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Questionnaire/ Interview

· When, in the course of your path, did you realise that you would dedicate your creative and artistic activity to composition? ·

Bruno Gabirro: For as BIGINT as I can remember, invention and creation have always existed. It’s perhaps how I relate with the surrounding world and the others, given that the world and the other are an undefined or even imagined presence. Then, at a certain point, I decided that this would be my main occupation. I probably was twentysomething when Luigi Nono’s music and the sound world I then discovered ended up being determining.

· Do you follow your path according to a plan, knowing, for example, that within ‘x’ years, you will fulfil the ‘y’ objectives? Or do you think that reality is too chaotic to make such determinations? ·

BG: Quoting António Machado: ‘there’s no path; one makes it while walking’ ¹. Or José Régio: ‘I don’t know how and where I’m going; I only know that I’m not going that way!’ ²

· What are your present main artistic and creative concerns? ·

BG: I’m concerned with every sound at every instant. How will it connect with everything preceding and succeeding it within a given piece’s music discourse? How does one musically realise a given sonic potential? Only within the freedom of thought can I fulfil myself artistically and create. Thus, I don’t have any other concerns besides the ones I’ve just described.

· To what extent has the circulation between the acoustic and electroacoustic universes enriched music creation in the last decades? Is there a mutual influence between these two practices in your music? ·

BG: I don’t see them as separate practices. The increasing presence of electronic means in the last decades seems natural. 13^th-century music and instruments weren’t the same as in the 16^th century, and, in turn, they weren’t the same as in the 19^th century, and in the meantime, they are already different. Thus, it is the same practice for me, integrated into an already millenary tradition and historical continuity.

· How would you describe the timbre of your music? Can one find in it your youth music interests? ·

BG: I can’t define myself without falling into any surrealist craziness. Nonetheless, I have a recognisable sonority of my own where one can find ways of working and making that started quite early. I also think I am still the same person since my first memories of myself and the world. The intimacy is still the same. It only manifests differently in my and the others’ eyes because time passes.

· What is the importance of silence in your music? ·

BG: It’s sound that sounds. Its main parameter is the duration. The external parameters, which cross it and thus are equally important, precede and follow it. There are two main types of silence – the one that separates and the one that joins. Each type is also split into two categories – the silences at rest and the ones in movement. It’s fundamental for the performers to comprehend the silence as sound, treating it as any other musical note, harmony, gesture, etc. Counting the measures will have a similar effect as when only playing the notes — one doesn’t understand anything, and there’s no vibration or sound.

· What can a music discourse express in your understanding and according to your aesthetic stance? ·

BG: For me, a music discourse is logos – the active reason that animates everything. Thus, it is the centre of everything. It’s what gives life. There’s no music without it, only sound. Without logos, there’s only the sound’s potential, but it doesn’t acquire form, doesn’t breathe, or live. Logos simultaneously represents the present, the past, and the future; the present is the continuous projection of the past into the future. Logos is thus a vital energy within the dynamics between rest and movement, a force that gives life to the sound through established relations. Everything that lives is related. And the sound realising its potential through established and lived relations is music. It is how I understand the music discourse and the music itself.

· To what extent do new electronic and digital instruments open new paths, and when can they become constraining? ·

BG: Around 1000 years ago, Guido d’Arezzo established the terms of music thought so crucial that a new music tradition emerged. Pierre Schaeffer extended these concepts in the middle of the past century, thus opening new paths. New music requires new instruments. New instruments need new music. It’s a dynamic and continuous process. For me, it’s the thought that opens new directions, either generally on music or particularly on the instruments, which is also a thought on music. By and in themselves, the electronic and digital instruments don’t present any new paths – it’s ridiculous to put some ‘modern’ instruments in front of everybody, to do what one has always done, and to think that one is innovating. One doesn’t open new paths with a magic wand but rather through the thought, the one that scrutinises, inquiries, and explores – from the lively gaze of the wide-open ears.

· In what sense do invention and research constitute inseparable elements of music creation and, in general, of art? ·

BG: In practically all the world-creation myths, a total divine entity creates everything from nothing through an acoustic act. In my condition as a human, I can’t make anything from nothing. I can create, but it needs to be from something. I thus understand invention and research as indissociable elements, allowing for the communication between the world of ideas or ideals and the material world where the work emerges, where one creates it.

· How do you listen to music? Is it a more rational or emotional process? ·

BG: Both. The existence of one without the other doesn’t even seem possible to me. It is the same entity. While studying the thoughts on oneself, despite the inherent dangers, I can understand that they’re separate. However, this separation doesn’t have any value outside this specific scope. When I listen to music, I think.

· Does the opposition between ‘profession’ and ‘vocation’ exist in your activity? ·

BG: No. For me, the profession is an exteriorisation of the vocation, which is internal. I thus manifest a determined vocation in the profession of my choice.

· Do you prefer to work isolated in the ‘tranquillity of the countryside’ or the middle of the ‘urban commotion’? ·

BG: I prefer urban tranquillity, the urbanity.

· Could you reveal what you are working on and what are your artistic projects for 2024, 2025, …? ·

BG: I’m working on a cycle of pieces for the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble, which I informally denominate as ‘opera’ and hope to finish in the meantime. The cycle’s title will be “La commedia è finita!”. Then, I’m not sure. I also have a project with Rui Silva dedicated to the adufe, “Aduf&lectrónica”, and I hope to occupy myself with it until the end of my time. Recently, we have finished the project’s first cycle, and new adventures are on the horizon.

· Try to evaluate the situation of contemporary music composers in Portugal, referring to your main concerns. ·

BG: When it comes to this situation, there’s no situation. We are here. It could be worse. We are there. Regarding the concerns of others, I don’t know, and regarding mine – to do the best I can and know. In this case it is making music, against the windmills we already know how it ends. In the meantime, I’m concerned, so I go directly towards the windmills, as all the others do, and perhaps one day we can create something. Summing up and defining something within all these contradictory thoughts, we need structures for the various components of music activity – creation, performance, and education. They must be interconnected because being a musician regards all of them simultaneously. Without any base structure, there’s no space for discussion and sustaining any musical life that dignifies us and is useful for our society. We are here.

· What would the alternative paths be if you didn’t follow the composer’s path? ·

BG: If… the ‘ifs’ anxiety is quite real for me before making decisions that materialise them in a certain way. At a certain moment, I decide, and a sensation of freedom invades me. The ‘if’ disappears. There are no present ‘ifs’ regarding the circumstances of being a composer.

· In terms of aesthetic and technical terms, the history of Western art music is full of births, ruptures, deaths, rebirths, continuations, discontinuations, other ruptures and so on. As a ‘futurology’ exercise, could you design the future of Western art music? ·

BG: Births, ruptures, deaths, rebirths, continuations, discontinuations, other ruptures, and so on… or everything disappears, and later, a new tradition other than art music will inevitably come. And thus, the births, ruptures, deaths, rebirths, continuations, discontinuations, other ruptures, and so on, will begin all over again…

Bruno Gabirro, October, 2023
© MIC.PT

FOOTNOTES

¹ Antonio Machado (1875-1939), from “Proverbios y cantares” in “Campos de Castilla”. Translation from Portuguese to English: Jakub Szczypa.
² José Régio (1901-1969), “Cântico Negro” in “Poemas de Deus e do Diabo” (1925). Translation from Portuguese to English: Jakub Szczypa.

Bruno Gabirro · In the 1^st Person Interview (in Portuguese)

Bruno Gabirro · Playlist