Experimental Music Theatre

Η παρούσα δημοσίευση επικεντρώνεται, περιπτωσιολογικά, σε βασικούς σταθμούς της νεοελληνικής μουσικής δημιουργίας του 20ου αιώνα, από τις πλευρές της συνανάγνωσης της ελληνικότητας και του μοντερνισμού, ως ταυτοτικά χαρακτηριστικά σχετιζόμενα με τη δημιουργία, το περιεχόμενο, τα πολιτισμικά και κοινωνικοπολιτικά περιβάλλοντα πρόσληψης, αλλά και τις αισθητικές-ιδεολογικές ετεροαναφορές σε μουσικά έργα άμεσου (ή και πιο έμμεσου) αναπαραστατικού χαρακτήρα. Για την περίοδο πριν το 1950, εξετάζεται η αλλαγή πλεύσης από το ρομαντικό-λαογραφικό ιδεολογικό πλαίσιο της Ελληνικής Εθνικής Σχολής προς τον ιμπρεσιονισμό και τον ατονικό εξπρεσιονισμό, κυρίως μέσα από το έργο του Δημήτρη Μητρόπουλου (όπερα Sœur Béatrice, 1918· 14 Invenzioni για φωνή και πιάνο, 1925), με παράλληλο σχολιασμό της εξέλιξης της έννοιας της ελληνικότητας υπό μοντερνιστική σκοπιά στη χορευτική μουσική του Νίκου Σκαλκώτα στις δεκαετίες του ’30 και ’40. Οι μοναχικές πορείες και των δύο αναδεικνύουν κατευθύνσεις οι οποίες θα αποτελέσουν νέες αφετηρίες για τους Έλληνες συνθέτες μετά το 1950. Στο δεύτερο μέρος της ανακοίνωσης, η νεωτερική ανάγνωση όψεων της Αρχαίας Ελλάδας ως μοντερνιστική αναταυτοποίηση της ελληνικότητας στους εκπροσώπους της πρώτης μεταπολεμικής γενιάς της πρωτοπορίας, κυρίως μέσα από σκηνικές μουσικές επενδύσεις παραστάσεων αρχαίου δράματος, οδηγεί στη διερεύνηση των χειρονομιών, συμβόλων και τυπολογίας ενός ιδιότυπου πειραματικού μουσικού θεάτρου στο έργο του Γιάννη Χρήστου (Η κυρία με τη Στρυχνίνη, 1967 και Αναπαράστασις ΙΙΙ: Ο πιανίστας, 1968) Παραλληλισμοί της μουσικής δημιουργίας με τα ιστορικά και κοινωνικοπολιτικά συγκείμενα της κάθε εποχής ―κατάρρευση του μεγαλοϊδεατισμού και Γενιά του Τριάντα, τέλος του Εμφυλίου και πέρασμα στον Ψυχρό Πόλεμο, Χούντα και Μεταπολίτευση―, αποτελούν επίσης ζητήματα εξέτασης ως προς ζητήματα καθορισμού μουσικών ταυτοτήτων των προσώπων αλλά και ιδεοκεντρικών σημάνσεων των νεοελληνικών μουσικών θεσμών που τα πρόσωπα αυτά εκπροσωπούν.

[English title & summary]
Idenitites: Perspectives of modernism and hellenicity in performing genres and in forms of Greek art music before and after 1950

