Self-analysis by Gerardo Gandini in his Writings

Abstract

The relation between concert music and language becomes particularly visible in the titles of the works which, even though they ascribe to the ancient taxonomy of genres, establish an irreducible foundation of meaning. The works’ commentary extends that inscription of literacy. However, when the writings make a more technical reference to compositional procedures, a restitution is produced, in which language turns to music under the regime of a seeming referential transparency. Scattered in concerts programs, disc booklets, articles or public presentations,interviews in newspapers, and even in the scores themselves, the references of Gerardo Gandini to his own music form a fragmentary corpus in which some constants can be read: exposition of texts' sources or of borrowed materials, procedures or formal devices employed, circumstances of the composition. The article presents a description of this textual corpus along with a consideration of the discursive modalities of the composer’s self-analysis.