Interview Pierluigi Billone - Joan Gómez Alemany (2022)

P.B. My favourite titles are, for example, Morton Feldman's such as Piano and Orchestra, Violin and Orchestra, which are like a word "without sound" or a transparent glass. These catalogue titles are so generic that they seem empty, but as soon as we become familiar with the musical work, they turn into a powerful name, like that of a mountain or a lake. These works derive their meaning from their musical consistency, not from the title, and thus give a concrete and unique meaning to that title. Paradoxically we could observe: in reality it is the music that gives (or does not) the dignity of a real name to the title … I don't have Morton Feldman's "grace" ... but the matter is clear to me.

In my work the title Mani._____ over the years has definitively become the name of a real cycle of compositions for solo percussion, although at first, it was used for a work for the string trio Mani.Giacometti (2000), and for large Ensemble with soloists Mani.Long (2001), and again for solo Accordion Mani.Stereos (2008).

Mani indicates the central role of the hands in all aspects of work (it is fully explained in my introduction to Mani.De Leonardis (2004), and above all of a sort of "Intelligence of the Hand", irreplaceable, always active and common to every aspect of the composition process. But that's not all. Mani is also an ancient Latin word, which indicates the souls of the dead.

So, Mani already has a double meaning. This part of the title remains unchanged (we could consider it a "surname"), but each time a "name" is added, which often has more than one meaning, which enters into a relationship and generates a game of verbal reflexes (and possible reflections). If this title is a name, then it is a name with an unstable, often double or triple sense. Deliberately.

Let's take two examples:

Mani.Mono (2007) for springdrum. Within the general sense of the work (Mani: hands, souls of the dead), Mono indicates the initial and indivisible unity of the sound of the instrument (which the work makes explode in 100 ways). Mono is also the name of a very special lake (Mono lake), sacred to the native Americans of California.

Mani.Gonxha (2011) for two Tibetan sounding bowls. Within the general sense of work (Mani: hands, souls of the dead), Gonxha is the Albanian name for bud (of a flower), and it is also Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I always define and definitively decide the title at the end of the work, so I offer a name to an already accomplished musical reality. Of course, I can only hope… it works like the name of a mountain.

 

P.B. There are interesting examples of composers who are also self-editors. The best known and most notable was certainly Karl Heinz Stockhausen (Stockhausen-Verlag), who did an extraordinary job of publishing, presenting and documenting his works, which was otherwise unthinkable.

When we talk about a music publisher, we are referring to a specific business, which has its own reasons and characteristics. Although today from a technical point of view there are previously unimaginable editorial possibilities, strangely, commercial music publishing has regressed to an elementary stage, absolutely not creative and completely flat and homologated (just make a comparison with the 60s-80s).

An editor takes care of the edition and publication of the works, manages the performance material, takes care of relations with the interpreters and organizers, creates the conditions for new performances and commissions of new works, promotes the diffusion and knowledge of the work of the composer, introduces him to relations with institutions: he becomes a privileged link between the composer and the professional world (of which the publisher is a part).

However, this is a relationship that is very often unbalanced on the publisher's side: that is, the composer always risks conceiving his work on the basis of the expectations and proposals of the publisher, who therefore becomes more and more an "employer and an agent”, that is, he not only assists the composer in his work, but directs and guides him.

Therefore, the "necessary and indispensable" moment will inevitably come for the piece for orchestra, piano and orchestra, opera, occasional work and/or entertainment, etc. If we consider a certain cultural and musical regression in the work of many Ensembles, Orchestras, Musical Theatre Institutions, and the obvious tendency of publishers to invest as little money as possible and to push for simplified and/or entertainment works, we understand better the current situation: we are within a cultural industry with its needs, whose purpose is an effective business.

These are the most usual working conditions of a so-called career composer. For many, all this is considered not only obvious and normal, but a point of arrival for their business, which coincides with definitive professional recognition.

Not my case. All of this simply never interested me.