The present paper is focusing on basic points of Greek art music creation in the 20th century, through selective case studies. A collaborative approach upon hellenicity and modernism leads to reassessment of identities related to music composition, aesthetic content, as well as cultural and socio-political issues of perception in musical works of an immediate (but also intermediate) character of performability. Regarding the first half of the 20th century, I examine the transition from the romantic/folkloric ideological context of the Greek National School of Music towards Impressionism and atonal Expressionism, mainly under the creative output of Dimitri Mitropoulos (opera Sœur Béatrice, 1918-20; 14 Invenzioni to the poetry of C. P. Cavafy, for voice and piano, 1925). A further commentary follows upon the dance element/genre in the music of Nikos Skalkottas during the 1930s and 40s, from a modernist viewpoint. The lonesome prewar creative course of both Mitropoulos and Skalkottas initiated new directions for Greek composers after 1950. In the second part of the present paper, the revisiting of cultural reflections of Ancient Greece as a modernist re-identification context of hellenicity is evident by the composers of the first generation of the Greek postwar musical avant-garde, especially through incidental music for ancient drama productions. A broadening of gestures, symbols, and typology in the form of experimental music theatre characterizes the works of Jani Christou (1926-1970), especially Strychnine Lady (1967) and Anaparastasis III: The Pianist (1968). Parallels of music creation with historic and socio-political facts of the postwar period constitute comparative points of examination as regards issues of defining musical identities of the artistic individuals, as well as issues of ideological identification upon Greek art-music institutions represented by these individuals.

Die Idee eines Nachwuchsforums für Komponisten, Interpreten und Musikologen geht auf eine r9921 in Berlin abgehaltene Mitgliederversammlung der Gesellschaft für Neue Musik zurück. Mit einem derartigen Forum sollte jungen Komponisten, Interpreten und Musikwissenschaftlern nach ihrem Studium eine Brücke in den Beruf geboten werden. Die Zusammenarbeit der Gesellschaft für Neue Musik mit dem Ensemble Modern kam dabei dem Anlicgen der GEMA-Stiftungdem langfristig wichtigsten Sponsor des Ensembles entgegen. mehr in Deutschland lebende Komponisten aufzuführen. Gleichzeitig sollte der aus finanziellem Druck entstehenden Tendenz, zunehmend ein bereits kanonisiertes Repertoire Neuer Musik auf etablierten Festivals und in renommierten Konzerthäusern aufzulühren. entgegengewirkt und der Kontakl des Ensembles mit der weitgehend noch unbekannten jüngsten Komponistengeneration wieder enger geknüpft werden. Nachdem im vergangenen Jahr bereits ein erstes Nachwuchsforum stattfindcn konntc, wurde vom r9. bis 24. Januar dieses Jahres im Haus der Deutschen Ensemble Akadcmie in Frankfurt am Main bereits das zweite veranstaltet. Die Ausschreibung erfolgte wie im Vorjahr von der Gesellschaft für Neuc Musik in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Ensemble Modern, der Zcitschrift Musik-Texte und erstmalig in diesem Jahr auch mit den Neuen Vocalsolisten Stuttgart. Unter dem weitgefaßten Motto ,,Stimminstrumental" waren in Deutschland lcbendc Komponistinnen und Komponisten bis zum Alter von dreiunddreißig Jahren aufgerufcn, Kompositionen für eine Besetzung von maximal zehn Instrumental-und Vokalstimmen. mit oder ohne Elektronik. einzureichen. Ebenso rich

Luciano Berio believed that there is inherently body vocality in sound, whether in vocal music or instrumental music. The corporeality is inscribed in a larger system of bodily meanings, along with the lexicon of gesture.
Such corporeality is reflected in Berio’s stage work Un re in ascolto (composed 1979–1983, first performance 1984) on another level, in which the protagonist Prospero feels his inner self through a singing voice in the theater. Prospero’s consciousness is inseparable from the voice he projects in the dream where he perceives his fear and desire. The perception of voice as body is worth considering along with the
composer’s exploration of music theater—a genre which, according to Berio, does not necessarily produce action but directs the audience’s thinking process. This paper first examines how silence and the patchwork of sounds and voices make up the protagonist’s absent body in Un re in ascolto, which further deconstruct sound and the textualized self that traditionally form the core of a musical discourse. I will then discuss briefly how the idea of »body« functions as the »listening space« which transfers Prospero’s act of listening to the audience’s mind in order to invite them to listen to their unconscious, the »absence« inside them. I conclude that the act of listening in Un re in ascolto echoes Berio and Calvino’s idea of »imaginary theatre« or »dream theater«.

