section Three of ...intuire... (Page 12, line 4)
30
The main difference with the previous processes resides in the way that the materias
grow up by drawing a progressive ascendant line together with a crescendo, which
brings them to a forte and agitato gesture in the top. See Example 14.
Example 14. Section Three of ...intuire... (Page 13, line 5)
These gestures will be followed by a progressive diminuendo coming back to the lower
line, always in a polyphonic way drawed by the multiphonics belonging to the C family,
which already appeared in Section One. See Example 15.
Example 15. Section Three of ...intuire... (Page 14, line 2)
The process that starts right at the end of page 14, and which will remain until page 16,
takes us into the darkest place of the piece. A kind of trasition, the composer calling it
,,crossing“ (attraversamento), takes us to new unknown territories, where time stops
going by and long soft complex sounds remain resonating from far away (lontanissimo).
31
The memory stops here its processes and has no references any more. The tension and
the density are at their lower levels. Listening appears to be here as pure emotion arising
from the depths. There is no narrative line, no articulations any more. See Example 16.
Example 16. Transition (attraversamento) after Section 3
of ...intuire... (Page 15, line 5)
After the long static situation, some gestures come out of the pianissimo to draw a line
around the middle F, as a kind of bows (archi) that this sounds try to achieve in their
motion, up to a final suspended gesture which holds once more some similarities with
those at the end of the introduction and Section One. See Example 17.
Example 17. End of the transition towards Section Four of ...intuire... (Page 15, line 5)
32
Section Four opens with a new gesture, like arising from the depths (...come
riaffiorando) and going back to them repeatedly (Page 16, line 1). Apparently this
Section indicates us the final path to that hidden light contained in the louder dynamics,
to which the title of the piece referred, appearing once more in page 17, within long
bows and more elaborated combinations between multiphonics belonging to the same
families. See Example 18.
Example 18. Loudest gesture in Section Four of ...intuire... (Page 17, line 4)
Once this loudest gesture is been reached, the tension decreases progressively and the
material joins again the softest dynamics, like in a suspended focus (sospeso) within a
non-static situation preparing itself for a final explosion, like arising at the end to the
light, showing its hidden energy, contained in all those sounds which were accurately
explored. That final gesture, full of intensity, of ,,vertigo“ (...vertigine...), could be a
metaphore of this long journey. The arriving Station after a trip troughout the shadows,
where the material comes definitely to the centre of the light (so the second part of the
cycle ...il centro della luce risonante...). See Example 19.
Example 19. Final gesture of ...intuire... (Page 19, line 5)
33
The life charge transmitted by listening to such a form (Netti intentionally does not use
the word vitality because it could easily be identified as a generic hyper-kinetic quality
from which on the contrary we should defend ourselves) is indicative of the newness it
gives form to, of its –at this point justified– necessity. The sure sign of an accomplished
form is the desire to make that it communicates, the enthusiasm that it entrusts to us and
to which we likewise entrust ourselves.
34
CONCLUSSION
As Netti remarked, the type of notation chosen, gradually as it was deposited in the
score, should become increasingly simple and as neutral as possible; in other words, it
should contain the maximum amount of information with the minimum number of
signs. And this holds both out of respect for the musicians (who all too often are forced
to decipher what the composer is asking of them before they can even begin to play)
and because the neutrality of the writing reveals more clearly what is actually there,
beyond personal problems or notations aimed to please the eye.
Right now it is almost impossible to know the exact reach and the depth of Netti’s
influence in the saxophone contemporary literature, but here, only ten years after the
writing of Necessità, it is clear that his mark has been an indelible one: saxophonists are
truly fortunate to have this work to play, and for the rest of the world, to hear.
Netti has said that his interest lies in ,,the instrument as an escape point towards which a
reading of the world, in sound, is directed“. Whether this points to a reading of the
world, or a reading of the self through the world, is something to consider, to dream
about, as you escape with these sounds, vibrations, suspended harmonics, to new
territories and perspectives.
The practice of this piece, a trip defined by Marcus Weiss as being the ,,climbing of the
Himalaya“, brought me to know how to distinguish between what Netti calls “the
different levels of the interpretative scheme that characterizes us, to find our own
autonomy within it”.
35
We could not express it better than the composer himself:
The more profoundly we manage to observe, the more this autonomy is truly our
own. From conventions to the thought that generated them, from the values
passed down in that thought to the sense uniting similar values in different
thoughts, progressively clearing away the incidental to find the essential; only at
that point can we listen more freely.
To listen more freely, more accurately, that is the deserved musical richness for those
who devoted their time by walking throughout such long paths. Spanish poet Antonio
Machado expressed it with words better than anybody else. They still resonate in our
mind, like Columbus’ need to interrogate the sky during his long nautical voyages.