So, to get straight to the heart of your question, I have always believed in the possibility of working in our professional field as an independent person. Being a self-editor for me is one of the conditions necessary to maintain my independence. The autonomy of a composer, his ability to freely be the source of his orientation and to always find the reasons for his work again and again, is essential, comes before anything else, and does not always coincide with the expectations of a publisher. A possible professional independence is based on the preservation of this autonomy.

However, total independence in our professional field is almost impossible, because ours is a work that is based on the real relationship that binds composer, performer, organizers, institutions and the public. It will therefore be a question of degrees of independence.

But it is difficult and is never definitive, because our professional field changes and above all because belonging to specific cultural groups or "communities" of various types, the affiliation to the "family" of a publishing house or festival, a certain opportunist conformism, they seem an obligatory condition to be recognized professionally, or trivially to be able to work.

The independent composer always runs the risk of remaining on the peripheries of the professional field. This situation, however, can also be considered a strength and a particular condition of freedom (even if it poses many problems ...).

 

P.B. It seems to me necessary to make some general considerations first.

Western written music and its cultural tradition have believed for centuries and until today to be the centre, with respect to which everything else is only a secondary, even indifferent periphery. Instead, it is only the centre of its own dimension, which is small, and surrounded by an open space and without established boundaries.

Western sound culture has privileged a single perspective starting from itself and its conception, and has therefore exercised an inevitable principle of inclusion/exclusion. This point of view referred to the present would no longer have reason to exist, because it ignores more than it can see, but it has always been encapsulated in our practice and culture of sound, handed down from traditional and academic education, and therefore continues to operate in the deep. I felt this point of view instinctively and immediately as extraneous, then I had to work hard to get away.

The current situation of Music in general — if observed openly and at 180 degrees — could perhaps be compared to that of a Galaxy still forming or disintegrating, without a definite shape, without a recognizable centre and in constant motion. Any perspective chosen to consider and define it is inevitably partial and reduced, it is the exercise of a single point of view, it will never be able to fully embrace a phenomenon that is constantly evolving.

In this situation, in which we are always both an active and passive part, because we operate and take part in this movement, it seems to me that the most important and interesting thing is to try to observe at least the lines of force and the uncertain meaning of what is happening. And it is already a difficult task if one seeks an understanding without prejudice.

If one tries to consider music, beyond the single individual point of view, it currently appears to us as a chaotic and confused variety of musical practices and cultural realities, in constant Expansion - Dispersion - Disaggregation, and in all directions. Where the New and the Old, the Familiar and the Foreign, the Precious and the Worthless, lie side by side and separate at the same time, without mutual real contacts, or incredibly mixed, in a flat topicality, which cancels the limits and makes everything indifferent. Our professional field, the so-called "Contemporary Music", which is linked to universities, specific festivals, to the institutions that support it financially, is simply a small portion of this reality, and it does not seem to be the most important or the highest (even if it always believes it is).

The crucial point seems to me this: if we observe things with the necessary detachment and on a less superficial level, it becomes evident that in our current Western culture musical experiences are lived and considered as almost indifferent, they do not seem able to really concern our existences, to be the source of an individual growth, therefore to trigger processes of profound evolution and change: they are downgraded to the non-essential periphery of life, like any discipline or particular interest. In a somewhat rude way, we could say that we do not expect anything essential from the experience of sound. It is any professional field, which claims to be artistic in the banal modern sense of the term. I don't think I'm wrong, and I'm obviously sorry, if I consider our professional field as that of a simple cultural/intellectual entertainment, often a tout-court entertainment.

A simple example is enough: John Cage, an exceptional personality, whose work has had an “enormous” influence, diffusion and notoriety, should have profoundly and definitively changed the meaning of the term sound and of Western musical practice. Everyone can easily ascertain if, how and to what extent it really happened, if this change has taken root. And if this has not happened, perhaps it is good to ask why.