Dante's original and insightful linguistics and poetics have prompted important conversations among scholars, in terms of their anthropological, theological, and philosophical implications. In this article, I reconsider Dante's understanding of language and poetics from the perspective of grammar and music. I bring together the scholarship from these two disciplines to analyze Dante's theoretical and poetical works, and I argue that grammar and music offered Dante two distinct ways to think about language. I trace the relationship between the two disciplines in the 'De Vulgari Eloquentia' first, and in the first cantos of the 'Comedy' (Inf. 1-3), in the second part of this article. Ultimately, I show that a deeper understanding of Dante's grammatical and musical models of linguistic inquiry can shed new light on our comprehension not only of his poetics but also of his ethical and political project.

Režisérsku tvorbu Jiřího Austerlitza, pôvodne Adámka, charakterizuje precízna práca s hudobnou formou. V predstaveniach reflektuje aktuálnu dobu, používa odkazy modernej i východnej filozofie, skúma človeka a jeho existenciu. Na scéne CEDu momentálne režíruje dve inscenácie – konteplatívnu hru „Po celou dobu představení probíhá představení“ v HaDivadle a „Lidé chodí sem a tam“ v spolupráci s platformou Terén. V rozhovore sme rozoberali povahu inscenícií, pričom sme sa zamerali na ticho, priestor a objekty ako ich kľúčové inscenačné prvky.

Dans ce texte je présente un court récit de l’expérience que j’ai eue après avoir suivi l’Atelier de Composition de Jeu Vocal animé par Guy Reibel au Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris (CNSMDP) entre 2017 et 2020. Je profiterai pour évoquer quelques aspects de la notation dessinée développée par Guy Reibel et enseignée par lui dans cet atelier. Pour finir, je présenterai ma pièce vocale ‘Amazônia’, écrite, ou mieux, dessinée en 2019 dans ce même cadre.

Wojtek Blecharz is a Polish composer and theatre director, experimenting with sound and auditory perception. In his theatre projects sound functions not only as the main material of the performance, but also as the subject to a broader aesthetic and philosophical reflection. A key issue for the composer is the auditory perception – Blecharz tries to explore the new ways of experiencing sound, avoiding traditional concert and theatre halls.
What seems to be representative for Wojtek Blecharz's compositions is the need to express music through the body. The issue of corporeality is closely related to both: the performance practice and the process of perceiving sounds, which is a thoroughly somatic process.
The article focusses on the spectator’s experience in Blecharz’s performances. This experience is usually based on active participation and individual sound creation. The composer's aim is to incorporate the viewers into the structure of the performance and to bring them closer to its constituent materials – including the most important one which is sound.
The paper explores various compositional strategies used by Blecharz to intensify the process of perceiving sound and activate the spectator’s body. These methods are related to different spheres of the performance and involve the questions, such as space arranging, using the instruments/voices, testing various models of communication with the audience, creating ‘open’ librettos without a plot, as well as influencing the viewers’ bodies and senses. Some of these tendencies are representative for ‘the new music theatre’ (Salzman, Desi 2018), others draw attention to a very individual, conceptual approach to sound and corporeality, which is especially visible in the performances, such as Transcryptum (2013), Park-Opera (2016) and Body-Opera (2017).

This co-edited, peer-reviewed volume seeks to blend documented history and academic scholarship surrounding the figure of Cathy Berberian with a double focus. On the one hand, this anthology aims to lay bare the legacy of Berberian as a woman performer-composer who had a remarkable vocal range and critical sense of vocality. On the other hand, it seeks to further a critical (and self-reflexive) thinking about contemporary vocality as developed within post-modern culture by such vocalists-composers as La Berberian who continues to inspire current and future vocal artists until this very day.

