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Sistema HN: i primi trent'anni (2021)
Lettera a Pietro Misuraca
Ciao Pietro, accolgo con entusiasmo la tua richiesta di raccontarti in forma scritta le ultime acquisizioni tecniche e concettuali del Sistema HN e – siccome, come sai, manco del dono della sintesi ma abbondo in quello della prolissità – ti racconto tutto fin dalla nascita del sistema [...]
Multifonia (II) (2020)
Lettera a Luca Ricci
Caro Luca, provo a rispondere alla tua richiesta di definire il significato che attribuisco al termine "multifonia" che ho usato in alcuni miei scritti e nelle conversazioni con te [...]. Spero possa esserti utile per la tua tesi. [...]
Musica, erotismo e BDSM (2019)
Sono sempre stato a mio agio in quel gioco che, in tempi relativamente recenti, è stato battezzato BDSM: il sadomasochismo ludico a scopo erotico. Per me quel gioco è, paradossalmente, il luogo della tenerezza [...]
Resistenza e affetto (2017)
La resistenza è una questione eminentemente affettiva. Implica anche sforzo intellettuale o fisico, a seconda delle situazioni, ma ciò che la sostiene è un'esigenza affettiva, il desiderare profondamente che le cose vadano in una certa maniera [...]
Il Sistema HN e la forma canzone (2014)
La canzone è un oggetto affettivo, un'entità a cui si vuole bene e, cosa ancora più importante, da cui ci si sente voluti bene. D'altronde si potrebbe dire che tutta la musica è un oggetto affettivo. Diciamo quindi che la canzone è un oggetto affettivo portatile [...]
Breve introduzione alle Percussioni HN® (2012)
La Lamiera HN®, l'incCubo® e il Grande incCubo® sono strumenti musicali nati per amplificare la carica espressiva dell’azione fisica. Fanno parte della famiglia delle Percussioni HN®, strumenti ad altezza indeterminata concepiti per coinvolgere l'intero corpo dell'interprete nella creazione sonora.
[...]
Sistema HN: suonare con tutto il corpo (2010)
Attenzione ai fraintendimenti: "suonare con tutto il corpo" non significa produrre suoni con ogni parte del corpo, significa coinvolgere l'interezza del corpo in ogni azione (anche nell'azione più piccola e parziale) [...]
Atto corporeo vs. azione fisica (2010)
Da alcuni anni tendo a parlare, descrivendo il Sistema HN, di parametrizzazione dell'atto corporeo, privilegiando quest'ultimo termine rispetto allo stanislavskijano-grotowskiano azione fisica [...]
Che tipo di musica fai? (2009)
«Che tipo di musica fai?» E' la domanda che mi sento rivolgere più spesso, quando racconto di essere musicista [...]
A proposito di Mi dico n° 2+3 (2008)
Lettera a Paolo Emilio Carapezza
Mi dico n° 2 nasce da tre laboratori didattici, ciascuno svolto in uno dei tre licei palermitani qui sopra nominati [...]. Mi dico n° 3 nasce invece da un laboratorio che ho svolto [...] presso il Conservatorio A. Scontrino di Trapani, nella classe di percussioni del M° Fulvia Ricevuto [...]
A proposito del Sistema HN (2007)
Lettera a Roberto Conigliaro
Ciao Roberto! Rispondo finalmente alla bella domanda che mi hai fatto quasi due mesi fa: "...Vedo la tua musica come qualcosa di molto intimo, viscerale e mi piacerebbe capire meglio fino a che punto e in quali modi interferisci con l'esecutore e quanta libertà intrepretativa-espressiva ha quest'ultimo nell'eseguire le tue composizioni [...]
Ero già a me nº 85 (c) (2007)
Per lamiera HN solista
Ero già a me nº 85 (c) tratta di Anna. Una donna strana. Giovane, quando la conobbi aveva 25 anni. Sconvolgentemente silenziosa [...]
Come funziona il Sistema HN (2006)
A un certo punto della mia vita ho sentito il bisogno di definire un modo di creare musica (uno stile operativo, prima ancora che uno stile estetico) che mi permettesse di organizzare compositivamente, fin dalla pagina scritta, non solo i fatti sonori, ma anche l'intensità esperienziale con cui affrontarli – o, meglio, generarli – nel momento dell'esecuzione [...]
