Edizioni Conz

Walter Marchetti, De musicorum infelicitate, 2001, Audio CD + fold-out poster, 12.5 × 14 cm

Courtesy of Archivio Conz, Berlin

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After two CDs previously issued for Alga Marghen (Antibarbarus in 1998 and Nei Mari del Sud in 1999) these "Ten Pieces in the Form of Painful Variations" dispose in their unceasing and implacable sequence the landing at an anaphorical finis terrae, the extreme and impassable threshold, beyond which music can but sink in the abyss of its own loss of consciousness, in front of the horizon of the definitive loss of its exhausted tradition. As Gabriele Bonomo, the project coordinator of the complete Walter Machetti editions for Alga Marghen, remarks in the liner-notes, music has been reduced to leading a ghostly existence, haunting the cemetery of history and frustrated by the impossibility to adhere to itself; if only music were able to recognize its own superfluity it could fulfill its destiny. While listening to these "Ten Pieces in the Form of Painful Variations," each one with the precise duration of six minutes, you will realize that music, this extremely dense sonority close to the pulverization limit, is talking about itself. Packaged in Digipak with fold-out poster.

Audio CD + fold-out poster
12.5 × 14 cm
(4 ⅞ × 5 ½ inches)
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Walter Marchetti is an Italian avant-garde musician and composer. Departing from serial music, passing through the aleatoric musical precepts of David Tudor and John Cage, he is considered a pioneer of concrete music. He initially took courses with Bruno Maderna in Milan, later participating in the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt. While in Milan, he met Juan Hidalgo. The two would later move to Madrid, where they founded the Zaj Group in 1964. Distinguished for its minimalism, the composition booklet Arpocrate seduto sul loto (1968) became the central reference for the series of editions published by Edizioni Conz in 1983. Informed also by participatory events of Fluxus, Marchetti’s performances are characterized by airy erratic tunes and visual dynamic elements. Regarded by Robert Ashley as one of the most beautiful piano pieces ever made, Natura Morta (1979–80) is a composition presented for a grand piano covered with fruit and vegetables and is notable for its quiet but steady tones. Returning to Milan in 1973 after Zaj’s extensive American tour, in the following years Marchetti performed in important Italian theaters such as the Teatro Porta Romana in Milan and the Teatro Olímpico in Vicenza, and internationally in Tokyo, Paris, Kassel, Munich, Wiesbaden, and the United States.

Artworks (11)