Missing from standard reference works on Dante's Commedia are separate entries devoted exclusively to dance or dancing. Primary sources for the history of dance in the Italian Trecento derive from tablatures (musical notations), scattered iconographic images, and literary works, such as Boccaccio's Decameron and Dante's Commedia. Representations of dancing in these works invariably double as a symbolic language or meta-commentary on the surrounding narrative. The interpretation of dance's role in late medieval art and literature depends not only on the context but also on the type of dance depicted. This article focuses on the allegorical roles that dance plays in Dante the Pilgrim's salvific otherworldly experience in Purgatory and Paradise, including not only circular dance movements but also the position of the Pilgrim as the center point within a circle in three distinct episodes: Purgatorio 31.104 (with the four nymphs or cardinal virtues) and 31.132 (with the three nymphs or theological virtues) and in Paradiso 13.20-21 (with the twenty-four sapienti or wise men).

Μελετάται το πώς προσεγγίζεται από χαρακτηριστικές αγγλικές, γαλλικές αλλά και ελληνικές μεταφράσεις το στοιχείο του υψηλού σε ένα γνωστό χωρίο περιγραφής νυχτερινού τοπίου της Ιλιάδας (Θ, 555-561). Ιδιαίτερη προσοχή δίνεται στη λειτουργία του στοιχείου του υψηλού σε δύο επίπεδα: ως ομηρικός τρόπος θεώρησης της φύσης και ως χαρακτηριστικό της ομηρικής γλώσσας. Στο τελευταίο μέρος του άρθρου (σσ. 15-18) σχολιάζεται θεωρητικά η σχέση μεταξύ πρωτοτύπου και μεταφράσεων: η μεταφραστική διαφορά απηχεί την εν πολλοίς άμορφη ιδεατή υπόσταση του κλασικού κειμένου στον ανοιχτό ιστορικό της βίο.

Th e creative act is a complex and elusive enigma. Shrouded in mystery, large ly misunderstood, many attempts have been made to describe, analyze, and define it in an effort to explain the inexplicable. The preceding four volumes of Arcana have presented the voices of 125 creative minds discussing the processes, thinking patterns, idiosyncratic techniques and breakthrough methods involved in the magical act of making music. Ranging from peda gogy and magic squares to extended techniques, chord voicings, advanced technologies, surrealist games, esoteric research, ethnomusicology, dream diaries, structural analysis, acoustics and more, the essays and manifestos included within those tomes help provide clues to how musicians think about their work, the world, and that which they love most-music.

This paper was published in two installments of a series of fascicles on the twenty-century music issued in the late 1960s. In spite of the popular target of the series the author tried to find a definition of terms debatable, such as 'action music', as acceptable by the specialists as accessible to the general public,  so as to find a way equally plain and correct to explain the development of avant-garde composers working in Europe and the States from  'action music' to 'music theater.' It is to be noted that the pages uploaded here are limited to the main text of the above fascicles, which – apart from full-page photos of composers, performers,  and scores – included  also a guide for the listener of the vynils inserted in each of them).

A shortened German version of the paper ‘Il trucco delle due scarpe’ uploaded  on this page  which was published  in  a  booklet of the 1985 Wiener Festwochen  This version may be of some interest also for  readers who don’t speak  German since the text is interpolated by  photos of an Italian  performance of Battistelli’s 'Experimentun  mundi.'

This is part of the introduction to the new french edition of Dieter Schnebel's writings. I speak particularly of the papers and interviews concerning the work with traditions by Schnebel : "Missa", "Sinfonie X" and "Revisionen". The two interviews were realised by Klaus Angermann and the conductor Michael Gielen.