Ero già a me n° 44 (2006)
Ogni moto o stato dell'animo è sempre anche, in una certa misura, moto e stato del corpo. E questo si sa [...]
Le Twin Towers e l'invidia di Stockhausen (2005)
Domenica 16 settembre 2001 (5 giorni dopo l'attentato alle Torri Gemelle di New York) Karlheinz Stockhausen, il grande compositore tedesco, commentò pubblicamente: "Ciò che è accaduto (attenzione, ora dovrete rivoluzionare il vostro modo di pensare…) è la più grande opera d'arte mai realizzata [...]
Ma vero (2005)
Ma vero dura circa un’ora e un quarto. Lo svolgimento dei fatti sonori vuole produrre esteticamente l’esperienza temporale su cui poggiano, nella vita, le grosse trasformazioni esistenziali [...]
Espressione musicale e letteraria nei miei lavori (2004)
Mi sono impigliato nella musica senza intenzione. Da bambino cercavo un mezzo d’espressione artistica. Recitazione e scrittura mi risucchiavano come crateri [...]
Multifonia (I) (2003)
Lettera a Luca Cartolari
Mi è sempre piaciuto, nella musica di Giacinto Scelsi, quel suono che sembra accadere a causa di forze interne proprie, senza l'intervento “esterno” della mano del compositore, eppure accadendo in maniera così sensata. I compositori contemporanei, anche i più grandi, raramente riescono a insufflare un carattere così fortemente autopoietico nella loro musica [...]
La lamiera d'acciaio e il Sistema HN (2001)
La creazione della Lamiera HN® è il frutto di una naturale evoluzione del Sistema HN®, il mio sistema "corpocentrico" di invenzione e controllo del suono [...]
The HN System®: Hic et Nunc
In 1986, at 17 years of age, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Life expectancy: two years, maybe one. I learnt to live within the pure present. No future, no past, no expectations, no regrets, only the ignition of the moment, a spark struck inside a void that I recognised as the foundation of existence, a foundation that was more authentic and nourishing – so it seemed to me – than the fullness of memory and purpose that had structured my life until that moment.
In truth, long before my illness, I had already started to work on what I called “the nostalgia of the present”, the vital and poignant pleasure of savouring each instant in its unrepeatability, in its perpetual virgin arising and eternal setting; but the prospect of not having prospects made this work even more crucial, more urgent and even more voluptuous and natural, even if at the cost of a harrowing anguish.
Many long weeks later, suspended in the fragrance of eternity, the doctors told me that they had been mistaken. I didn’t have cancer. The new revelation was even more devastating than the previous one. I was condemned to live anew within time that flows, which consumes itself with each passing year, a time within which one must construct existence and not only make it pulsate.
I felt lost in a lacerating dilemma: how to organically unite the two dimensions, the vertigo of the Void and that of Fullness? How to protect them from mutual destruction? I began to look for the answer in music, the focal point of my existence since I was a young boy.
Whatever compositional strategy I developed, however, was missing the vital spark of the present moment, and any improvisational praxis, on the other hand, failed to placate my need for the unrepeatable to come to life systematically. I needed to plunge myself into the centre of a crossroads: organise – and channel onto the written page – as much the intensity of the composition as that of the performative experience. After years of cracking my cranium against the wall that separated the two camps, I managed to tear it down and I found my path: the HN System.
The concept is this: enter into the corporeal and mental act through which the performer creates and controls sound, penetrating deeply into the process, breaking it up into parameters and recomposing it into polyphonic strata, in fact, polyparametric. In this way, performative power becomes compositional architecture.
I formulated an intricate musical system consisting of composition, performance and notation techniques, with the ambition of capturing the mysterious affective resonance of sound. After the first ten years of obstinately mining its possibilities, I gave it the name of ‘HN System’. Structure and the ephemeral. HN, hic et nunc, here and now.
© 2014 Dario Buccino
Il Sistema HN® e la forma canzone
La canzone è un oggetto affettivo, un'entità a cui si vuole bene e, cosa ancora più importante, da cui ci si sente voluti bene. D'altronde si potrebbe dire che tutta la musica è un oggetto affettivo. Diciamo quindi che la canzone è un oggetto affettivo portatile. Può accompagnarci nella vita quotidiana come un anello, come il ricordo di un incendio, come la nebbia profumata o il sole croccante di oggi pomeriggio, come uno slancio nel camminare che ci accende di fiducia, come una poesia che ci riconduce a noi stessi... Niente di più ma, soprattutto, niente di meno.
