Re: Mario Bertoncini

This is very sad news Andrew. Thanks for sharing it here and for your=20
beautiful text.

I did not know Mario in person, but in 2012 when I asked him to write a=20
small dedication for a John Cage project, he kindly accepted and while=20
talking over the phone with him about John among other things, it=20
clearly emerged the aura of a great personality.
He was a great pianist, he loved poetry (he would frequently cite poets=20
of all times) and he liked to write some of his books as a dialog=20
between pupils and teachers, all of whom reflected him in a different way=
=2E
I have never been to his house in Cetona near Siena, but I've got the=20
feeling it must have been a Leonardo Da Vinci studio, if Leonardo had=20
had interest in music.
In our last contact, he sounded genuinely thrilled as a young person=20
could be, about his upcoming installation of a giant aeolian harp in=20
Venice, on top of Borges' labyrinth of Fondazione Cini. He was really=20
excited about the project and all the matters it entailed.
This reminds me of his huge project he envisioned for a valley near=20
Cetona with multiple aeolian harps placed in a natural amphitheater of=20
rock. You can find it on his site, which opens with a Cage quotation:

http://www.mariobertoncini.com/

Finally, I'd like to share his memory of Cage he wrote for the issue of=20
the magazine I published in 2012 to celebrate John's 100th birthday.
Mario sent it in Italian, but I had to translate it in English too and=20
he approved my rendition:

1968, a year with a frown and deprived of eros in which even=20
mystification seemed necessary, did not stimulate to construct aeolian=20
harps. It was at this time that I started to work on Cage=E2=80=99s Cartr=
idge=20
Music: one of the less studied but most valid works of the composer, the =

first piece to free music from secular prejudices.
By finding el Levante por el Poniente for the sake of Cage, I stumbled=20
upon the Abruzzese guitar, a loom whose metal wires cut a pasta also=20
loved by the fans of the New =E2=80=93 nostalgic and gentle =E2=80=93 for=
getful of the=20
ancient rags, of the ancient discipline.
In the hunt for sounds not audible otherwise (Cage), I subjected the=20
object to electronic vexations unknown to the Abruzzesi housewives and=20
unable to offer me an =E2=80=98Auditorium-like=E2=80=99 sonority.
One day =E2=80=93 for Ossian? For Goethe? - for sure homaging Cage, I exp=
osed=20
the object to the wind, on the balcony. An extraordinary emotion: thanks =

to an exaggerated amplification, I really obtained the first aeolian=20
sounds of the New Music.
(Mario Bertoncini)


Stefano


On 1/20/2019 7:57 PM, AHF wrote:
> Mario Bertoncini died early yesterday, January 19, in Siena, Italy.
>
> Mario was hugely influential to my music, introducing me and my classma=
tes at McGill in 1975 to the idea of music design =E2=80=94 essentially, =
if you really want to make new music, why start with existing instruments=
? =E2=80=94 make them. But then, even the idea of =E2=80=9Cinstrument=E2=80=
=9D falls short, for once you have devised and built something entirely n=
ew to make music with, where does the discovery end and the composition s=
tart? Should they even be different things? We eventually substituted for=
 =E2=80=9Cinstrument=E2=80=9D the words =E2=80=9Csound source=E2=80=9D, w=
hich sat better with =E2=80=9Cmusic design=E2=80=9D =E2=80=94  idea, desi=
gn, construction, discovery (through a kind of pure improvisation), and p=
erformance all being the same composition, having one name. (These sound =
sources were not a =E2=80=9Ctool=E2=80=9D for sounding something else.)
>
> Mario=E2=80=99s sound sources are beautiful to look at. He could quote =
Dante in the original endlessly. His performances of Chopin and of Terry =
Riley=E2=80=99s Keyboard Studies amazed.
>
> If you know of him, it might be through his being in Gruppo di Improvvi=
sazione Nuova Consonanza.
>
> There is another thing to tell you about Mario: he developed a method f=
or teaching improvisation, to which I was exposed, also in 1975. Since at=
 the beginning of that semester we students had not yet built anything, a=
nd we were scheduled to meet regularly anyway, and Mario had to do someth=
ing with us, he taught us how to improvise. It was a skill we would need =
once we had something ready to play. First, he would rant on, passionatel=
y and effusively poetically, about all that was wrong with =E2=80=9Cthe o=
fficial avant-garde=E2=80=9D =E2=80=94 the predictable gestures, the anno=
ying conceits of dynamics and form, the pitch-centricity, the yearning fo=
r newness battered by the desire to impress, the hierarchy of leaders (di=
vided by nationalities and sorted by fame), etc. etc. Then, once we were =
terrified, he would demand that we start playing. No further instructions=
 (no father instructions). Each time we did, he would stand by until some=
one in the room did something, anything, that offended his sensibilities.=
 =E2=80=9CSTOP THAT SHIT.=E2=80=9D =E2=80=9CYou crush my soul.=E2=80=9D =E2=
=80=9CMust we hear that again? Hasn=E2=80=99t the official avant-garde al=
ready done that enough that even my dead grandmother would recognizes it=E2=
=80=9D (These are not exact quotes, but you get the idea.) The first try =
we lasted maybe 3 seconds before Mario saved us from ourselves. Little by=
 little, we would survive longer and longer. Because of his unswerving vi=
gilance, we never played a bad note (other the the last one, the one that=
 caused him to immediately capture and snuff out the horror). By term's e=
nd, we might even pull off an acceptable 14 minutes of improvisation with=
out intervention. I do recall at least once reaching our own ending. Not =
bad, considering there were about 15 classically trained young hotheads i=
n the room who initially barely knew one another.
>
> Mario was a huge soul, a huge artist, a mentor, a friend.
>
> Andrew Culver
>
>


--=20

Stefano

"Like a pizza in the rain, no one wants to take you home, but I love you =
just the same."