Ausgehend von Auffuhrungen von Werken Ligetis und Kurtags an ungewohnlichen Orten (dem Berliner Hauptbahnhof, dem Jüdischen Museum Berlin) wird der spezifischen Materialitat ihrer Aufführungen nach- gegangen. Mit Walter Benjamins geschichtsphilosophischen Überlegungen und einer Entwicklung von D.W. Winnicotts Konzept des Übergangsraums werden Ansätze der Werk- und Aufführungsästhetik in eine neue Konstellation gebracht. Die Aufführung wird so als transitorisches Objekt in einem transitorischen Raum fokussiert. Dazu wird das Moment des Spiels in der Kunst prononciert und sein kritisches Potential herausgearbeitet, das sich in den Kompositionen Ligetis und Kurtags und ihren Aufführungen als Groteskes wie Poetisches äußert. Dargestellt wird, wie sich diese Momente sowohl in den Zwischenräumen des Berliner Hauptbahnhofs wie auch des Jüdischen Museums aktualisierten und die Gewissheiten des Alltäglichen mit ästhetischen Mitteln kritisch herausforderten.

New music theatre has long been considered a mixed form that hovers between genres. Often, this liminality has been defined in terms of other musical and dramatic practices. Eric Salzman and Thomas Desi, for instance, invoke several existing musical types, explaining that "contemporary opera, music theater in its various forms, and the modern musical coexist on a continuum and the lines between them are often blurred" (Salzman and Desi 2008: 6).

Sekundenschlaf -eine Radiowellen-Navigation (2015) »Du da -im Radio du musst ja ziemlich klein sein. Du da -im Radio wie passt du denn da rein?« 1 it der Entstehung der Praxis des sogenannten »Neuen Hörspiels« seit den 1960er Jahren, die der Kunstform des nunmehr »alten« Hörspiels durch den Versuch, »produktive Verbindungen herzustellen […] mit anderen künstlerischen Ausdrucksformen unserer Zeit« einen Ausweg aus der literarischen und dramatischen Textbezogenheit wies und das Hörspiel »durch Offenhalten -nicht durch Ausgrenzung -[…] als akustische Kunst zu konstituieren« vermochte, 2 fanden Tendenzen der experimentellen Musikalisierung und Theatralisierung Einzug in die radiophone Kunstform -die ironischerweise noch bis in die 1960er Jahre, als originäre Kunstform des Radios, die dessen mediale »Stellvertreterfunktion« als reines Übertragungsmedium »fremder« Kunstgattungen aufhob, vehement durch Hörspieltheoretiker vom Theater abgegrenzt wurde. 3 Der Unterschied zu anfänglichen Berührungspunkten des Hörfunks mit dem Theater liegt laut Peter Seibert darin, dass der Versuch, »Bühne und damit Visualität und Körperlichkeit zurück zu gewinnen, […] nicht mehr im Sinne einer Pluri-oder Multimedialität [geschieht], […] sondern als Hybridisierungsexperiment, das die theatralen Zeichen in neuen medialen Konfigurationen und ästhetischen Verfahrensweisen durchspielt«. 4 Diese medialen Hybridisierungsprozesse erfolgen heute, so Petra Maria Meyer, in alle denkbaren Richtungen:

The recent loss of composer Robert Ashley (1930–2014) prompted in some of us a grab-bag of reflections – private but perhaps peculiarly shareable. My first encounter with Ashley's music was when I was working in college radio in Chicago. We used to receive CDs from the label Lovely Music Ltd., among others. I suppose it was my first full-blown exposure to what we now call post-minimalist music, although these CDs did include earlier sound-art minimalism such as Alvin Lucier's. I'm not sure whether I got to hear William Duckworth's, Joan LaBarbara's, David Behrman's, Robert Ashley's, or ‘Blue’ Gene Tyranny's music first, but despite some scepticism, I did find all of this music strangely attractive in ways I didn't expect.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S004029821600070X

(Previously published version of the article: 
https://www.academia.edu/12166638/Crash_and_getting_me_started_How_Robert_Ashley_changed_my_mind)

