Here it is “Previsioni del tempo” remenbering “Teen Town”, by J. Pastorious, and “The remark you made”, by J. Zawinul.
Premiered by Dedalo Ensemble: Brescia e Cremona - 29th and 30th of October 2011
This music is for sure worthy of praise. Chapeaux. Download pdf scores
A very interesting movie in German, but witn English subtitles, dealing with Trichordal Music directed by Daniel Oberegger
The documentary is split in 4 parts. This is the last one.
Starring: me as the dish breaker.
In collaboration with SEPARATISTI BASSI several musical pieces are coming up.
The ensemble pulls different expert improvisers musicians together, managing about low range instruments.
Compositions by Mauro Ottolini, Louis Andriessen, Achille Succi, Arnold Schoenberg, Franz Bazzani.
Here there is a new work called “Lampi d'Elio - Centimetromusicdrama”. The book “Fiabe Centimetropolitane” written by Stefano Belisari, aka Elio or better known as the band leader of Elio e le Storie Tese, and published by Bompiani in 2004, gave birth to these libretto completely put together by the composer Franz Bazzani. The tale draws inspiration from “Il nobiluomo ambizioso di cristallo”.
Click the pics!
“Trichordal music (or musica tricordale) makes
use of the “trichordal technique”.
Trichordal technique is a new pitch-set designed to compose music
based on what is called the “two-tone trichord”.
The “two-tone trichord” is a group of three pitches
of the tempered scale consisting of two whole tones: for example
A – G – F, without any semitones between the three
This small entity deliberately and historically aims to remind
us of the Greek tetrachord, the difference being that the tetrachord
uses a pitch-entity of 4 sounds instead of the 3 of trichordal
After long reflection on the quality and weight of the sounds
used to generate compositions, and also on the too limited octave
space that contained all the past composition techniques that
used the tempered scale, whether tonal or total-chromatic, Francesco
Valdambrini decided to initiate the trichordal set at a time when
tones (or, as Schoenberg would say, the pantonal 12 sound) were
being arranged side-by-side and superimposed without any difference
in weight and dignity, creating – through “atonal
music”, dodecaphonic music, structural music, etc. –
a huge number of total-chromatic works that offer the ear a sense
of hearing and taste deriving from
the almost constant presence of all the twelve tones. The clusters
also continue to confirm the twelve-tone ghetto within the octave
The “trichordal idea” comes into being as a reaction
against the ageing of the total-chromatic sense of hearing, which
runs the risk of monotonous greyness with its constant insistence
on the equality of weight and quality of the twelve tones and
on the quantitative limits of their number: i.e. just twelve tones.”
(From La musica tricordale published by Arca Musica Trento)
This brief introduction, written by Francesco Valdambrini, opens
an article called La musica tricordale published by Arca
Musica Trento. The purpose is to give a clearer definition of
this new way of composing. In 1990 the first trichordal work composed
with this technique. The work is called Sonanza infinita
(Infinite Sonance). Ritrovato
tricordale (which could be translated as a "trichordal rediscovery")
for solo piano. The work lasts 51 minutes, so it is probably one
of the longest pieces ever composed for this instrument. It is
dedicated to Andrea Cristofolini, the pianist who gave its first
performance in Pergine (near Trento in the north of Italy) on
24th April 1990. Before
discussing this famous work, I'm going to clarify a few technical
details connected with two-tone trichordal combinations.
Most of the works present two trichords; for example A G F and
E D C, set side by side. This hexachord, comprising a semitone
between the two trichords is a group of pitches that is rich enough
to be managed in different ways and to generate compositional
elements such as semi-phrases, phrases, chords, structures, melodies,
etc. The combinations of trichords which have been applied in
many compositions, which were originated in the Sonanza infinita,
are the following four.
The first is a "free trichord sequence", without any
prohibitions regarding the doubling of octaves or sounds.
(Ex. 1, p. 3 of La musica tricordale)
Starting from the second bar of the example (bar 74), we see the
C D E trichord which is then always proposed in the same way,
though with rhythmic enrichment, until bar 83. At the same time,
bar 78, in the middle range, we can hear a crotchet melody that
ends on the pitch of A flat, bar 79. This melody exploits the
following trichords: G
A F, E D C, F G Eb, Bb Ab C, and a C borrowed from the static
trichord already mentioned earlier in the low range. From bars
83 the Bb C D trichord.
The second way is a kind of systematic trichordal linking of pitches
until the reappearance of the same situation.
For example, making the trichords link always in the same theoretical
direction (up or down) and always with a semitone lack between
each one, we get a chain of twelve trichords and 36 pitches; at
the same time the octave range loses every decisive function.
For example: E D C, B A G, F# E D, C# B A, G# F# E, D# C# B, Db
Ab Gb, F Eb Db, C Bb Ab, G F Eb, D C Bb, A G F. A total of 36
pitches. Therefore from the start again.