To answer your question more directly, within the Music Galaxy, my work is little more than a speck of interstellar dust. Obviously, I think and work starting from the culture from which I come and in which I evolved, which is different from the current one, and it is easy to recognize influences (conscious and not) of my real masters (S. Sciarrino, H. Lachenmann) or ideal ones (L. Nono, I. Xenakis, K.H. Stockhausen, M. Feldman and many others). It is equally easy to recognize direct-indirect influences of Free Jazz, of Free Improvisation, of musical fields outside the academic ones, of cultures and musical concepts extraneous to the European tradition.

As with anyone, the portion of the world I come into contact with and interact with is certainly small and limited. But, thanks to the constant and interested relationship with young people, I have learned to listen and recognize in any musical expression the trace of a real need, which sometimes does not speak to me directly, but always concerns me. Someone reminds us that ”every place is the centre of the world …”.

So, the only trend in which I fully recognize myself, is the one that shows a passion without prejudice and the belief that work on sound makes sense (before, beyond and independently of the recognized profession of musician) and is a real opportunity for knowledge, for those who practice it and for those who come into contact with it.

 

P.B. In principle, a composer should always be free to conceive his work according to the principles and values that seem right and necessary to him, even when this choice places him in direct conflict with the establishment and relegates him to the margin of the professional field.

If this is not possible, he can always give up or refuse.

Our professional field is not just entertainment and business, it is a creative work field, an opportunity for spiritual evolution and elevation based on the awareness of the meaning of our work. Therefore, it should lead each one to a human commitment, above all individual, which then manages to radiate spontaneously in the broader dimension of the social.

I make a few simple observations.

The fact that technology is omnipresent and that our professional field also obeys specific market laws (cultural industry) is not a sufficient reason to consider this condition the only possibility or an obligation to be respected.

A very widespread orientation today is that art, in order to be recognized as current, to have a shared meaning, should reflect, reproduce and show the signs of its belonging to the current material culture. It is not necessary to share this orientation.

The current opinion of many artistic directors and many performers, that a work no longer has a real interest if it is based exclusively on the simple sound of the instruments, without electronic or visual treatment, or extended to other fields, "fluid and/or hybrid" as they say, it is very widespread and has a great influence especially on young people. But this is still not a sufficient reason to give up investing one's best energy solely on sound.

There are many different ways of being a musician and a composer.

In the evolution of each one, the time always comes to prioritize independence and the sense of necessity of one's work, when the principles and values that must be able to exist are recognized within it, because they go beyond the individual dimension and concern everyone. And this regardless of what is commonly regarded as actual, important or obligatory.

What real space for action and freedom exist? In this case too, there are degrees of freedom, which depend on very concrete factors. It is impossible to generalize, and my personal example is one among a hundred others, it certainly cannot serve as a model, so it seems pointless to describe it.

I would just like to observe that this freedom is not a simple option among others, it is a decision, which when it shows itself and affirms itself in the social dimension becomes a stance, a statement. And it comes at a cost. In the 60s and 80s it was certainly easier to bring and maintain this freedom in work, because that was exactly what was expected. Today… I don't think so.

 

P.B. If anyone would comment that my music has changed very little in 30 years, I would invite him to learn more about my work.

It is certainly true that it is very different to perceive something from the inside or from the outside, but in this case, we have defined objects, it is not a matter of opinion. I try to be very concrete and simple, because it involves more than 50 works ... All my work was born, especially at the beginning, from the direct practice of instrumental sound and voice and their mutual influence. I was looking for a sound and relationships that were born directly from a mutual harmonization of body and matter, and above all I was interested in cancelling the limits and identities of sound bodies.

From the direct practice of string instruments, in particular from the cello and the double bass, all my first works were born: the focus on the properties of the sound that can be produced with a string, the structure and dynamics of complex states, mechanical principles of transformation, quality and type of possible movements, the sense of duration and of the differences in duration influenced by the mechanics and manipulation of the instruments, possible links between sounds from the most elementary to the most complex, etc. simplifying, in one sentence: that a voice can vibrate like a double bass and vice versa.