Come compositore sono votato, in realtà, a forme musicali lontanissime dalla canzone. Anche la concezione più estrema e la prassi più sperimentale, però, mi servono come sonda per andare alla ricerca della risonanza affettiva del suono. Per questo mi è capitato più volte, nel corso degli anni, di confrontarmi con la forma canzone. Credo che nessuno, e certamente non io, possa fare a meno del suo conforto. Che provenga dalla top ten, da un intenso cantautore, da un'arcana ninna-nanna...
Mi definisco "compositore performativo" perché organizzo compositivamente non solo il suono ma anche il processo performativo necessario per metterlo in atto. Il processo performativo è ciò che succede nel corpo e nella mente quando eseguiamo musica, immersi nella nostra sensibilità e creatività. Il corpo pensa. I neurologi parlano di memoria procedurale, di moduli di attività... Chi ha guidato la maestria del musicista quando egli stesso, alla fine di un'esecuzione o un'improvvisazione, riemergendo da un sogno perfetto e insindacabile, non ricorda più che cosa ha fatto? Cosa sa della musica il corpo, che il pensiero non sa di sapere?
Le risposte, anzi, le domande stesse sono infinite e formano l'oggetto della mia ricerca: scavo al loro interno fino a sfinirmi e le traduco in segni scritti sulla pagina, attraverso un codice di simboli grafici che, come si può immaginare, ho dovuto creare appositamente. Questo codice fa parte del Sistema HN®, il sistema musicale che ho elaborato per imbrigliare le forze che si dispiegano nel momento della performance, nel suo hic et nunc, incarnato dall'acronimo "HN". La canzone è, in realtà, un territorio troppo circoscritto per ospitare agevolmente quest'esplorazione, ma offre spunti fecondi, perché è nella natura della canzone, quanto meno nelle sue forme tradizionali, nascere e diffondersi oralmente, cioè performativamente.
Mi rendo conto di sembrare il classico intellettuale che si giustifica per aver scritto delle canzoni e averne addirittura pubblicato un album, "La costrizione della nudità". E in effetti è così! Nei secoli scorsi era del tutto normale attingere alle tradizioni musicali orali, e l'importanza assunta dal Lied (che in tedesco significa canzone, canto, melodia, ballata) nella produzione dei compositori anche intellettualmente estremi, dimostra una compenetrazione tra cultura popolare e cultura alta di cui si è discusso tantissimo negli ultimi cent'anni, rimproverando, a torto o a ragione, ai compositori contemporanei di aver perduto la connessione con la "base".
In questo periodo storico la "base" è perfino difficile da scansare. Il mondo è invaso da canzoni nate in seno ai linguaggi rock, pop, jazz, folk e nella culla di infinite tradizioni più o meno antiche, rese relativamente accessibili dalle moderne ricerche etnomusicologiche, dalle registrazioni fonodiscografiche e, in tempi ancora più recenti, da internet. Forse è proprio per reazione a questa bulimia canterina, o forse per genuina indifferenza, che il compositore colto spesso rifiuta la canzone. Io quest'insofferenza non la sento. Conosco poche forme musicali che permettano di sintetizzare in maniera così organica l'urgenza espressiva musicale e quella letteraria.
Occorre però, credo, creare la propria forma canzone, senza cedere alla compiacenza commerciale e senza rifugiarsi nell'accanimento accademico. Occorre mettersi a nudo, col proprio suono e la propria parola. È in ragione di questa libera costrizione, che non posso fare a meno di scrivere per la mia stessa voce. O forse è a causa della mia natura di compositore performativo. Oppure, più semplicemente, perché cantare mi provoca struggenti attacchi di felicità.
© 2014 Dario Buccino
The song is an affective object, an entity which we love and, even more importantly, by which we feel loved. But then again, we could say that all music is an affective object. We therefore say that the song is a portable affective object. It can accompany us in our everyday life like a ring, or the memory of a great conflagration. Like fragrant fog or the crisp light of this afternoon. Like the spring in our step that ignites us with faith, like a poem that leads us back to ourselves… Nothing more but, above all, nothing less.
