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Inferno
from “La Divina Commedia” by Dante Alighieri
A movie by
Francesco Bertolini and Adolfo Padovan (1911)
Music
Edison Studio
Live electronics
Mauro Cardi, Luigi Ceccarelli, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, Alessandro Cipriani
Cinematography - Emilio Roncarolo
Set Design - Sandro Properzi, Francesco Bertolini
Cast - Salvatore Papa (Dante), Arturo Pirovano (Virgilio), Giuseppe De Liguoro
(Farinata/Pier Delle Vigne/conte Ugolino), Attilio Motta, Emilio Beretta, A. Milla (Lucifero)
Production - Milano Films
First Screening - 22nd of March 1911
The restoration of “Inferno” has been carried out by Cineteca del Comune di Bologna
from a nitrate print preserved at BFI National Archive
in London and from two safety duplicate negative held by Danske Film Institute in Copenhagen and Bulgarska Nacionalna Filmoteka in Sofia.
Useful information has been also obtained from the copies preserved at Library of Congress in Washington,
UCLA Film
and Television Archive
in Los Angeles, American Film Institute and Geaorge Eastman House in Rochester.
Titles have been reconstructed from the originals discovered
in the copy held by Bulgarska Nacionaln Filmoteka. The restoration has been carried out in 2007 at L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory.
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Introduction to “Inferno”
After having reinvented the sound for "The Last days of Pompei" and "Das Cabinet Des Dr.Caligari", the 4 Edison Studio's composers
have created the "ideal" soundtrack for the most visionary italian silent movie.
Clustering bat-demons equipped with sharp forks, crowds of heaven's pure souls floating in the sky.
Paolo and Francesca gliding from above and floating in the air, Bertrand de Born showing his cut off head and, finally, a gigantic fire-eater Lucifer that ravens diaphanous and transparent dead bodies. Surely Adolfo Padovan and Francesco Bertolini, the two forerunner directors who created "Inferno" in 1911, the first authentic feature length film of Italian film history, didn't save money on special effects. "Inferno" is an unprecedented kolossal based on the famous Dantesque illustrations by Gustav Dorè that implied 3 years of shooting, 150 between principal and supporting actors, 100 scenes, 71 minutes length, 300.000 lire invested, a one-year long advertising campaign and an international distribution reaching Europe and the United States (where the movie earned 2 million dollars).
Edison Studio recovers the old tradition of silent movies with live musical accompaniment throughout the composition of vocal and mechanical sounds (taken from nature and music history) orchestrated and transformed live with the aid of new technologies.
The music of “Inferno” brings the audience into a completely different dimension, a dream state both ironical and fascinating among reinvented voices, surreal landscapes and surrounding sounds.
All of this creates a new acoustic environment that binds space much beyond the chances of traditional movie screening.
A multimedia performance for everyone where literature, cinema and music come together to achieve a common and up-to-date artistic path.
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Performances
Edison Studio live computer soundtrack for Inferno has been commissioned by the "Ravenna Festival"
and has been premiered in Ravenna on the 5th of July 2008, Rocca Brancaleone
Rome, 15 December 2008, Auditorium Parco della Musica,
in collaboration with the 45th Festival Nuova Consonanza - Contemporanea Musica per Roma
L’Aquila, 16 December 2008, Cinema Massimo, Stagione Società dei Concerti "B.Barattelli"
Leipzig, 13 February 2009, Hochschule der Kunste, “Das Böse ist ein Eichhörnchen”
Longiano (FO), 18 April 2009, Stagione Teatro Petrella
Rome, 3-4-5 January 2010, Montemartini Museum, “Montemartini Corpo-Inferno-Energia”
Catania, 30 November 2010, Centro di Culture Contemporanee “ZO”, Stagione Associazione Musicale Etnea
Barcelona, 27 aprile 2011, CCCB - Zeppelin Festival
Bologna, 26 giugno 2011, Festival della Cineteca di Bologna "L'immagine Ritrovata", Cinema Arlecchino
Firenze, 10 agosto 2011, Le Murate
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DAS
CABINET DES DR. CALIGARI
Film
by Robert Wiene
Decla Film - Berlin, 1919
Live computer soundtrack Edison Studio - Rome (2003)
Mauro Cardi, Luigi Ceccarelli, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, Alessandro Cipriani
percussions, samplers and live electronics
Edison Studio live electronics
Duration: 84'
Produced by Edison
Studio
with the contribute of 'Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Singapore', 'Goethe
Institut - Rom',
'Cineteca Nazionale di Bologna'
One of the true musical highlights of the conference was the world premiere performance
by the Edison Studio of a soundtrack to the German horror film "Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari"
directed by Robert Wiene.