Starting from this elementary basis, which is very concrete and which was enriched and slowly extended to other instruments, I built through a visionary projection everything that appears in my first pieces.

The very choice of the instruments in the ensemble (absolutely unusual) shows it, for example Kraan Ke An (1991) for 3 low voices, 2 percussion (metal plates), Electric Guitar (which sounds as if it were a string instrument and/or a voice), Viola, 4 Cellos, 2 Double Basses with scordatura. The entire Ensemble, in fact, can be considered a gigantic and unusual "13-string double bass", where each string is an instrument: all the sound of the instruments and voices is brought back to a common (constructed and visionary) unity. This made it possible and at the same time influenced the way of conceiving the presence of sound, the meaning and quality of its evolution, the rhythmic principles that underlie the construction of its space of existence (the piece).

The most evident macroscopic characteristic of these initial works is that they are slow and extended movements of non-linear transformation of sound and states, extremely elaborated in every single instant, in some cases up to apparently chaotic acoustic states, which do not lead to any recognizable point of arrival, and therefore, for a Western listener they are "static" situations, without development and without an immediately recognizable musical logic.

Elementary melodies, chords, harmonies, articulations and rhythms based on the articulations typical of instrumental music, isolated sounds, short and explosive attacks, or the typical materials and sound objects of the "New Music", direct contrasts between extremes, the logic and rhetoric of construction based on the conception of sound with parameters, etc.: there is none of this.

Over the years, other instruments have become the source and elementary "matrix" of the sound matter and relationships that interested me. This was possible thanks to the direct practice of the bass clarinet, the bassoon, the trombone, the electric guitar, the percussion (where the contact with the material is much more open and less influenced by tradition), and as always, the voice, which via has become (also) a privileged source and in part independent of the instruments.

Each of these instruments, for a modern sensibility, is a unique sound body and a unique dimension of sound: the matter of which it is made, the nature and type of vibrations and states, the type of sound production (how it involves the body), the type of manipulation, its open and unknown possibilities, etc.

All this has renewed and regenerated my focus on sound and on the type of relationships that interested me, it opened a different sensitivity to the instant, it led me to consider each instrument as a source that opens up unpredictably and whose material has no prefixed limits, until the sense of the space of existence of the sound changes. It is a profound change which has produced significant consequences, and which has required a great deal of effort.

In short, if at the beginning of the 90s I thought an ensemble of 13 instruments and voices as a single instrument, over the years I have come to consider an ensemble as made up of unique and completely independent instruments, where each one brings out a unique dimension of sound, and this has generated and required a different conception. The transformation of sound as a principle has remained, but starting from very different matrices, which can interact and on multiple levels, so they are able to generate different dimensions within a single work.

It would be enough to compare my first works of the 90s with Mani.Long (2001) for Soloists and Ensemble, Mani.De Leonardis (2004) for car suspension and glass, 1 + 1 = 1 (2006) for 2 bass clarinets, Dike Wall (2012) for percussion and Ensemble, Sgorgo Y, N, oO, (2013) for electric guitar, Face (2016) for Voice and Ensemble, Mani.Amon 2019 for Gong Drum.

Each of these works is unthinkable starting from the others. It seems to me the most evident sign of a real evolution.

 

P.B. A composition is an offer and an invitation; it is addressed to a possible interested listener and at the same time creates his listening conditions. In Anton Webern for example, many of his works last little more than a breath: they are and remain elusive, and always remain so even after the tenth listening (6 Bagatellen Opus 9, 3 Stücke Opus 11).

On the contrary, many of Morton Feldman's works, for example, are a sort of limitless adventure, where the listener is measured with durations and dimensions that go beyond the common capacity for attention (Triadic memories, Violin and string quartet) All are possible dimensions of a listening experience; they simply go beyond the most usual and banal conventions.