The PhD thesis "INCIPIT: The search for a multidisciplinary language at the crossroads of Antiquity and Contemporaneity" focusses on the influence of the methodology of Historically Informed Performance practice on the creation of a Contemporary Music Theatre performance. The framework and creative basis for their connection is the "Divina Commedia" of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). In music theatre it is not only about music as one of the scenic elements; musical thinking structures the entire theatrical process. It is a genre-between-genre, where various art disciplines interact. Historically Informed Performance practice is a characteristic musical approach of the Early Music movement. It includes study of historical documents and objects in order to obtain a more profound understanding of the music and a performance practice which is based upon this comprehension. In our thesis, Historically Informed Performance practice has been connected with Contemporary Music Theatre through a mise-en-scene of Dante's Commedia, principally based upon its sonorous non-musical and musical references. Also references of movement, gesture, colour and light were taken into account for the mise-en-scene, but always in relation to the sonorous references. In this way, the mise-en-scene is a sonorous journey through Dante's Afterworld as he might have imagined it, but also a contemporary visual and dramatical journey.

This research has been done through artistic practice: the creation and performance of a contemporary music theatre work called Incipit. It is based upon thorough knowledge of the Commedia and, through its methodology of Historically Informed Performance Practice, it has mostly made used of 14th century musical sources. An audio file was created as a sonorous element for Incipit, based on previously existing sounds and recording of songs and texts.The performance was recorded in video format. The research question was:

How do the work methods taken from Historically Informed Performance practice contribute to the creation of a contemporary music theatre performance in a mise-en-scene of the Divina Commedia?
For this practice-based research not only historical-musical knowledge was necessary but also literary knowledge of Dante's Commedia and its underlying meanings. Theoretical knowledge thus was an important basis for the practice. However, the practice itself also provided information for the theory. For the composition of three-voice “simple polyphony” according to the rules for polyphonic improvisation around 1300, theoretical knowledge was essential, but their practice led to historical-musical insights of its performance and its rules for intervallic and rhythmic matters. The practice provided a new perspective on Dante's narrative from a sonorous point of view.

Finally, the practice combined two disciplines, Early Music and Contemporary Music Theatre, which are not commonly combined, and it provides us with new theoretical insights of creative processes and musical-theatrical languages.

Οι ιδεολογικές και προγραμματικές παλινωδίες που χαρακτηρίζουν την πρόσφατη ιστορία του κρατικού μας λυρικού θεάτρου, της Εθνικής Λυρικής Σκηνής, δεν αποτελούν τυχαία γεγονότα, ούτε έχουν να κάνουν αποκλειστικά με τα πρόσωπα που εμπλέκονται στις διάφορες διοικητικές και καλλιτεχνικές θέσεις. Αντιθέτως, φανερώνουν ξεκάθαρα τη γενικότερη αμηχανία που χαρακτηρίζει την ελληνική κοινωνία σχετικά με τη φύση και τον πραγματικό κοινωνικό ρόλο του είδους της όπερας και των συγγενών της μορφών. Τι χρειάζεται, στ’ αλήθεια, η όπερα στη σύγχρονη Ελλάδα; Το ερώτημα, δυστυχώς, δεν απαντάται ούτε από το δεσπόζον ρεύμα της καθιερωμένης τρέχουσας κριτικής, που εστιάζει συνήθως στα προβλήματα και τις ελλείψεις της επικαιρότητας του λυρικού μας θεάτρου, χωρίς να εστιάζει στην οντολογία του ίδιου του είδους και την πραγματική σχέση του με τη νεοελληνική κοινή συνείδηση. Το κείμενο εντοπίζει ως βασικές αιτίες για την εν λόγω αμηχανία (α) την επικράτηση της ιδεολογίας του «γνώστη» ως κατεξοχήν φορέα και καταναλωτή του λυρικού θεάτρου και (β) τη συνακόλουθη αποπολιτικοποίηση του είδους. Ως, δε, πιθανή λύση προτείνει μια ριζική επαναπολιτικοποίηση της όπερας και της λυρικής φωνής και την επαναδιεκδίκησή τους ως ριζοσπαστικά εργαλεία για το εδώ και το τώρα. Το άρθρο κλείνει με μια σύντομη απαρίθμηση εξωθεσμικών λυρικών παραστάσεων με ερευνητική διάθεση που έλαβαν χώρα στην Αθήνα κατά την τελευταία δεκαετία.

