Record of the day: Fausto Romitelli, “Professor Bad Trip”
Fausto Romitelli, “Professor Bad Trip” (Cd Cyprès CYP5620)
«At the center of my composition is the idea of considering sound as a material into which to sink to forge its physical and perceptive characteristics: grain, thickness, porosity, brightness, density, elasticity. Therefore, sculpture of sound… and ever greater importance to sounds of non-academic origin, to the dirty and violent sound of predominantly metallic origin of certain rock and techno music”. These words by the composer Fausto Romitelli define his poetics as best as one could not. Having passed away in 2004 at just forty-one years of age, Romitelli left behind a production that was necessarily numerically limited but of high poetic value, which made him one of the most important composers of his generation.
At the time of his death the musician was (and still is) much better known abroad than in his own country, where his aggressive and energy-filled compositions contrasted sharply with the academicism of the compositional environment, still stuck in controversy between tonal and atonal. In Romitelli’s music (as well as in those of the ghostly French composers who inspired Romitelli) these distinctions make no sense, given that sound and harmony manifest themselves as acoustic phenomena in and of themselves, sound waves (as the noise and the feedback and larsen frequencies) become elements to be dissected, filtered, observing the spectrum from every angle to extract continuous variations and manipulations.
The parallelism that Romitelli draws with sculpture is most appropriate; the artist moves large blocks of sound, and through the use of electronics and non-traditional instrumental techniques (which require performers to sing, whistle and use instruments such as kazoo, megaphone, guitar tuners) he modifies the perspective, precipitating the the listener in a sonic abyss with strongly psychedelic colors (the influence of Hendrix and Zappa on Romitelli’s music is no less than that of Ligeti and Grisey). The “Professor Bad Trip” cycle (1998-2000) for ensemble is inspired by the writings of Henri Michaux, influenced by the use of hallucinogens and highly visionary (exactly as the music is).
Carlo Boccadoro, composer and conductor, was born in Macerata in 1963. He lives and works in Milan. He collaborates with soloists and orchestras in different parts of the world. He is the author of numerous books on musical topics.
This text is taken from “Lunario della musica: A record for every day of the year” published by Einaudi, courtesy of the author and the publisher.
