Sonic Invention and the “Dialectics of Liberation”: Free Improvisation in Europe around 1968
Gianmario Borio
Professor of Musicology at the University of Pavia and director of the Institute of Music at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice
Abstract:
This lecture is focused on the most influential improvisation groups of the European composers’ scene: Nuova Consonanza, AMM, Musica Elettronica Viva and New Phonic Art. Their activity was quintessential for the concept of a total improvisation. In each group, one or more of the members were composers with a training in the field of Western art music: Mario Bertoncini studied with Goffredo Petrassi; Cornelius Cardew with Karlheinz Stockhausen; Alvin Curran with Elliott Carter, Franco Evangelisti with Harald Genzmer, Vinko Globokar with René Leibowitz, Frederic Rzewski with Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt. Before beginning with improvisation, these composers wrote scores in traditional notation mostly dealing with serial techniques. Turning to collective improvisation meant a radical change for their career.
These four ensembles have further aspects in common: 1. The intention of turning upside down musical communication via the refusal of materials and instrumental techniques used since then; 2. The occasional or continuous participation of musicians from the jazz scene (Michel Portal, Jean-François Jenny Clark, Steve Lacy, Keith Rowe); 3. The link to the protest movements around 1968. These convergent elements will be discussed along with the specific features of each group in terms of the materials, playing techniques and formal articulation of the performances.
Biography:
Gianmario Borio is professor of Musicology at the University of Pavia and director of the Institute of Music at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice. In 1999 he was awarded the Dent Medal by the Royal Musical Association. In 2013 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor at The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America. Since 2013 he is member of the Academia Europaea, since 2016 corresponding member of the American Musicological Society, and since 2019 corresponding fellow of the British Academy. He is the director of the book series Musical Cultures of the Twentieth Century (Routledge, London) and the on line-journal Archival Notes. His publications deal with several aspects of twentieth-century’s music (theory and aesthetics, political context, audiovisual experience) as well as with the history of musical concepts and the theory of musical form.