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Pietro Grossi

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Pietro Grossi
Pietro Grossi at computer work
Grossi in 2001
Born(1917-04-15)15 April 1917
Venezia,Italy
Died21 February 2002(2002-02-21)(aged 84)
Florence
NationalityItalian
EducationConservatorio Giovanni Battista MartiniBologna
Occupation(s)Composer, programmer, visual artist, artist computer scientist
StyleElectronic,Computer music
PartnerAlbert Mayr–Sergio Maltagliati
Websitepietrogrossi.org
Signature

Pietro Grossi(15 April 1917, inVenice– 21 February 2002, inFlorence) was an Italian composer pioneer ofcomputer music,visual artistand hacker ahead of his time. He began experimenting with electronic techniques in Italy in the early sixties.[1]

Biography

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Pietro Grossi was born in Venice, and he studied in Bologna eventually taking a diploma in composition and violoncello. In the sixties Grossi taught at theFlorence Conservatoryand began to research and experiment with electroacoustic music.[2] From 1936 to 1966 was the first cellist of theMaggio Musicale Fiorentinoorchestra. Grossi began to experiment with electroacoustic music in the 1950s. By 1962, he had become the first Italian to carry out successful research in the field of computer music.[3]

In 1963, he turned his interest to electronic music and founded theS 2F M(Studio di Fonologia Musicale di Firenze) which made its headquarters at theFlorence Conservatory,and he also became a lecturer in this subject.

In 1964 he organized events with the associationContemporary Musical Lifethat introduced in Italy the work ofJohn Cage. In 1965 he obtained the institution of the first professorship of Electronic Music in Italy.

In 1967 he made the first experiences in computer music.[4]

In 1970 he made his first approaches to musical telematics organizing a performance with a link between Rimini (Pio ManzùFoundation) and Pisa (CNUCE). By invitation of lannis Xenakis, he presented another telematic concert between Pisa and Paris in 1974.

Grossi in front of the originalTAUmus/TAU2station. On the right, a glimpse of the analog part of theTAU2audio synthesizer; in the center, its digital part. On the left the video terminal connected to the IBM mainframe, with its keyboard on the lap of Maestro Grossi.

His contributions to the development of new technological musical instruments and to the creation of software packages for music-processing design have been fundamental with the originalTAUmus/TAU2station.[5] [6]

He has not limited his work to the musical world, but also engaged in contemporary art. In the eighties he was working on new forms of artistic production oriented toward the use of personal computers in the visual arts. [7] Grossi started to develop visual elaborations created on a personal computer with programs provided with "self-decision making" and that works out the concept ofHomeArt(1986), by way of the personal computer, raises the artistic aspirations and potential latent in each one of us to the highest level of autonomous decision making conceivable today, and the idea of personal artistic expression: "a piece is not only a work (of art), but also one of the many 'works' one can freely transform: everything is temporary, everything can change at any time, ideas are not personal anymore, they are open to every solution, everybody could use them".[8]

Grossi has always been interested in every form of artistic expression. The last step of his HomeArt, is the creation of a series ofunicumbooks, electronically produced and symbolically calledHomeBooks(1991): each work is completely different from the others, thanks to the strong flexibility of the digital means. Sergio Maltagliati will continue this project creatingautom@tedVisuaLsoftware in 2012, which generates always different graphical variations. It is based on HomeArt’sBBC BASICsource code. This first releaseautom@tedVisuaL 1.0has produced 45 graphical single samples, which have been sampled and published. He collaborated in order to experiment with electronic sound and composition with the computer music division of "CNUCE" (Institute of the National Research Council of Pisa).[9]

Grossi’s latest multimedia experiments were with interactive sound and graphics. His later works involved automated and generative visual music software,autom@tedVisualMusiC 1.0which he extended beyond the realms of music into the interactive work for the Internet, conceiving and collaborating withSergio Maltagliati[10]in 1997 of the first Italian interactive work for the webnetOper@,[11][12]entertaining in his own house study the first on-line performance. However,NeXtOper@remains unfinished, a project to integrate new media, such as mobile phone and GPS.[13]

Selected works

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  • 1961Progretto 2–3this piece consisting of several different high monotones that follow one another, is extremely minimal and ambient, controlled by a computer algorithm.
  • 1965Battimentian electronic work composed and realized from “working material” for the electronic Studio di Fonologia Musicale (S 2F M), made by the 94 combinations of near frequencies.
  • 1969Collagewhere the concepts of music being an open process where no work of music is a finished piece but rather something to be manipulated.
  • 1980Computer Musictranscription and elaborations (with Soft TAUMUS synthesizer TAU2, IBM 370/168 Institutes of CNR CNUCE and IEI) from the following authors: Bach, Scarlatti, Paganini, Brahms, Chopin, Strawinskij, Debussy, Joplin, Satie, Webern, Hindemith, Stockhausen.
  • 1985–90Mixed Unicumanother ambient drone piece, similar toProgretto 2–3and yet far more varied and rewarding, as the shifting tones create an alien topography of sound.
  • 1986HomeArtGrossi has developed the concept ofHomeArt.It consists of completely automated and generative visual processes, based on simple Qbasic computer programs.
Pietro Grossi andHomeArt