A visually stunning film with powerful expressionist imagery,
the music composed and performed by Luigi Ceccarelli, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, Alessandro Cipriani
and Mauro Cardi provided a compelling accompaniment to this silent classic.
Richly layered and aggressively beautiful, this is truly a marvelous and masterly piece of work.
David Kim-Boyle - Computer Music Journal
volume 28 number 2 Summer 2004 - MIT Press
Perfomances
International Computer Music Conference - ICMC 2003, Singapore October 2, 2003
Roma, Goethe-Institut Rom, December 15, 2003
Malmoe, Svezia, "Eletrisk 04", May 8, 2004
Catania, October 1, 2004, Auditorium Zo, Ass.Mus.Etnea
Cremona, November 18, 2004, Musica Insieme Cremona
Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., November 22, 2005 - "Scream 2005" - Redcat (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) in Disney Concert Hall
Bourges (Francia), 2 Giugno 2006, Festival Synthèse 2006, Maison de la Culture, Petit Thèatre
Lipsia, 4 Dicembre 2006, Teatro dell'Opera, Kellertheater, Eine Frage (nach) der Geste
Trieste, 10 febbraio 2007, Teatro Miela, AllEstdellEden, rassegna di artigianato musicale europeo
L'Aquila, 27 marzo 2007, Cinema Massimo, Società Aquilana dei Concerti "B.Barattelli"
Budapest, 6 settembre 2007, Museo di Belle Arti, Sonor’Art, Manifestazione finale della mostra “Viaggio nell’Arte Italiana”
Trieste, 16 aprile 2008,Teatro Miela, FEST (Fiera dell'Editoria Scientifica di Trieste)
Roma, 12 novembre 2008, Università di Tor Vergata,
Auditorium Ennio Morricone,
Convegno Internazionale di Studi sulle componenti sonore
Ferrara,14 maggio 2010, festival miXXer, Ridotto del Teatro Comunale
Roma, 21 gennaio 2012, SpazioNovecento, Artmediamix (ore 21, replica ore 23)
Leicester (UK) DMU University 2 Febbraio 2011
Bologna, Piazza Maggiore 2 luglio 2012
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In the little village of Holstenwall on the Dutch border, fairground hypnotist Dr.Caligari (Werner Krauss) puts on show a somnambulist called Cesare (Conrad Veidt) who has been asleep for twenty-three years. At night, dressed in a black body-stocking and with a ghostly white face, he slithers through the town murdering people on the doctor's orders. A student (Friedrich Feher) has his suspicions about Caligari after a friend is found dead and it transpires that the doctor is the director of a lunatic asylum. But the story also has a sting in the tail... |
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A masterpiece of expressionist cinema and the first cult-movie in cinema history, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari takes its inspiration from the most advanced experimental work carried out at the beginning of the last century in literature and art. Strongly imbued with a theme that denounces the sufferings of a deceptively free human condition, poised constantly between reality and fiction, Wiene's film also seems to be filled with surprising historical premonitions. |
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After more than eighty years, the composition of the electroacoustic soundtrack by Edison Studio brings us once again a film that is eloquently redefined. The composition, commissioned by the International Computer Music Conference (Singapore 2003), was preceded by a lengthy phase of analysis and interpretation of the film. This led to the definition of the expressive atmosphere, formal programme and sound material that constitute the choice of timbre in the score: instrumental and vocal samples, pre-existing musical fragments, concrete and synthetic sounds. The score is for computer, MIDI keyboards connected to samplers, percussion instruments and resonant objects. The performance in real time, in keeping with and going beyond the silent film tradition, restores the excitement of a live invention not only of music but also of sound and verbal language environments that themselves blend into music and make it possible to develop flexibly and dynamically the intricate relationships existing between the sound material and the expressive and symbolic world of the characters and places. |
