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Paolo Piccirilli’s opinion
In confidence and for other reasons
He who thinks that “the author” exists is greatly
mistaken. The author doesn’t exist. He doesn’t exist just as the “father"
of one’s own children doesn’t exist. As a matter of fact, a composer (an
author of Music) is none other than a manipulator of notes that have
already been written; working on a composition is something the composer
does for himself and not for others. However, such a composition, in the
end, is a creation of an ensemble of sounds that’s destined for the use of
many. The composer is not contemporary to the events nor to the
characters similar to him: in his non-existence, time nor space exist.
One of the greatest composers in the History of Music, Johann Sebastian
Bach, knew very well that he wasn’t anyone’s contemporary.
Consequently, the teacher, the singer songwriter who’s
“busy composing for others” isn’t, nor ever will be, defined as a
musician, meaning a “composer and Music Master".
In fact, the big difference between the teacher and
Master is that the first teaches you things that he knows or has studied
from books, as if he were a book to consult, or better yet, a parasitical
deposit of historical events. From the Master, instead, one can learn
things unknown to him, that he knows nothing about; his manner of not
knowing is very specific.
We know, however, that many who qualify as musicians
are famous people thanks to many factors: means of information managed by
friends of friends, promotional advertising, the market, and critics who,
in most cases, flatten and promote, not mustering up the courage to tell
the truth, indeed, to tell the truth.
The truth , in fact, should always be said; even when you want to
deceive someone, you have to say the truth.
When it comes to Art , there is no alternative nor any way out: an
artistic creation is either beautiful or it isn’t. Anyone in the world,
be it in the past, in the present
or in the future who goes to visit
Michelangelo’s “Pietà” in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, is not
able and will never be able to say that it’s ugly. We all agree on this,
but if a proclaimed artist were to sculpt
or paint or write an ugly work of
art and a group of critics admire it greatly and write ten thousand pages
full of those idiotic sentences like “here the artist wanted to give
sense to, etc.” “here, the artist was influenced by…” “that is
reminiscent of…”, tell me who would have the courage to say that the work
of art in question is indeed disgusting. Nobody! This is the reason why,
in democracies, societies of masses are continually deceived and
falsehood prevails over the truth. It’s obvious, though, that I can’t
express an opinion on myself and on my music; I’ll wait for yours.
Personally, besides a few publications, I have never
been put to the test by those people who exercise power in the recording
industry; I have never been commissioned to do anything and this doesn’t
worry me at all; I certainly do get a little annoyed when I listen to
music and to songs on T.V.
that are trite , for example, keeping in mind
that there are fortunate people who devote a lifetime only to making
Music and who produce frivolous pieces of work.
Changing channels easily corrects the situation; I sigh whenever I
happen to listen to bad Music, but I repeat, it’s a nuisance similar to
that of having a fly roaming around your room during the summer.
I’ll now speak briefly, without wandering off anymore
-even though I love doing so- about the more than ten year collaboration I
have with Pasquale Panella, theatrical writer and a genius of the written
word and with whom I’ve never counted nor enumerated any of the pieces of
Music, and I stress the words pieces/passages, not songs, that we
composed together. It may not be interesting to delineate how those
pieces came about, but I would like to explain it to you; the lyrics
would appear on a blank sheet of paper in a jiffy, and I would instantly
provide the Music to them. At times, the reverse would happen. That’s it!
Finally, I would like to dedicate some last words to another of my
musician friends, who’s both a composer, and a guitarist with a vast
repertoire. I don’t like the word dedication; let’s just call it fondness
for his Music. I detest those books and other works, for example, that
express a lot of the “Dedicated to…”. I invite you all to be suspicious
of those works in which a dedication (metaphorical ceremonious
consecration) to someone is printed in brazen form on its first few
pages. When you read
“ In honour of …”, when
you find “In memory of…”, when you consecrate, offer, nominate, you
dedicate, yes, you dedicate. The ideal, therefore, is to not partecipate
in this kind of ritual, ever. When it comes to books and works, in
general, but especially with books, the dedication has a sense and it
gives sense to the entire book; it’s this very thing that’s problematic:
things that make sense don’t have artistic value. Sense, and, worse yet,
good sense, are enemies of Art.
It often happens ( and I have to say with pleasure)
that I find myself in a bookstore skimming through new books that appear
to be interesting – and the same goes for some good CD’s- Once I find the
dedication on the first page, it’s great being able to say, “ I won’t buy it,
I won’t read it because I don’t like it”. Oh! For goodness sake!” I don’t
have it in for anybody, but I smile and I’m amused whenever I find, for
example, dedications such as “ To my mother, or To my daughters Tamara
and Susanna” or still yet, To my big brother, my friend for life;
wouldn’t it be better to say “ To the reader or to the listener”?
There are certainly some exceptions, take for instance, Giuseppe
Verdi’s magnificent Requiem; his descendants, or whom, I don’t
know, say that it was written upon the death of the great literary
writer, Manzoni. I incorrectly call this an exception, though, because
Music, alike Literature, has a partiality to death as an inevitable and
irreplaceable figure of speech.
What I’m about to do with these WEB pages, therefore,
is not write a dedication, but rather publicly declare my fondness for
Gianfranco Molle’s Music. Gianfranco is a guitarist and a composer of
pieces of work known only to a few, but of extraordinary simplicity and
beauty. He plays Blues and Country in fervent style, plucking the guitar
as if it were a harp, mostly with the fingers of his right hand and
seldomly with a pick. His kind of style of playing is similar to that of
James Taylor, an American musician known all over the world. Up until
now, Gianfranco has not had any luck and he hasn’t lent himself to any
power games; let’s say that, like me, he also lives in a town – and what
some dreamer insists on calling a city:- the town is desolate, a place
that although located only a couple of hundred kilometres from Rome,
doesn’t offer anything.
Gianfranco has travelled throughout Europe with his
guitar and his songs. I have often accompanied him. I’ve played with him
and with a group he had back then. I tell you that wherever he went, he
received praise and was popular amongst the public.
The name Gianfranco Molle is very well known in the
world of Esperantists and the majority of those concerts took place in
the Eighties and onward during meetings and conferences held by the young
from all over the world who speak Esperanto.
He’s certainly a Character, as you could well admire
in the picture here below.
What I’m going to write about now, however, and which
I shouldn’t be thinking in the least, is that I don’t really know if I
should be grateful to him or to blame him, or both, for having created,
taken care of and managed the site you’re now browsing through (he still
does this today because he’s, amongst other things, an expert in
Computer Science), and for having pushed me, let’s say, to the verge of
ruin in the world of the Internet where real death and virtual death
coincide.
Paolo Piccirilli |