(Ex. 2, p. 4 of La musica tricordale)
In these two examples we have the “Tobjasglockchen”
exposition that concerns 10 bars. Phraseologically these will
be exploited immediately and frequently, in different ranges and
with different textures. A glance at this excerpt from Valdambrini's
Sonanza infinita, shows the 36 trichordal pitches chain just explained.
In the first 2 bars E D C and B A G with the most various repetitions.
The third and fourth bars involve the pitches F# E D, C# B A,
and so on.
The third way shows the chain of 72 pitches linked, in the same
direction, once with a semitone gap and once
with a whole tone lack. For example: A G F - E D C, Bb Ab Gb -
F Eb DB, B A G...
(Ex. no. 3, p. 4 of La musica tricordale from the composition
In this brief example we can observe in the first stave an autonomous
melody - "cantabile in rilievo" - made of the combination
just explained. Starting from the upbeat of bar n.466: A G F,
The fourth "chain" exploits only 12 tones, or rather
we should say 4 trichords, linked to each by shifting the next
trichord one half tone backwards.
(Ex. n. 4, p.5 of La musica tricordale from the composition
This is one more example from the Sonanza Infinita for piano solo.
At the end of bar 903 we can see the following trichords: C Bb
Ab and A G F. Next one, F sharp E D, is widely distributed on
the second semi-quaver of bar 904 (F sharp), on the 4th semi-quaver
of the same measure (E) and on the last D in the bass clef (semi-quaver
of triplet tied to a quaver). We can find the last trichord D
sharp C sharp B on the 6th score D sharp of bar 904, on the 7th
score C sharp and on the score B of the 5th quaver of the measure
904. Therefore if we start from the last quaver (5 demi-semi-quaver)
of the bar 903 we have the following 12 trichords: C Bb Ab, A
G F, G sharp F sharp E, F D sharp C sharp. And then A B C sharp,
C D E, E D C, C sharp B A.
The practical application of these chains pitches has no prohibitions.
In fact repetition and multiplication of the same pitch is often
practised (in the dodecaphonic technique the row must be respected,
the pitches follow each others without any change of order, and
without any doubling of octaves).
In the first of these 4 combinations every single trichord appears
separately and clearly, marking (or distinguishing) itself either
if chained to another or not. In the other three "chains"
F. Valdambrini prefers to lock 2 trichords.
In this way he obtains something like a "trichordal esachords",
within pitches are richly permutated with wealth of symmetry and
(Ex. n.5, p.5-6 of La musica tricordale from the composition
In this example, "Ludus Andreae" from the Sonanza Infinita
for piano solo by Valdambrini, we have the combination of 36 sounds
(12 trichords) starting from the following: B A G, F sharp E D,
C sharp B A and so on. Observing the upbeat in the bass clef of
bar 565, F sharp B F sharp again (3 demi-semi-quaver) with which
the bass line opens the sustaining of the melody set in the higher
stave), we end up by finding that the bass line pitches respect
a melodic and numerical sequence as well: 12345654321 where 1
is A, 2 is F sharp, etc. The melody will play always the same
sequence of sounds too, but permutating the pitches number 7 and
8. In this way we find the follow numerical order: 12345645321.
This way of thinking and composing will govern the whole section
of the work.
For a complete Italian survey of this topic, please refer to
“QUI MUSICA” Arca Musica Edition. For any information
please write to: firstname.lastname@example.org
Biography: Francesco Valdambrini.
Francesco Valdambrini was born in Turin (1933-2007) and his life
was based around Vienna and Mitteleuropa, where he was
personally and professionally linked to his great friend and work/project
partner, Bruno Maderna.
He taught contemporary music style at the "Akademie fur Musik
und darstellende Kunst" in Vienna, he collaborated with Hans
Swaroski, Hanns Jelinek - the renowned master of the Zwolftonseminar
- and contemporaneously he often played contemporary music as
part of a piano duo with the German musician Werner Seiss. Valdambrini's
compositions - chamber, symphonic, chorus, theatrical, vocal and
instrumental – have been performed all over Europe and overseas.
In 1971 the opera Pentheus, conducted by Ralf Weikert,
who is an eminent performer of Valdambrini's music, inaugurated
the season at the Opera Theatre in Bonn, then capital of the German
He has also worked on stage productions such as Es war einmal
(Dortmund 1971), Der gestiefelte Kater (Bonn 1975). His
many concert performances and radio broadcasts, from the end of
the 1950s, underline Valdambrini's importance in occidental music
and he is well known as both an essay writer and orchestra conductor.
He was a teacher both abroad and in Italy, where he taught composition
in various music conservatories and was Director of the Conservatories
of Venice and Trieste.
Valdambrini is also the founder of the Musica Tricordale, a recent
innovation in musical composition technique, making use of "Tricordo
bitono" (two-tone trichord), which is based on an essential
spiritual aesthetic that aims to go beyond the conflictual dialectic
between harmony and dissonance and inaugurate the "Sonanza
Infinita", understood as an ontological meditation.
The world premiere of his new composition Tricofonia was given
at the Teatro Filarmonico of Verona on November 2003.