It seems to me a possibility open to anyone, which has nothing radical in my opinion, rather it is the sign of a freedom and a creative independence, that decides and draws its own limits. If the exercise of this creative independence conflicts with the more rigid habits and conventions of an audience and a mentality oriented only to entertainment, the works must also be able to overcome this obstacle, and they will be able to do so only thanks to their creative level and their ability to generate genuine interest. The composer will also be faced with the problem of ensuring existence for these works, but that is part of the work.

Now, all these things are already encapsulated in the characteristics of the work, they do not depend on the words that accompany it, on public stances. Indeed, I would like to say, they either happen with a certain spontaneity or they don't happen, and they certainly don't happen just because the composer creates an additional ideological and verbal-only (bla-bla intellectual) identity that accompanies the life of the work. It may perhaps work in a dialogue with a superficial and unconvinced performer or organizer, or with someone who expects nothing from the experience of sound and needs words to make sense of what they hear. This is also part of our professional reality; it is well known.

When my work is finished and the piece exists and is ready to be performed, at this point it begins (or not) its autonomous life, its exclusive and direct relationship with the people concerned, listener after listener, who they must have total freedom to find contact points or reject them.

Listening, especially in our time, is instead very often prefigured and oriented by the rhetoric and ideology of the work, of the artist and of culture as an intellectual object to be consumed. Many examples could be given. I don't belong to this way of thinking and I don't agree with it.

My texts, the presentations of the pieces, some articles, interviews and some lectures are collected and documented on my website, available to those who may be interested. They directly concern my compositions and some general themes and problems connected with our work. Some texts, which I collect under the title of Notes, are generally brief reflections, which arise as simple work notes and which I collect every two to three years, almost never have myself and my work as an object. These are reflections offered to a possible unknown and interested reader, who is interested in sound, work on sound, reflection on work and language that tries to say all this.

All these reflections arise from and for a human commitment, when they refer to the topicality of an issue or problem, they are always explicit and direct, often in the form of a definitive (even provocative) statement. They are not designed to convince, I am not interested, instead to share a crucial and problematic point to reflect on. If someone is interested, he must first discover that they exist and then actively seek them, and if he continues to seek them it means that they make sense to him and can interact with them actively.

At this point they have achieved their first aim: to bring to light an issue of common interest. Alongside my works, this is my way of fulfilling a role of human and social commitment. In any case, in the various experiences and concrete contexts that the profession offers me, I always have the possibility to take a position, to take sides in a clear and definitive way, to support values, priorities or to take sides against what seems to me senseless or unfair.

I've always done it, like everyone else. It is important that I do this. The fact that it is known, on the other hand, seems to me secondary, almost irrelevant.

 

P.B. Spontaneously discovering a sound that we did not know before is a particular experience for anyone: an instrument or a thing reveals something about themselves, they manifest it as a sound.

This also happens when I first hear a oboe da caccia or touch the gut strings of a harp or the skin of a drum, or hear a Tibetan trumpet, an electric guitar, or I put in vibration a metal with a particular shape, an electronic device, or listen to the vibrations of a refrigerator or ventilation system, etc. This spontaneous layer of experience is extremely precious, it can only be underestimated, but it is not and does not base research on sound.

Within the practice of composition, each sound is what makes possible types and qualities of relationships between sounds, therefore a sound always has "two sides", so to speak: the acoustic and mechanical reality of sound with its properties and the possible reality of relationships with other sounds. Research on sound, or better still exploration of sound, is, therefore and above all, this open focus that oscillates between sound and relationships and considers them both constantly. Sometimes it is a sound with its own particular properties, which proposes and makes an as yet unknown relationship imaginable and possible. Other times, a possible relationship that seems important to us makes it necessary to have a state of sound that incorporates it, which however does not yet exist, and therefore will have to be imagined, searched for and “discovered".