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GLI ULTIMI GIORNI DI POMPEI
Film by Eleuterio Ridolfi
Ambrosio Film, 1913
Live computer soundtrack Edison Studio - Rome (2001)
Mauro Cardi, Luigi Ceccarelli, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, Alessandro Cipriani
Duration: 56'
Co-Production: Edison Studio 2001 - Fondazione MM&T Milano
Perfomances
Milano, November 16, 2001, Palazzina Liberty, Festival "Senza parole"
Roma, December 9, 2001, Goethe Institut, Edison Studio Incontri, Festival "Progetto Musica"
Goteborg, September 18, 2002, ICMC 2002 - work selected in the section Videos for Cinema Screening
Bolzano, "Rimusicazioni", 4 ottobre 2003
Iowa City, 28 ottobre 2003 - University of Iowa - Clapp Recital Hall
UMKC Conservatory of Music Kansas City, MO, October 31, 2003
Roma, June 21st, 2005, Festa della Musica
Roma, April 1st, 2006, Festival Sensoralia- Fondazione RomaEuropa, Teatro Palladium
Ercolano, July 17th, 2006, Villa Ruggiero, Festival delle Ville Vesuviane
Messina, January 28th, 2007, Teatro Savio, Istituzione Filarmonica Laudamo
Catania, January 30th, 2007, Centro di Culture Contemporanee “ZO, Associazione Musicale Etnea
Padova, May 07th, 2008, Sala MPX, "L'arte di filmare la musica", Amici della musica di Padova
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"The Last Days Of Pompeii" (1913) is among the last of the great tableaux films.
In this rendition of Bulwer's classic novel, set in 79 A.D., the lives of a prominent statesman,
a beautiful woman, a pagan priest, a spiteful witch and a blind beggar are carefully interwoven
and brought to a climax at the moment the sleeping volcano unleashes its fury.
Edison Studio (Mauro Cardi, Luigi Ceccarelli, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi and Alessandro Cipriani)
has composed a computer soundtrack on several layers: symbolic sonic backgrounds and foregrounds,
dialogs in "improbable" languages, (un)naturalistic references. In the spirit of silent movie tradition soundtrack is performed live.
The work has been selected for performance at ICMC2002 (Gothenburg, Sweden).. |
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Taverna.mov
(5.4MB) |
Arbace.mov
(8.2MB) |
Glauco's bubbles.mov
(8.7MB) |
The Volcano.mov
(6.4MB) |
Nydia's end.mov
(4.4MB) |
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EDISONSTUDIO - VIDEOS
Four videos with music by:
Mauro Cardi, Luigi Ceccarelli, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, Alessandro Cipriani
Duration: 1 hour ca
Production: Edison Studio 2002
Program
"Still Blue (Homage to Derek Jarman)" (2000)
Video: Alessandro Cipriani, Silvia Di Domenico, Giulio Latini
Music: Alessandro Cipriani
"Games IV" (2000)
Video: Silvia Di Domenico e Giulio Latini
Music: Fabio Cifariello Ciardi
"Altrove con il suo nome" (2000-2001)
Video: Silvia Di Domenico e Giulio Latini; Testi: Pasquale Panella
Music: Mauro Cardi
"R for Redrum" (2002)
Video: Fanny & Alexander e A. Zapruder filmmakers' group
Music: Luigi Ceccarelli
Performances
Texas, november 11th 2002, Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater, CEMI, University of North Texas
Bourges, june 9th 2003 - "Synthèse 2003", 33e Festival International des Musiques et Créations Electroniques
Firenze, may 25th 2005 - Ximmagine, staz.Leopolda, Tempo Reale
Roma, 8 novembre 2006, Federazione Cemat, Goethe Institut
Birmingham, 23 ottobre 2007, Recital Hall ore 15
Rimini, 27 settembre 2008, Velvet Factory,
59.a Sacra Musicale Malatestiana
Roma, 19-21 dicembre 2008,
INVENZIONI,
Ex Mattatoio - Sala Concerti SPMT
"Still Blue (Homage to Derek Jarman)"
Still Blue (1998), dedicated to the memory of movie director Derek Jarman, is, in a way,
the materialization of some images born from vision of his film Blue, his last movie in which he used no images, (only a blue screen for 78 minutes) and in which narration is based on sound.