As a composer I am consecrated, in fact, to musical forms that are very different from the song form. Even the most extreme conceptions and the most experimental praxis, however, assist me as a probe in my research into the affective resonance of sound. For this reason, I have on many occasions over the years engaged with the song form. I don’t believe that anybody, and certainly not me, can do without its solace, whether it comes from the top ten, a powerful singer-songwriter, an arcane lullaby…
I consider myself a “performative composer” because I compositionally organise not only sound but also the necessary performative process to bring it into effect. The performative process is what takes place in the body and in the mind when we play music, immersed in our sensibility and creativity. The body thinks. Neurologists speak of procedural memory, of action patterns… Who guided the mastery of the musician when he himself, at the end of a performance or improvisation, resurfacing from a perfect and irrevocable dream, no longer remembers what he did? What does the body know of music that thought is not aware of knowing?
The answers – the questions themselves, in fact – are infinite and form the object of my research: I dig into their insides until I wear myself out and I translate them into signs written on the page through a code of graphic symbols which, as can be imagined, I have had to create especially. This code forms part of the HN System®, the musical system that I developed to harness the forces that come into play in the moment of the performance, in its here and now, embodied by the acronym “HN”. The song is, in reality, a territory whose boundaries are too well-defined to easily accommodate this exploration, but it offers fertile starting points, because it is in the nature of the song, at least in its traditional forms, to be born and to be disseminated orally, that is, performatively.
I realise that I resemble the classic intellectual who justifies himself for having written some songs and even gone so far as to bring them out in an album, "La costrizione della nudità". And so it is, as a matter of fact! In past centuries, there was nothing unusual in drawing on traditional oral music, and the importance assumed by the Lied (which in German means “song”, “chant”, “melody”, “ballad”) in the output of even intellectually extreme composers demonstrates interpenetration between popular culture and high culture, which has been much discussed in the last hundred years, reproaching, rightly or wrongly, contemporary composers for having lost connection with the “common ground.”
In the current historical period, the “common ground” is, in reality, even difficult to escape. The world has been invaded by songs born within the language of rock, pop, jazz, folk and within the cradle of infinite and more or less ancient traditions, made relatively accessible by modern ethnomusicological research, phono-discographic recordings and, even more recently, the internet. Maybe it is precisely in reaction to this song “bulimia,” or it may be through genuine indifference, that the educated composer often rejects the song form. I don’t feel this aversion. I know of few musical forms that permit the synthesis of musical and literary expressive urgency in such an organic manner.
However, I believe it is necessary to create one’s own song form, without giving in to commercial complacency and without taking refuge in academic zealotry. We need to strip ourselves bare, with our own sound and word. It is because of this free constriction that I can do no less than write for my own voice. Or maybe it is because of my nature as a performative composer. Or, more simply, because singing arouses poignant attacks of happiness in me.
© 2014 Dario Buccino
NEWS
PAST EVENTS
JUNE 2017
Archiaro 2017 | Ambient and Experimental Music Fest, Albi (CT), Calabria
17 June, 16:00
In the context of ambient and experimental music in this geographically remote but experientially rich festival, I performed Finalmente il tempo è intero nº 3 (2017) for HN Steel Sheet® soloist.
MAY 2017
Teatro Franco Parenti, Milano | Stasera si può entrare Fuori: una piccola folia di Andrée Ruth Shammah
From 23 to 28 May
- 20:00 (participants in the HN Steel Sheet® laboratory)
- 20:30 (general public)
MAY 2017
(Click here for full size video)
I had a wonderful encounter with the children from a middle school in the province of Varese.
Taking the form of a concert-lesson, you can see in the video (with English subtitles!) how I introduced the enthusiastic young audience to the world of the HN Steel Sheet®.
APRIL 2017
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I had the great pleasure of participating in the Milan Fuorisalone 2017 as an exhibitor, composer, and performer. I presented my instrument, the incCubo®, and performed my piece Condemned to Happiness nº 1, a sonic installation and performance for incCubo, HN Steel Sheets® and interactive audience.
The audience, under my direction, became performers of these instruments, the HN Percussion®, and the voices of all the participants joined with the steel sheets' vibrations, uniting us in a tremendous sphere of sound.
The piece was performed four times throughout the evening and the audience reacted with child-like enthusiasm to being invited to interact with the instruments — a pure delight to observe.
