PART I
The Ocean of the Unknown Composers
Most of you may have heard that this year 2016 is the 70th birthday of the Darmstadt Ferienkurse für neue Musik.
Consulting the archive of the IMD, i ve been (like everybody else i guess), stunned by the richness of the musical activity and the high numbers of composers who came here in Darmstadt.
Thousands …
I was also slightly overwhelmed by the number of works or publications which are today absolutely forgotten. How many hours of work, passion, dreams are now vanished, or remaining under the form of an archive entry and a few scores...
Among these discret composers, one caught my attention: Mario Bossi.
As far as i know, Mario Bossi has only one occurrence in the IMD archive, where he is programmed in 1948, almost at the very beginning of the Ferienkurse, for a large project piece called the LA LUCE di PROMETEO.
A fragment of the score is visible there, you can consult the 14 pages of the manuscript i´m going to describe.
What stroke me was that his name is mentioned one time in the pre program of the 1948, but strangely enough, the piece is canceled, although it was a big project, and he is not invited anymore.
Even stranger, is that no notice, no biography, no score is kept in the carefully organized archive. Mario Bossi is erased from XXs century s history.
But not completely!
LA LUCE DI PROMETEO
This is one page of the 14 pages of manuscript of LA LUCE DI PROMETEO, 1926-1948:
which was certainly promised to become a vast work, an opera, cosmic and tragic, political and visionary.
This is a sample of an interesting viola line from the same manuscript.
The viola part is underlined in yellow.
And this is its modern notation:
That music is banal in the context of the 60s, but before 1948?
It evokes a little bit what Sciarrino will write later on.
Let´s go a little bit further.
This yellow section indicates "spectrum della tromb.", with a low E.
Doesn´t that remind us the beginning of Partiels, by Gérard Grisey ?
So far, Bossi could a sort of genius but messy precursor of a lot of ideas. That doesn´t make him particularly a good composer. Maybe a visionary artist, but since he didn´t finish any piece (as far as i know, if anyone has info about it, please write me here), it´s not so interesting.
But at that point, i found something really, really intriguing:
This is a sample of the page called “Il maestro del martello” in the 14 pages of LA LUCE DI PROMETEO
this section is dated : 5th of January 1926, Strombolo-Bollo.
And now a sample of a famous Boulez piece:
Interesting resemblance, isn´t it ?
And Boulez´s title is: Dialogue de l´ombre double. It sounds like a half confession, at least a discret tribute to Bossi, but still…
I was then convinced to be at the edge of a discovery that would revolutionize the history and the hierarchy of XXs century´s music.
My task was then to go further, and look for ANY occurrence of Mario Bossi in the music writings, since the 30s.
Unfortunately, there are so many Bossi´s that my quest became very quickly a hassle, and i couldn´t get successful immediately.
I spent hours to find occurrences of his name in dictionaries, libraries, etc.
This is what i found
One letter from B Britten where the name M.B. appears:
another letter from Respighi, where Bossi appears in full letters this time (in yellow):
Of course, it´s not a lot.
But to go deeply in the manuscripts of Bossi, all the roots of our music was popping up like bubbles:
the root of Microphonie by Stockhausen
The inderteminacy, later magnified by John Cage:
4mn33 (by john cage) is already mentioned!!! In 1926...
etc
etc
etc
etc
Ladies and gentlemen....
seriously....
According to my counts, and i would need a full team of workers to be able to be more precise, but so far i found 1459 samples that have been copied by other composers.
Some very short, some very long,
sometimes also pure concepts, all from these 15 PAGES OF THE ORIGINAL MUSIC !!!!
This opens a whole new perspective on new music !
...except if my discovery was already written and described by Mario Bossi...
Because maybe somewhere lies a text for a conference written by Mario Bossi where he describes somebody analysing a few pages of manuscripts containing all the music to be written in the next 50 years... A composer named Georges Perec, for instance.
But i prefer not to think of this possibility which would destroy all these months of work.
PART II
enquiry, who will confess the plagiarism ?
So the best for me was to go and ask directly to the living composers or in their personal archives if there is anything about this Mario Bossi.
In 2011, i went to Kürten, and asked, for any stupid reason, to have access to Stockhausen´s papers about the conception of Vibra Elufa.
Stockhausen diaries are clear:
“Ich habe noch einmal in Darmstadt B. gelesen. Ein Genie.”
“Lange Gespräch über Zeit mit Maderna. Nach B. Briefen, gibt es kein Zeit.”
Nobody knew who this B. was. Boulez ? Bruno Maderna ? Berg ? Berio? “
now we know….
In march 2015 I wrote to Pierre Boulez a letter asking if he has ever heard of a Mario Bossi. In april Boulez spokeman made a statement saying that Boulez had no public life anymore. Boulez died on the 5th of january 2016.
That was a dead end....
even if i meet a living composer who copied bossi, who would confess ?
so i had to keep that for myself at the moment, and show it to the world when i m ready. today is the Bossi day!
PART III
Who was Mario Bossi ?
I made an extensive research to find a Mario Bossi, composer, in Italy, in the 20s…. but it s probably easier to count the number of spaghetti produced in the whole world….
But in the area of Strombolo-Bollo, i found a village, called Mafiune dei Cucionni, where a Mario Bossi, music teacher, was born in 1867, and died on the 23rd of march 1948 in Germany. His works have been burnt by his widow, who was Luigi Dallapiccola´s sister… who was here when she burnt letters, and all manuscripts of her husband.
he was leaving near a pottery atelier:
At the town hall, the registers showed me that he had a first name, Giovanni, and a last name, Humboldt.
His complete initials , therefore, are GmbH.
I found a marriage registration, hopefully of our man (but who knows...)
So what happened in march 1948 that could be fatal to Bossi ?
I went back to Stockhausen diary and Boulez schedule, and i found an interesting missing piece: from the 19th of march till the 22. They met in Darmstadt at the beginning of the month, they discussed with Wolfgang Steinecke about the program of the summer, where Bossi´s master piece is to be premiered. Bossi was supposed to come during this month to discuss with Konrad Otto Böhmer-Stutz, then in charge of the concerts.
Let´s just mention that John Cage at that exact time, march 1948, meets Grete Sultan, a German born pianist living in New York. This Grete Sultan is seen in February in the south of Italy.
(just to mention).
So Boulez and Stockhausen meet at the end of march 1948, probably with Böhmer and Bossi.
Then, he comes back to bari and disappears from the musical scene for ever.
In fact, financial crisis in the 50s in Bari : Bossi was forced to take a side to make ends meet.
no conclusions about Bossi, but what does he have to tell us ?
CONCLUSION
some reflections about Bossi´s phenomena
All composers owe their music to one (or more) Mario Bossi.
Mario Bossi composed
all the
music
to
come.
There is no music that Bossi hasn´t composed yet: Bossi is the Babel of composition.
STOP COPYING BOSSI!
(he already copied you)
Everything you composed was already composed by Bossi.
Everything you haven´t composed was already composed by Bossi.
Everything you´ll never compose was already composed by Bossi.
Let´s reconsider institutions in this new Bossi´s perspective:
let´s call IMD
IMB (institute Mario Bossi)
All music © Mario Bossi
more about Mario Bossi:
a facebook page dedicated to harmony, paying its tribut to Bossi, here
