PARISTORIA
“… fundamental was the collaboration of the musician Maurizio Puxeddu who created the sound effects and composed the original music, which support the entire stage set, created following the evolution of the show, interacting with it to ensure that creativity was in total harmony with the individual scenes. ”
Gianfranco Angei (director)
Copyright © Maurizio Puxeddu (2002)
Notes on music
The musical work for the show PARISTORIA has drawn fully on the research I have been doing in Sardinia (for over fifteen years now) on the ethnic musical instruments of our island culture. In this research there are two main strands: the first relating to the recovery of tradition, the second based on innovation. Some results, finding a natural harmony with the work of the Actores Alidos, have therefore flowed into the realization of the music necessary for the show in question.
Sardinian instruments, like my original music, not forgetting the accumulation of cultures with which the Sardinians have dealt, adhere (I don’t like to say that they bend) to the needs of the scene, suggesting resolutions or emphasizing magical settings, supported by other ethnic Mediterranean instruments and electronic instruments: launeddas, sulittu, benas ‘e corru, tumbarinu’ and Gavoi, triangulu, ischiglittos, pitiolus, crocorigas, darbuka, bendir, accordion, piano, transverse flutes, synthesizers, are all the tools used in this work.
And then, incredibly, the sound of su sulittu, the reed flute of Sardinia, weaving memories of distant melodies, in the scene of the Sartiglia, it hisses and winds, or, by choice, but it seems almost by scenic suggestion, horse neigh .
The launeddas that traditionally play in “major”, cheerful and joyful, for the scene of the Duel and the Love Encounter, in order to make the atmosphere dramatic through the “minor key”, are modified by combining different “reeds” coming from different cunzertu.
Dreamy atmospheres also for the Dance of the torches where su tumbarinu ‘and Gavoi, played with an unconventional technique (i.e. hitting the skin membrane with your fingers), creates a sound carpet, together with piano and synthesizer, on which rests the melody of a transverse flute with a soft sound.
But sometimes the compositional wisdom has to step aside, leaving room for noise and sound effects. The job of the composer musician becomes a balancing act, a matter of taste in the choice of the piece of ambient noise to be used, in the editing of the various recordings, cut and glued thanks to the computer, until it becomes what seems normal to us when listening. “worked”.
It was fun to record the crickets in Sant’Isidoro, going specifically to interview these cute little animals, or the voices of children, in a kindergarten in Cagliari, unaware of their theatrical audio debut.
Maurizio Puxeddu (composer)