In my case, sound exploration means concretely practicing and studying an instrument (or voice) or a sound object, understanding its nature, properties and construction principles, becoming familiar with its specific sound production, in some cases reinventing the sound production technique (if it exists), read up on its technical and theoretical repertoire (if it exists), enter into dialogue with its 360-degree musical repertoire (if it exists), freely explore its possibilities, take care of all the problems connected to a possible notation, to bring to light the meaning that sets all this in motion and directs it to a possible result. We are speaking not only of years of tenacious and passionate work, but of "seasons" of work.

Obviously this requires a flexible discipline of work and attention, and long-term projects because before an oriented search (possibly motivated by a practical purpose, an upcoming work, etc.) comes an exploration, which is necessarily open and without fixed limits, and only gradually defines its lines of development. All this is to be considered a preliminary and preparatory work, the purpose of which — for me — is to consciously harmonize the body and the instrument, that is, to momentarily "become" that instrument, an extension or a part of that instrument, a bit like the rider with horse.

This aspect of the work of a composer (musician) is of no interest to many, because they believe that everything already exists in the specific literature and/or instrumental treatises and there is nothing to ... "discover", only to use - such as the materials of Ikea, and in any case today with the computer you can do "everything". Or because they believe that the lofty task of composition is to deal with sound only starting from structures and construction processes, therefore from a fundamental distance from sound, guaranteed only by reflective and organizational thinking.

In this kind of exploratory sound practice, learning from mistakes, two initial risks can be focused. The first is to believe that you have fulfilled some obligation of originality (“this is my sound”), and to consider this task as a sufficient “artistic” act, which gives a definitive meaning and purpose to our work. The second is to get lost in the labyrinth of possibilities, where every slightest difference seems precious and indispensable, as in the butterfly collections, but everything is on the same level of importance, and so it becomes at the same time flat, indifferent and therefore sterile.

But the most important thing (and perhaps the biggest risk), what in my opinion is the profound meaning of an exploration of sound, is to become aware of one's own conception of sound inherited from the past and of that shared with the present, to voluntarily lose oneself in the known and unknown properties of sound, those that are foreign to us and those that are hidden, distinctly touch and feel the limits of our thought of sound, to get closer to the point where the very concept of sound could change ...

 

P.B. The professional-cultural context and the open and flexible working conditions of the 60- 80s, for example, no longer exist. The current working conditions are extremely strict, and the more open ones are a privilege of very few. This clearly indicates that something essential has changed.

It must be considered that Orchestra, Opera, Musical Theatre are not simply a musical genre, they are always a concrete situation, linked to the activity of large institutions that are "producers" of cultural objects. Inevitably, this has to do with concrete professional limits suggested or imposed by the commission (often implicit, but which however become the condition of existence of the work), availability of means (tools, equipment, space for performance), quantity of rehearsals, sensitivity and competence of the conductor and soloists, sensitivity, availability and interest of the musicians, kind of listening linked to the context and place of the performance.

It is clear that if a composer here "feels at home" and is interested in having his work recognized and appreciated by these contexts, he will accept these conditions without problems, because in fact he considers them obvious and unproblematic.

I had the opportunity to write for three orchestras (German and Austrian) with some experience of first performances: WDR 1999, ORF 2007, SWR 2011. After these three experiences, in which I invested many of my best energies, having never had the necessary and sufficient conditions for a good result, having been the first and last performance of the works each time, I definitively understood that it is not my dimension. So, let's say… "I don't feel at home".

Quite simply, it is not acceptable to have 4-6 hours of rehearsal for a new 30-minute orchestral piece, which has specific technical difficulties, with almost all the musicians uninterested and against, the management's lack of willingness to meet the technical needs, in some cases a disinterested conductor who does not engage in concertation, and in many cases an audience that expects above all entertainment. If we then think of an Opera, for an Opera House, that is an institution born and developed for the operatic repertoire, which imposes very rigid limits, often also the performers, which is always a huge "bureaucratic machine", means accepting conditions of work even more rigid. These appear to be strictly practical and/or professional matters.