Our video, as his movie is based on a reflection about seeing, about sound and memory, death and memory of the body....through the blue of the water, where the act of seeing, losing itself , finds itself again.
“A beautiful memorial”. (Larry Austin) |
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"Games IV" Eyes ought to force their nature to stop frantic movements... raving but still lucid games... torn forms, obsessively repeated.... an unremitting recall to a fleeting reality... (Marina Antonucci)
Games may be far from pleasure and close to interactions, confrontations, conflicts. That's why Games IV music is based on contacts, fugues, conquests and defeats of sonic organisms that dwell different virtual spaces. The listener is intended as the main player of a metaphorical and surrealistic 'audio game' driven by a live contrabass. (Fabio Cifariello Ciardi) |
"Altrove con il suo nome"
A pressing, vortical continuum, like a river in a full spate, parole come carri di sfilata, un corso che si vorrebbe inesauribile e che non stanca mai: Pasquale Panella’s words, by the homonymous episode from the collection “Oggetto d’amore”, constitutes the inspiration and the materials of Mauro Cardi’s music. Sliding through unknown route of a labyrinthine space, the music wraps and crosses the delicious features of a fascinating and sensual woman (interpreted by Sonia Bergamasco) who tries to take away herself from a constantly interrogative glance. Her movements expressivity, her gestures reiteration, the seductive indefinability of her eyes materialize, in a subtle crescendo, a pulsanting tension between visible and invisible. The interrogative glance is forced finally to surrender, leaving alive the radical mystery of a body, of a name, of an identity perpetually elsewhere. |
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"R for Redrum" After months of rehearsals of the show “Requiem”, haunted by several hallucinations due to the red colour of the staging, he has an oculistic examination. This examination produces several intensified side-effects, driving him to an unexpected final decision. |
MAHAMAD GHAVI HELM - EDISONSTUDIO
IN CONCERT
Persian percussion instruments and electronics
Mahammad Ghavi-Helm, zarb, daf, voice and percussion
Music by
Mauro Cardi, Luigi Ceccarelli, Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, Alessandro Cipriani
Edison Studio, live electronics and sound direction
Gianfranco Lucchino, space and light design
Duration: 1 hour approx.
Production: Edison Studio 1997-2002
Program
Alessandro Cipriani, "Bi Ma (Devoid of Self)" (2002), for percussion, voice and electronics
Mauro Cardi, "Alba" (2002), for zarb and electronics
Fabio Cifariello Ciardi, "Altri Passaggi" (2001), for two zarbs, two dafs and electronics
Luigi Ceccarelli, "De Zarb à Daf" (1997), for zarb and daf and electronics
First performance:
Rome, 21 November 2002, Sala Casella, "Crossings", Edison Studio Meetings, "Progetto Musica" Festival
Presentation
"Crossings" brings together the Persian percussionist Mahamad Ghavi-Helm and the composers of Edison Studio.
Mahamad Ghavi-Helm was born in Teheran in 1951 and studied at Teheran Conservatory and in France with Sylvio Gualda.