FEBRUARY 2017
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Mirko Jevtović premiered Finalmente il tempo è intero nº 1 for accordion and resonating surface (one performer) at the 2017 Impuls Festival in Graz
Having met Mirko this past summer at the Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt, he subsequently commissioned me to write a solo accordion piece. I'm proud to present his stunning performance, the result of such a fertile collaboration.
OCTOBER 2016
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La forza del destino | A musical odyssey by Vinicio Capossela
Vinicio Capossela invited me to co-arrange and perform the Sirens and ocean tempests for his musical odyssey, The Force of Destiny, using the HN Steel Sheet® and percussion. A show which combined Homer, Shakespeare, and Verdi in the spectacular setting of the Teatro Farnese in Parma, this production combined his own songs with arias by Verdi reworked in the visionary 'Caposselian' style. All brought to life in the Baroque-style wooden theatre (which was, appropriately, originally designed to be filled with water and used for simulated naval battles), the result was an intense and unforgettable experience for everyone involved.
Vinicio Capossela, voice and piano
Enrico Lazzarini, double bass
Dario Buccino, HN steel sheet® and percussion
Marco Gianotto, barrel organ
Fabiola Salaris, soprano
Adriano Popolani, tenor
Francesco Coppo, bass
Accademia Corale Stefano Tempia, choir
Stefano Nanni, harmonium, arrangements and conducting
Ermanna Montanari and Marco Martinelli (Teatro delle Albe), choreography and stage direction
TEATRO FARNESE | Parma | 6 October 2016
Production TEATRO REGIO PARMA | In collaboration with BAREZZI FESTIVAL X edition
Commissioned by FESTIVAL VERDI | World premiere
AUGUST 2016
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See again you soon, Darmstadt! This year three compositions of mine from a new cycle were performed by wonderful musicians whose talent, commitment and technique made each performance truly great:
- Il nulla non è neutro n° 4, for slide trombone, performed by Raffaele Marsicano.
- Il nulla non è neutro n° 3, for electric guitar and accordion, performed by Nate Chivers and Mirko Jevtović.
- Il nulla non è neutro n° 8, for cello and piano, performed by Ellen Fallowfield and Lan Cao.
I also gave two lectures in the Open Space:
- HN System®: composing the body
- Thundersheet reimagined: the HN Thundersheet and HN Percussion®
Thanks to all the people who made this Ferienkurse 2016 so bright and special thanks to the performers of my music and to Hannah Whitecreek, Anne Heffner, Krassimir Sterev, Yaron Deutsch, Lucas Fels, Nicolas Hodges and Brian Ferneyhough.
JULY 2016
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I've been working with a theatre company who are wonderful, both as professionals and as people, on a very entertaining as well as touching show. Here's a taste of several reviews of As You Like It by William Shakespeare, produced by the Teatro Stabile di Torino, directed by Leo Muscato and with music composed and performed by yours truly.
"The music, performed live by Dario Buccino on string instruments, is incredibly beautiful: it doesn't envelope you like a pastoral drama full of emotional symphonies would, but instead captivates you, imprinting a rhythm on your very soul, and on that of the actors and the audience."
Matteo Tamborrino, outsidersmusica.it
"Applause for Dario Buccino, who, from a corner of the proscenium, accompanies the action with live guitar music."
Renato Palazzi, Il Sole 24 Ore
"The presence in the proscenium of guitarist Dario Buccino does justice to the intrinsic musicality of 'As You Like It', a comedy which has, not by chance, been defined as 'Mozartian' by [director] Muscato himself."
Manuela Marascio, dietrolequinteonline.it
"...Accompanied by music, this unmissable keystone of the entire show, written and performed by Dario Buccino."
Elio Rabbione, iltorinese.it
After weeks at the Teatro Carignano of Torino and the repeat performances at the Teatro Romano in Verona for the 68th Shakespearian Festival, we're all set for our tour of Italy and China in October!
JANUARY 2016
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Thanks to the collaboration of Zona K, Ma vero was performed once again, the composition for HN Steel Sheet®, voices and clarinet which I wrote for Ensemble HN and which we had performed for ten consecutive years up until 2006.
The performance took place in Zona K, on Via Spalato 11, in Milano, Friday 18th and Saturday 19th of March, 2016.
The theatre was overflowing on both evenings, and your attentive presence carried such vitality that we still feel it with us now.