However, it is a question of understanding that these institutions and the festivals to which they are linked have their own "culture of sound" (which defines what is musically meaningful, interesting and therefore acceptable/possible for them). This culture of sound will orient all aspects of the real work: for example, in these contexts it is easier to ask a musician to play a typewriter or a toy, because it is for him completely indifferent, while making him engage in an instrumental technique he does not know, and is not interested in mastering, it immediately generates a contrary reaction.

I asked myself what deep meaning all this has, I replied, and then I decided to break away. The Ensemble, in all its forms, is certainly the most flexible and open current professional dimension, which can still be a place for real experimentation and where the relationship between composer and musicians is more direct, almost personal. It seems obvious to me to be more interested in this dimension. However, as is evident from my catalogue of works, the centre of my interest is focused on the solo dimension, or two-three performers. There are some good basic reasons.

First of all, the interest and passion for open "instrumental adventures", which allow me to move and overcome limits, which I can decide freely. The decisive factor is that a soloist (a small chamber group) has the opportunity to work with a certain independence, and this greatly reduces the more usual professional conditioning.

Therefore, as a composer I can write and work for a model of interpreter (real or to be found) who, starting from his competence, ability, authenticity and originality, is completely open and interested in engaging in experimental works and with a certain technical- interpretative commitment. So, his work can sensibly develop mine, we work together on the same thing right away and in the same way, so to speak. The purpose and working conditions can be freely decided and chosen together. The dimension of solo music, as far as I'm concerned, precisely due to the real conditions in which it occurs, is the one that has the greatest possibility of unifying interpreter and listener, almost cancelling the difference of roles, and this is fundamental for me.

This particular situation could be described as follows: two men (the interpreter and the listener) are in direct and very close contact, they engage in a common adventure-exploration of sound, whose limits are open and depend above all on their mutual passion and availability. The only difference between these two men, unified by the same event, could be defined as follows: both listen, one (the interpreter) works to make the sound appear, the other (the listener) gives meaning to the work of the first.

But this is exactly what Music always generates!
No, I wouldn't say.

 

P.B. Reflecting on one's work, and more generally on the problems and issues related to work in all its aspects, seems to me necessary.

First of all, it is certainly one of the ways to acquire a minimum critical distance from one's point of view, which is always limited and too individual, even if obviously it is the only one we have. Then it is an opportunity to bring other points of view closer. Of course, there are many ways. The most direct, interesting and fertile way is certainly real dialogue with other people, when favourable conditions are created and people are sincerely and passionately ready to open up and confront each other.

When it comes to written reflections, however, we enter an indirect dimension, no less important, where, however, the interlocutor is immediately anonymous and distant, does not interact, and this completely changes the conditions and the object of reflection. As I mentioned before, this is the case of my small collections of reflections with the title Notes, which arise during the work of the composition, are processed very slowly, and almost never concern myself in the first person.

An intermediate stage is certainly the lecture or conference, which is the ideal dimension for very general and/or theoretical reflections, where a written text is conceived for a specific occasion, a context and a real audience, which can then interact, even if it is not an immediate dialogue. The seminar is also a different dimension, an opportunity for study where, who proposes and shows what he has discovered and elaborated, immediately need to be understood and followed by those who participate, otherwise it makes no sense.

The seminar is a dimension that interests me particularly, and to which I have always dedicated a lot of effort and energy, and as a freelance I have had great freedom in this field. I have not often dealt with my works, because what interests me most is dealing with works and works by other composers or with very open general themes, even unusual ones. My aim is to give the participants a direct understanding of some fundamental issues, make them feel their importance and encourage the desire to continue this work independently and creatively.

Sometimes I have succeeded. To do this, already existing texts are not always necessary as a reference or source (in some cases there is not even a useful literature), because it is not a question of referring to already made analyses, already defined concepts, with their tables and graphical representations, where everything is already rationally framed and there is nothing more to ask and explain, etc.

I am interested in still open questions, and these are shown only in a real dialogue with the work. The seminar therefore, at least for my sensitivity, remains an open dialogue with a work.