Bibliography

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  • Sergio Maltagliati,HomeBook45 unicum graphics, 2012.ISBN978-1-4716-1419-4(in English and Italian)
  • Girolamo De Simone,Il dito nella marmellata, Musica d'arte a Firenze,2005, ed. Nardini –ISBN978-88-404-2704-1
  • Francesco Giomi; Marco Ligabue,L' istante zero. Conversazioni e riflessioni con Pietro Grossi,1999, ed. Sismel –ISBN88-87027-65-X
  • Lelio Camilleri,Pietro Grossi. Musica senza musicisti, scritti 1966–1996,ed. CNUCE CNR Pisa
  • Lelio Camilleri,Computational Musicology in Italy,Leonardo,Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology (Leonardo/ISAST), The MIT Press, Cambridge, U.S., vol. 21 n. 4, 1988, pp. 454–456.
  • Francesco Giomi,The Italian Artist Pietro Grossi. From Early Electronic Music to Computer Art,inLeonardo,Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology (Leonardo/ISAST), The MIT Press, Cambridge, U.S., vol. 28 n. 1, 1995, pp. 35–39.

Discography

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  • Visioni di vita spaziale (Edizioni Leonardi Srl under licence to Pirames International Srl, 1967)
  • Elettrogreca (Edizioni Leonardi Srl under licence to Pirames International Srl, 1967)
  • GE-115 Computer Concerto (General Electrics, 1968)
  • Elettro musica N.1 (Edizioni Leonardi Srl under licence to Pirames International Srl, 1971)
  • Elettro musica N.2 (Edizioni Leonardi Srl under licence to Pirames International Srl, 1971)
  • Computer Music (CNUCE/CNR, 1972)
  • Atmosfera & elettronica (Edizioni Leonardi Srl under licence to Pirames International Srl, 1972)
  • Computer Music – Bach/Grossi (LP, Ayma, 1980)
  • Paganini al computer (LP, Edipan, 1982)
  • Computer Music – Satie/Joplin/Grossi (LP, Edipan, 1983)
  • Sound Life (LP, Edipan, 1985)
  • Battimenti (CD, ants records, 2003)
  • Suono, Segno, Gesto Visione a Firenze (Sound, sign, gesture, vision in Florence)
    • (CD 1):Sylvano Bussotti,Giancarlo Cardini,Giuseppe Chiari,Daniele Lombardi
    • (CD 2): Pietro Grossi, Giuseppe Chiari, Giancarlo Cardini,Albert Mayr,Daniele Lombardi,Marcello Aitiani,Sergio Maltagliati(Atopos music 1999–2008).[14][15]
      The path of more than fifty years of musical culture in Florence, since the end of the Second World War, is documented in these two audio CDs. This audio recording contains the meeting of composers and pianists who are the protagonists of the Music of Art in Florence, a significant phenomenon in the history of the second half of the twentieth century.[16]
  • Musicautomatica (CD, Die Schachtel, 2008)
  • BATTIMENTI 2.5 audio Cd – numbered copy of limited edition (2019)

DVD video

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  • CIRCUS_8DVD video Quantum Bit Limited Edition (2008)
  • CIRCUS_5.1DVD (digital edition) Quantum Bit Netlabel (2012)

References

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  1. ^Girolamo De Simone (23 February 2002)."Goodbye (Addio) Pietro Grossi".il manifesto.
  2. ^"The Music Academy" Luigi Cherubini "".Archived fromthe originalon 13 July 2007.
  3. ^"Photostory #1: Pietro Grossi by Alex Di Nunzio".13 December 2013.
  4. ^Kenneth Gaburo."Reflections on Pietro Grossi's Paganini Al Computer".JSTOR4617921.{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal=(help)
  5. ^Firenze University Press."The TAU2 polyphonic music terminal".
  6. ^Camilleri, Lelio (1988)."Computational Musicology in Italy".Leonardo.21(4): 454–456.doi:10.2307/1578711.JSTOR1578711.S2CID193125035.
  7. ^Giomi, Francesco (1995)."The Work of Italian Artist Pietro Grossi: From Early Electronic Music to Computer Art".Leonardo.28(1): 35–39.doi:10.2307/1576152.JSTOR1576152.S2CID191383265.
  8. ^"Home Art".Archived fromthe originalon 29 June 2001.
  9. ^Roberto Doati."Homage to Pietro Grossi".
  10. ^Luca Cartolari."Pietro Grossi and Sergio Maltagliati".
  11. ^Thomas Patteson (2010)."Music, technology, utopia: The legacy of Pietro Grossi".
  12. ^FYLKINGEN'S NET JOURNAL."netOper@ Sergio Maltagliati & Pietro Grossi".
  13. ^"PIETRO GROSSI close up by Lucilla Saccà".
  14. ^"Suono, segno, gesto visione a Firenze 2".2014.
  15. ^"Suono, segno, gesto visione a Firenze".2008.
  16. ^"Bussotti, Sylvano – Suono segno gesto visione a Firenze".fondazionebonotto.org(in Italian).Retrieved16 February2023.
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