Pierluigi Billone: Mani.Long (2001)

performed by the Klangforum Wien:

Anette Bik, Gunde Jäch-Micko: violin

Andreas Eberle: trombone

Markus Deuter: oboe, English horn

Lorelei Dowling: bassoon

Sasa Dragovic: trumpet

Uli Fussenegger: double bass

Martin Homann, Pascal Pons, Adam Weisman: percussion

Benedikt Leitner, Andreas Lindenbaum: cello

Ernesto Molinari: bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet

Florian Mueller: piano, celesta

Dimitrios Polisoidis: viola

Gerald Preinfalk: alto saxophone

Christoph Walder: horn

Bernhard Zachhuber: bass clarinet
Conducted by Johannes Kalitzke

Most of Billone's works that I've heard until now (the most recent being the 70-minute long "1+1=1" for two bass clarinets from 2006, released on the KAIROS label) strike me as very intense and graphic affairs with strong visual qualities. Even the extremely fierce and violent sound-sculpting in "Iti Ke Mi" for viola solo (1995) retains an aura of archaic beauty that draws the listener into the sounds. This music reminds me very much of Morton Feldman's notion of sounds having lifes of their own, and a main task of the composer is letting the sounds be themselves and not disturbing them. For me, this also applies to the more stretched-out and landscapey "Mani.Long".H.C.E.

"Mani.Long", by Pierluigi Billone (who was born in 1960 and studied with, amongst others, Helmut Lachenmann), is a 45 minute piece for 18 piece ensemble, which, like his earlier "Mani.Giacometti", references sculpture - in this case that of Bristol's Richard Long, whose work often consists of arranging whatever he finds on long, lonely walks into simple linear forms.

Long's observations on his work are worth quoting: "[..] My first work made by walking, in 1967, was a straight line in a grass field, which was also my own path, going 'nowhere'. Walking also enabled me to extend the boundaries of sculpture, which now had the potential to be de-constructed in the space and time of walking long distances. Sculpture could now be about place as well as material and form. [..] Over the years these sculptures have explored some of the variables of transience, permanence, visibility or recognition. A sculpture may be moved, dispersed, carried. Stones can be used as markers of time or distance, or exist as parts of a huge, yet anonymous, sculpture. On a mountain walk a sculpture could be made above the clouds, perhaps in a remote region, bringing an imaginative freedom about how, or where, art can be made in the world."

... The first impression one has of Billone's work is that it is as austere and hard to track down as some of the mountainous regions where Long has chosen to create his art ...
Subsequent listenings, however, reveal a plethora of tiny details and nuances, which, like Long's stones, serve as both temporal and structural indicators. The music is predominantly quiet (though unremittingly tense), and its heartbeat remains slow until things suddenly go ballistic with barely four minutes to go. This extraordinary explosion redefines all that has gone before, and inevitably conditions all one's future listenings to the work, like that famous fortissimo drum roll in Morton Feldman's "For Frank O'Hara". "Mani.Long" is a challenging landscape for performers and listeners alike, but it's well worth the journey there, and you will want to go back.Dan Warburton

***

[…] Here, every detail can mean a brightening difference, a noteworthy connection, the foundation of a building, the identification of an experience already made by others, a complementary part, a surprise worth considering, a non-repeatable state, overstepping the boundaries of notation; in this sense, there are no insignificant aspects […]
Pierluigi Billone

[maybe reposted soon]