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Rating: Luc Ferrari (born 1929, passed away in 2005) was one of the greatest composers of the 20th century: a true pioneer of electronics, an explorer of concrete music, among the first to engage in field recording practice.
Departing from the conceptual premises established by John Cage's art, Ferrari would reveal himself as one of the most influential artists in post-war music history (and particularly in the development of electronics), in effect decreeing the birth and maturation of many artists from subsequent generations.
His music would be described as "anecdotal," precisely because of the predominance of the narrative function it is called to fulfill: in the vocation of wanting to employ "sound objects" captured from the "soundscape," recorded using microphones and then reworked in the studio with an autobiographical perspective, we find the anticipation of certain intuitions that Eno would develop regarding the conceptualization of ambient music.
The "Cycle des Souvenirs", conceived and realized in the last years of the French composer's life, represents the summa of Ferrari's art: an experiment intending to develop in all possible directions the insights matured over five decades of an illustrious career.
"Cycle des Souvenirs" was actually conceived as a multimedia installation where six CD players and four video projectors interact; a deployment of means aimed at recreating, through the reproduction of sounds and the projection of images, a three-dimensional environment capable of assuming the shapes and appearances of a true stream of consciousness: a symphony of sounds and images able to retrace, shape, and interact with memories related to the artist's own life.
Only in 2001 would Ferrari have the idea to transform this experience into the format of a single CD: I will therefore focus on the sounds, leaving aside the images, as they compose the substance of "Cycle des Souvenirs (1995-2000)".
Ferrari conceived six sound sources to be reproduced simultaneously, cyclically and unsynchronized, so that the overlays would continuously change, renewed each time in sound combinations and in the random encounter of elements: somewhat akin to what happens in the complexity of real life, where the sensations we receive from the external environment are the product of the random interaction of various (endless) inputs.
Six CDs of about 70 minutes each, then, with variable durations precisely to ensure, in the cyclic reproduction, the aforementioned offset.
Each CD is conceived as a succession of four different classes of sound elements:
1) voices;
2) sounds recorded from the external environment;
3) silence;
4) harmonic sounds reproduced in the studio.
Regarding the first point, Luc Ferrari thinks of alternating three different voices (female voices, to be exact), speaking three different languages.
As for the content of the lyrics, they will consist of notes taken from everyday life, fragments from a diary, expressions randomly picked from a dictionary intended to inspire poems or compositions: words born from chance and fortuitous situations, we could say.
Second point: the sounds captured from the "world" environment must necessarily relate to memories and experiences of the artist himself. Not only sounds and noises tied to physical places dear to the composer (the street of his childhood home, the playground where he used to spend afternoons as a child, the tram station in Amsterdam, the ocean waves in Portugal, etc.), but also seemingly insignificant sounds, which may have a secondary role in the conscious self but equally contribute to the construction of perceptions: sounds apparently void of meaning (the noise of footsteps, the tinkling of cutlery, a door closing, etc.), but with strong symbolic content.
And then more: the rumble of a thunderstorm, the chirping of birds, the bustle of an inhabited center, and even a piano theme by Thelonious Monk ("Mysterioso") to which the artist appears intimately connected. All these elements, in some way, assume primarily psychoanalytic significance.
Third point: silence. Naturally, silence is silence, but one must not think Ferrari underestimates its value: pauses will thus be wisely calculated and placed throughout the six CDs, so that, in the always varying interactions, they give importance to new elements. Elements that, silenced in the previous cycle by others evidently more "cumbersome," have the opportunity to finally emerge thanks to the coincidence with an oasis of silence.
Fourth point: "music". Ferrari showcases his technical abilities, skillfully navigating machines, synthesizers, and acoustic instruments. To delimit and order the composition of "melodies," the artist will impose on himself a series of rules (on the number of tones to use, on possible combinations of notes), all precautions that may not emerge clearly to the untrained ear but will indirectly manifest themselves in the harmony and elegance that the work in its complexity emanates.
Just as a sound method is defined in minute detail to regulate the production of the sound material itself, likewise the dosage and placement of the four groups of elements are mathematically planned so that from perfect equilibrium at the outset, a music may arise that, despite its randomness, maintains its overall coherence (Ferrari doesn't just mess around, does he!).
"Cycle des Souvenirs (1995-2000)" encapsulates in a single CD the entire performance, a work of reworking/reduction of the material that impacts the original performance as little as possible. Ferrari, after several attempts, opts for simultaneous reproduction, simply starting each of the six CDs in progression, respecting a one-minute gap between each playback. The result is something extremely fascinating, sophisticated in construction, elegant in sound, intriguing in the succession of impressions: sensual female voices punctuate environmental scores, broken rhythms, noises of every kind, and minimal electronic phrases in a surreal atmosphere, beyond the categories of space and time, where geographically distant places, temporally distant, near or remote events blend, fade, embrace in a single Hic et Nunc that I could only otherwise describe as a musical transposition of James Joyce's literary art.
An experience that perhaps only the artist can fully enjoy, yet it is able to transmit itself equally gentle and captivating even to the ears of us external witnesses of the French composer's inner world.
I do not wish to overextend myself: the name of Luc Ferrari is a guarantee. And even if I have limited myself to summarily listing some of the methodological dictates at the basis of the conception of the work, I hope through these you have a clear or at least intuitive grasp of the contents, indescribable and subject to various interpretations.
I also hope that your curiosity has been piqued, at least enough to delve deeper into the knowledge of this legendary figure of 20th-century music, to whom we owe the existence of artists we today admire or even love, perhaps without knowing on whose giant's shoulders they stood to forge their own art.
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