ENSEMBLE HN
Dario Buccino | HN steel sheet, voice
Marco Crescimanno | HN steel sheet, voice
Renato Gatto | HN steel sheet, voice
Emiliano Turazzi | HN steel sheet, clarinet
The performance of Ma vero requires a large empty space (c.100 sq. metres). An audience of 50 is admitted to each performance, and they sit or lie on cushions and mattresses on the floor encircled by the HN steel sheets. The performance takes place in almost complete darkness, just barely illuminated by a single light source (equal to or weaker than the light of a single candle). The dimensions, the silence, and the darkness of the room are of crucial importance for the success, both acoustic and experiential, of Ma vero. The entire body of the listener becomes involved in the experience of silence and of sound.
"No recording can reproduce satisfactorily that which the performances of Buccino unleash - here and now - in the immediacy of the live dimension: the infinite richness of the spectrum of frequencies and the ways in which they are projected into the acoustic space; the impressive dynamic ranges [...]; the identification of the spectator with the concentration and exertion of the performer, intent upon caressing, embracing, swinging, flexing, contorting, shaking, pummelling the steel sheet with whatever body part and with the most varied techniques; the extremely physical dimension of the experience and the scenic circumstances in which it takes place (barefooted performer in the darkness of the hall, with the audience surrounding and at close quarters); the stupefaction and shaking of the soul which result."
Pietro Misuraca, Curva Minore Contemporary Sounds
The score for Ma vero uses the Sistema HN® system, a musical system based on the parametrisation of the performative process.
HN is the acronym of Hic et Nunc – here and now.
OCTOBER 2015
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I'll also take La Colpa (The Blame). They asked me to play the HN Steel Sheet® on La cisterna, a piece on their album, Mentre guardi alla Germania, and I am happy to have been able to contribute to a project so full of vitality!
JUNE 2015
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Make Music Milan, the Milan Festival of Music, is in its second edition. The festival was conceived in order to bring every kind of musical reality into the city streets, and it is showing just how lively the public's curiosity is even when confronted with music which is far from the mainstream. This year I had the pleasure of playing with the Laboratorio Corale di Milano directed by Susan Lovegrove Graziano, for whom I wrote Il nulla non è neutro n° 1, for HN Steel Sheet® and choir.
SEPTEMBER 2014
"The Composition of Experience (and its Notation) in the Musical-Holistic Art of Dario Buccino"
Lecture by Stefano Lombardi Vallauri
EuroMAC2014 – Eighth European Music Analysis Conference, Leuven, Belgium
ABSTRACT
"Nowadays music is no longer exclusively a performance art: as in the case of electronic music (both experimental and popular), it can also be produced completely by means of technology, without the live bodily action of an instrumentalist. With respect to this aesthetic paradigm, the Italian composer Dario Buccino (Rome, 1968) does exactly the opposite, creating a music which is even hyper-performative, in that it is composed with the same highest pretensions as much in the aspect of the body actions required to make it sound as in the aspect of the sound itself.
To this end he has developed an original notation system, with many graphical ad hoc solutions, where musical symbols are integrated with indications about the proprioceptive attitude and the physical actions of the performer (often kindred to those of experimental theatre, dance, and body art), above all about the experiences to be felt in playing.
In this sense Buccino goes farther along the way of Karlheinz Stockhausen's “intuitive music” (about 1968-70), Dieter Schnebel's Maulwerke (1968-74, in progress), Helmut Lachenmann's “musique concrète instrumentale”, and radicalises an approach which instead is typical of other musical genres (both traditional and popular), where form at all levels arises in composition (often extemporaneous) from the singular physical relationship of the interpreter with her own instrument.
Analysis must cope with all this, first by understanding a peculiar notation system in its own terms, so as to evaluate its pertinence and necessity, also with respect to its historical precedents and analogous cases; then by studying a music which is not only music, but integrates itself in a more general kind of performance art; finally, most importantly, by finding a way to annex to the scientific domain not only the sound and the structure of music, but also the inner experiences of which, in this aesthetically exceptional case, it is truly composed."