An addition to his activities as a soloist, he holds seminars on the art of improvisation with Iranian percussion and teaches
Western percussion
at the Conservatories of Palaiseau and Bourges. Ghavi-Helm has performed with many of the leading Iranian masters and musicians.
His recordings and performances have taken him to Europe, Asia and America. The collaboration between Mahamad Ghavi-Helm and
Edison Studio has produced a work in which East and West come together,
with music that cuts across the Iranian musical tradition,
new technology and the music of today. The programme contains four works. In "Bi Ma" by Alessandro Cipriani a man is surrounded
by the metallic jingle of plates and bells... he sounds them randomly, filling the space with sound. In "Alba" by Mauro Cardi
a circular motion pervades the score: internal passages, each in search of itself. "Altri Passaggi" by Fabio Cifariello Ciardi marks,
for the composer, an initiation into the mystery of the drum, the bridge between heaven and earth, the mother of all things.
"De Zarb à Daf" by Luigi Ceccarelli is dedicated to Mahamad Ghavi-Helm, innovator in the technique of the Zarb and an ideal
link between the age-old manual technique and digital technology. The sound installations, the live electronics and the sound direction
are devised by Edison Studio. The space and lighting design are by Gianfranco Lucchino.
FOUR QUARTETS
Four string quartets with live electronics
Bernini String Quartet
Edison Studio, live electronics and sound direction
Duration: 1 hour approx.
Production: Edison Studio 1999-2003
Program
"Quadro" (1994) by Alessandro Cipriani
"Luce - Ombra" (1995) by Luigi Ceccarelli
in preparation: string quartets by Mauro Cardi and Fabio Cifariello Ciardi
First performance (in part):
Rome, 13 December 1999, Studio One, Edison Studio Meetings, Progetto Musica Festival
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The string quartet and the possibilities created by new technology provide two extraordinary resources for a composer.
Together they offer the challenge of combining electronic processing with one of the most prestigious instrumental
formations, archetypes of the great western musical tradition. And this sense of challenge implies a close collaboration
and understanding between the musicians in order to experiment together with techniques and expressive means that
make it possible for the interaction between quartet and electronics to be achieved. |
"Quattro Quartetti" in fact has been created in collaboration with one of the best known young quartets in Italy, the Bernini Quartet,
with which the composers of Edison Studio have worked for some time, both as a group and individually.
The Bernini Quartet was established in Rome and is composed of musicians who have studied at the leading music academies:
Vienna, Luxembourg, Paris, Geneva, Osaka and Rome. The Quartet has studied with Pietro Farulli and has taken part in
master-classes with the Melos, Amadeus, Berg, Tokyo and La Salle quartets.
In 1998 it was appointed the Quartet in Residence at the Accademia Filarmonica Romana and was awarded
the "Premio Michelangelo 1999" by Ennio Morricone for outstanding artistic merit. The Bernini Quartet has toured America,
Europe and the Middle East. It has carried out many first performances of contemporary music and has taken part
in the most notable concert seasons, performing alongside concert musicians of international renown, such as the Auer Quartetto,
Paul Cortese and Jun Kanno. The Bernini Quartet has recently recorded "The Art of the Fugue" by J.S.Bach. |
"Luce - Ombra" by Luigi Ceccarelli, for string quartet and tape. Originally written for the dance performance "Anihccam" in 1989,
choreographed
by Lucia Latour, it uses the concept of the futurist machine, brought up to date and conceived as a rigorous, relentless time mechanism that controls
the string quartet. "Quadro" by Alessandro Cipriani, for string quartet and electronics. It brings together pieces of quartet music of differing kinds and
works them into a single form, as if they were "essence-objects", using the tape as their transfiguring shadow or "other" object, creating a brief adventure
into the world of the quartet by way of these objects. The form of the piece is built out of these materials and the concentration on the harmonic-disharmonic
relationship of the sounds. Each cross-colours the other without development strategies.
In 2003, alongside the two quartets by Cipriani and Ceccarelli,
two new works were composed, the "Quartetto n°2" by Cardi and a new work by Cifariello Ciardi.
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