The Composition of Experience in the Musical-Holistic Art of Dario Buccino

Abstract

Nowadays music is no longer exclusively a performative art: as in the case of electronic music, 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 type of music which is even hyper-performative, in that it increases the requirements regarding the performing subject's awareness and free intentionality to the highest degree, and minimizes (human) automaticity. To this end, he has developed an original notation system (with many graphical ad hoc solutions), in which musical symbols are integrated with indications about the performer’s proprioceptive attitude and physical actions (which are often akin to those in experimental theatre, dance, and body art), and above all with many indications about the experiences one has to have while playing. Buccino goes beyond the approaches of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “intuitive music” (circa 1968-70), Dieter Schnebel's Maulwerke (1968-74), Helmut Lachenmann’s “musique concrète instrumentale”, and Brian Ferneyhough’s extreme demand for effort. He radicalises an approach which is instead typical of other musical genres, where at every level form arises in composition (often extemporaneous) from the singular physical relationship between the interpreter and his or her instrument.