Caminante, son tus huellas ���el camino, y nada más; ���caminante, no hay camino, ��� se
hace camino al andar. ��� Al andar se hace camino, ���y al volver la vista atrás ���se ve la
senda que nunca ��� se ha de volver a pisar. ��� Caminante, no hay camino, ���sino estelas
en la mar.39
39 Antonio Machado (1875-1939) was a Spanish poet and one of the leading figures of the literary movement known as the “Generation of 98”. [Wanderer, your footsteps are ��� the road, and nothing more; ��� wanderer, there is no road, ��� the road is made by walking. ���By walking one makes the road, ��� and upon glancing behind ��� one sees the path ���that never will be trod again. ��� Wanderer, there is no road. ���Only wakes upon the sea.] From "Proverbios y cantares XXIX" [Proverbs and Songs 29], in Campos de Castilla (1912).
36
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Albright, Daniel: Modernism and music: An anthology of sources. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2004.
Bateson, Gregory: Steps to an Ecology of Mind. In: Bateson, Gregory: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. University Of Chicago Press, Chicago 1972.
Bertocchi, Serge: Entretien avec Giorgio Netti. In: Les Cahiers du saxophone 17. Paris 2006.
Calvino, Italo: Dall’opaco. In: Calvino, Italo: La Strada di San Giovanni. Mondadori, Mailand 1971.
Borges, Jorge Luis: Cuentos Breves y extraordinarios. Losada, Buenos Aires 1957.
Hölderlin, Johann Christian Friedrich: Sämtliche Werke. Stroemfeld, Frankfurt 1997.
Fineberg, Joshua: Sculpting Sound: An introduction to the Spectral Movement, its ideas, techniques, and music. D.M.A. dissertation. Columbia University, New York 1999.
Kientzy, Daniel: Les sons multiples aux saxophones. Salabert, Paris 1982.
Londeix, Jean-Marie: Hello Mr. Sax ou les parameters du saxophone. Leduc, Paris 1989.
Moscovich, Viviana: French spectral music: An introduction. In: Tempo 200. Cambridge 1997.
Netti, Giorgio: D’istante la durata. In: Mahnkopf, Claus-Steffen (Hrsg.): New Music and Aesthetics in the 21st Century Vol.2 . Wolke, Hofheim 2004, S.177-195.
Netti, Giorgio: Interviews with the autor. Winter 2009/2010. E-Mail
Weiss, Marcus; Netti, Giorgio: The techniques of saxophone playing. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2008.
37
MUSICAL EXAMPLES Page Example 1. The first multiphonic for sopran saxophone in Daniel Kientzy’s book Les sons multiples aux saxophones............................................................... 14 Example 2. The first multiphonic for sopran saxophone in Giorgio Netti and Marcus Weiss’ book The techniques of saxophone playing................................... 18 Example 3. Opening gesture of ...intuire la dispiegata forma della luce .............. 24
Example 4. Introduction of ..intuire... (Page 1, Line 3) ......................................... 25
Example 5. Beginning of Section 1 of ..intuire... (Page 2, second line) ................ 26
Example 6. Section 1 of..intuire... (Page 4, line 3) ................................................ 26
Example 7. Section 1 of ...intuire... (Page 6, line 1) .............................................. 27
Example 8. Section 1 of ...intuire... (Page 7, line 5) First loud figures .................. 27
Example 9a. End of Introduction of ...intuire... (Page 2, line 1) ............................ 27
Example 9b. End of Section 1 of ..intuire... (Page 8, line 1) .................................. 27
Example 10. Transition to Section 2 of ...intuire... (Page 8, line 4) ...................... 28
Example 11. Beginning of Section 2 of ...intuire... (Page 9, line 1) ...................... 28
Example 12. Section 2 of ...intuire... (Page 10, line 3) .......................................... 29
Example 13. Beginning of Section 3 of ...intuire... (Page 12, line 4) .................... 29
Example 14. Section 3 of ...intuire... (Page 13, line 5) .......................................... 30
Example 15. Section 3 of ...intuire... (Page 14, line 2) .......................................... 30
Example 16. Transition (attraversamento) after Section 3 of ...intuire... (Page 15, line 5).......................................................................................... 31
Example 17. End of the transition towards Section 4 of ...intuire... (Page 15, line 5) .......................................................................................... 31
Example 18. Loudest gesture in Section 4 of ...intuire... (Page 17, line 4) ............ 32
Example 19. Final gesture of ...intuire... (Page 19, line 5) ..................................... 32