In her close professional relationship to composers, such as Luciano Berio, John Cage, Hans Werner Henze, Igor Stravinsky and Sylvano Bussotti, Cathy Berberian has productively tainted historical preconceptions about the authorial “work” and the role of the singer in the realization of the composer’s creation. Her flamboyant character on the concert stage, where she showcased her more popular work, captured the public’s imagination. The success of this performer–audience rapport was intrinsic to the singer’s performative persona; however Pieter Verstraete argues that through her own composed work ("Stripsody" is the best known), Berberian presented a myriad of personas. She achieved this primarily by deconstructing her own voice as instrument and object, thereby subverting the stability of her relationship to the authorial power of the musical score. Consequently, Berberian’s work invites us to rethink the authorial position of the composer in relation to the singer/performer as well as the enhanced position of the listener whose function it is to imagine such personas in relation to seeing and hearing the performer’s singing body over a number of changing instances.

Named after Bergson’s homonymous essay, Maderna’s electronic piece of 1962, Le rire, has up until now filed away as part of the early Italian efforts in electronic music (such as Berio’s Visage, of 1961), with which it shares a deconstructionist approach to the spoken word and sound of the human voice. Yet its relationship to laughter is, despite the title, far from obvious. Certainly the piece makes virtually no use of the sound of laughter, nor has it any claim to comedy. The title speaks to the connection to Bergson—which is self-consciously marked in the keeping of the original French title of his essay on laughter of 1900. Indeed, the title was suggested by one of the leading music scholars of the time, and friend of Maderna, Luigi Rognoni; Rognoni remarked on the structural similarity between the composition as a whole and Bergson’s definition of laughter as ‘something mechanical superimposed on the living’. Coming from Rognoni, a scholar of the Second Viennese School, the reference to early twentieth-century is not an isolated anecdote but a reaching out to pre-fascist mittel-Europe typical of Italy in the post-war years, a gesture mirrored in Maderna’s own allegiance not only to the twelve-tone method but to the poetic impulse of Viennese modernism. More interestingly still, Rognoni’s remark contains a fundamental, telling misreading of Bergson, for whom the inelasticity or involuntary reflexes of a living body constitute the laughable, but not laughter itself. By associating, via the sonic image of laughter, Maderna’s music with the mechanical distortion of the organic, Rognoni is appealing to the imagery that had clung to the twelve-tone method since at least Mann’s Doktor Faustus. In this paper, I will ground Maderna’s Le rire in the context of the intellectual and musical avant-garde in Italy to appropriate the poetic lineage of Austro-German modernism and the latter’s relationship to enlightenment ideals, in an attempt to come to terms with its own missing enlightenment and its legacy of failed linguistic and political unity.

Ede Terényi had come across the poetical work La Divina Commedia for the first time at the beginning of the 1970's. As it was a turning point in his life as well, the work of Dante had a very sensitive influence in his own life as along thirty years of his life, the composer came back thorough his creations to this subject. His impressions were transposed both in a colour visual form -by creating a series of twenty-five pictures that were entitled Dantesca, and also in a musical sonorous form by composing the mono-opera La Divina Commedia. Not only this musical work but also many other musical works from the 1971-2004 have the print of the work of Dante. This study has the short and the analytical presentation of the mono-opera La Divina Commedia by the mirroring of the pictures in the series Dantesca that were signed by the composer.