Stefano Lombardi Vallauri
SEPTEMBER 2014
"Dario Buccino: per un'etica della percezione"
Lecture by Marco Crescimanno
Festival Nuove Musiche 2014, prod. Teatro Massimo di Palermo, Conservatorio V. Bellini, Università degli Studi of Palermo
ABSTRACT
"Dario Buccino (Rome, 1968) is one of the most interesting figures in the current international panorama of music. Composer, instrumentalist, vocalist, performance artist, theorist, teacher, inventor of musical instruments, with over twenty years of activity based on the integration of music and performance art, he has anticipated the current trends in contemporary music. His works intensify the perceptual and kineasthetic attention of those who play and those who listen, plunging them into the experience of a persistent, intense 'here and now'. Since the early Nineties, Buccino has developed the HN System (acronym of hic et nunc), a musical system based on the compositional organisation of the deepest forces of the performative process. In 1994, he was invited as Guest Composer to the Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt to present his system, defined by Heinz-Klaus Metzger as "a surprising artistic invention", capable of "parametrising pain". The system uses an original notation technique, provided with a coherent semiotic structure - syntactic, semantic, pragmatic - and characterised by the cardinal function of specific physical and experiential parameters. Through the HN System Buccino goes beyond the traditional parameters of sound - pitch, duration, timbre, dynamic - in favour of the structuralization of 'sound facts' conceived of as an inseparable union of acoustic phenomenon and performance process. With his works Buccino has in many ways widened the boundaries of what is 'musicable', combining the radicalism of his research into sound and the physical action which produce it with a constant and undeniable attention to the 'listenable' results of his music, succeeding in creating works of great beauty and expressive power."
Marco Crescimanno
MAY 2014
La costrizione della nudità, 'The Constriction of Nudity', is my first disc dedicated to the song form and produced together with the great Taketo Gohara. The album was selected at the Premio Tenco in the category of “Migliore Opera Prima 2014″ (Best First Work).
It presents the first discographic work in which I have applied the HN System® to the song form, the musical system based on the parametrisation of physical action which, up until now, I had always used in the setting of so-called 'cultured' music.
The disc, which celebrates the twentieth birthday of the HN System, was presented live on June 21st, 2014, in Piazza del Duomo in Milan, during Make Music Milan, the Milan Festival of Music.
Accompanied by the HN Steel Sheet® and seven musicians from the HN Ensemble, I made my personal hommage to the song form, to which I have always felt close as a street musician and collaborating over the years with the artists the likes of Vinicio Capossela, Marco Parente, Stefano Edda Rampoldi, Enrico Gabrielli.
The title of the album, a line from Primo Levi, is connected among other things to the HN Steel Sheet, a naked and raw sheet of steel which, thanks to simple but crucial construction processess, is transformed into a true solo musical instrument.
The following took part in creating the disc: Sebastiano De Gennaro, Stefano Nanni, Mauro “Otto” Ottolini, Alessandro “Asso” Stefana, the Mitici Angioletti children's choir, directed by Mariafrancesca Polli, and the Quartetto EdoDea made up of Edoardo De Angelis, Luca Marziali, Emilio Eria and Alejandro Martinez.
"Sit down and listen to suffering becoming beauty, sound which enchants and overflows, orchestral paths which spin rapidly, filling every corner of the room, your mouth, your thoughts accumulated over days. On this CD there's a refined and determined singer-songwriter who is surrounded by instruments and musicians, who is never alone but draws out lines which combine with others in order to create sonic structures of curated finesse and brimming with details."
Margherita G. Di Fiore, rockit.it (...)
"Composer, performer and street artist Dario Buccino has sowed in the furrows of this debut discography the spores of his twenty years of research and his love for the song form, rewriting the etymology of the singer-songwriter with an experimental grammar of carnal-emotional morphology even before being a new phonographic notation. One can believe that, if this is his debut, Buccino will have no difficulty in raising the level of Italian songwriting."
Nadia Merlo Fiorillo, mescalina.it (...)
"Buccino directs his projects along this narrow railing, bringing to life a story which for many would have gotten out of hand, and with this, 'La Costrizione della Nudità', he creates (and will continue to create) a furrow for those who wish to gather up sonic experimentation into a bouquet of instinctual prose."
Christian Panzano, SENTIREASCOLTARE (...)
"The presence of so many artists listed on this disk is further testimony to the high artistic value of the project. An undeniably complex and courageous work which improves with distance; to be avoided by those looking for tunes to whistle in the shower."
Paolo Bartaletti, laScena.it (...)