This February 3, as part of the Bologna International Museum and Library of Music’s ART CITY project, a performance of Matteo Franceschini’s ABCDEFG (a tuned sculpture), for two performers and live electronics.
The work was born out of the collaboration between composer Matteo Franceschini and visual artist Jacopo Mazzonelli, who created the ABCDEFG installation (winner of the 2015 Private Fund Acquisitions Award for Contemporary Art at ArtVerona).

In Mazzonelli’s ABCDEFG, seven 20th-century pianos are set up according to a certain arrangement. Each one has been modified so that it plays only one of the seven notes on the musical scale. The piano’s new physiognomy constitutes the starting point for a reflection on the very nature of the relationship between sound and matter. 
Matteo Franceschini focuses his research on the theatrics of the musical gesture; his imagination feeds off the power of narrative content and the creation of a complex formal structure and soundscape. The choice of atypical elements represents one of main esthetic drivers of his music: the need to combine languages of different derivations, following the rules of cohesion and contrast. 
Without a doubt, the piano is the instrument that best represents western music culture from the late 18th century onward. In this sense, the performance comes off as a gradual and conscious discovery of identity – a path to awareness and development, all thanks to the modified pianos. 
In the name of broadening the horizons of sound-based and conceptual communication, the fast-paced dialogue between musical instruments of classical extraction and live electronics allows the composer, traditionally confined to that role only, to become an interpreter of his own work.     

ABCDEFG (a tuned sculpture) made its world premiere in Trento, Italy, on October 6, 2017, at the opening of the Jacopo Mazzonelli exhibition at the Galleria Civica, with Jacopo Mazzonelli and Eleonora Wegher on piano; Matteo Franceschini, live electronics; Davide Zuccotti, sound engineer. 

ABCDEFG [a tuned sculpture] (2017) - [trailer] from Matteo Franceschini on Vimeo.

Excerpts from recent reviews:

…Here Matteo Franceschini breaks the silence with a composition for seven single-string pianos and live electronics, ABCDEFG. The score features the sound-gesture as the protagonist in an array of stylistic nods and relentless Franceschini proposals…
(Veronica Pederzolli, Corriere del Trentino, October 7, 2017)

Throughout the exhibition, the element of sound appeared just twice, two identical moments, to open and close the show… Music was provided by Jacopo Mazzonelli, Eleonora Wegher and Matteo Franceschini, with the latter’s 2017 composition ABCDEFG (a tuned sculpture). The internationally renowned Franceschini composed the piece especially for Mazzonelli’s installation…
(Silvia Conta, Exibart, January 14, 2018)  

 

 

Photo: Valentina Mari