Dario Buccino’s Finalmente il tempo è intero n° 16 was perhaps the most challenging of spaces to inhabit. While some elements in the score seemed relatively familiar, the unfamiliarity and the unknowns were far more present, and this ratio made even the familiar feel uncertain. The score of Finalmente il tempo è intero n° 16 demanded a complete remapping of my understanding of how the score can function, as well as an intensive learning process relating to Buccino’s unique use of vocabulary, symbols, and language. Before even getting to the point of building my first space, I had to learn how to read the blueprint.

In his compositional practice, Dario Buccino has developed his own spatial and temporal system, hic et nunc (here and now, abbreviated by Buccino as HN). In addition to the extreme amount of information and detail regarding every aspect of every outer and inner movement of the performer and their interaction with the instrument, Buccino incorporates the time and the physical space in which the piece is to be performed as equal musical material to sound and gesture in the piece. A music piece composed with the HN approach is a highly developed network system. Buccino constructs his score through a compositional process that employs chance processes and algorithms. The score is however not read in the traditional way a violin piece would be read: there is no linear reading of the material; there is no order nor hierarchy of material; everything is equally important; each action of the body and in the body has individual assignment, which makes each movement and action independent from any other, and these actions do not have a clear sonic result to aim for. The performer must make constructions from all of this material in the moment of the performance.

Buccino’s notation initially might look like a graphic score, but to approach it like one would be to misunderstand the piece. Just as one has to develop skills in reading and interpreting the graphics of western classical music notation in a specific way, HN notation needed the same approach. Each symbol of Buccino’s notation has assigned meaning and represents determinate values, but it is the nature of the HN system that within the structure of the piece influences the fluctuations and creates a practically indeterminate number of possible outcomes a symbol can result in. In this sense, the score is what Einar Torfi Einarsson calls ‘not a chronological indicator of events but instead a nonlinear map/diagram’. In Buccino’s work the score is the medium that is ‘capable of seizing any material/content that comes its way’ but it is the HN system and the moment of the performance that are ‘a machine, a dynamic system or function’ which deliver a shaping of the material into a form.^[1]

Figure 2.1.1.1: Overview of the structure of Finalmente il tempo è intero n° 16

The score for Finalmente il tempo è intero n° 16 represents a space that contains the outlined backbone of the piece and material from which and within which I as a performer must build one performance iteration. The score has 12 pages. The structure of the score is spatially organised (figure 2.1.1.1). One page equals one bar, and, seen vertically, it is further subdivided into eight sub-bars/columns. Each of these eight sub-bars is one identity. They always appear in the same order on the page:

• ◦ MUTE Action
• ◦ MAGICAL Contribution
• ◦ BACK Voice
• ◦ TAIL Piece
• ◦ Voice
• ◦ PAD
• ◦ Scribble
• ◦ MULTI Voice.

Each identity represents a container of possible aesthetic characteristics, but this does not entail a fixed character. ‘Magical Contribution’, for example, will most likely develop through a single character during one performance, but it might also start to deviate from it. In a different performance, although the same base concepts that represent ‘Magical Contribution’ will be the main driver, the sounding character could be completely different when contextualised in this new setting, new time, new space, new hic et nunc.

The same goes for each of the eight sub-bars/columns. There is a general aura of sets of potentials the associated identities could become, but externalising and memorising one fixed interpretation would run counter to the intentions of the work. The reading of the score and execution of the order of identities is free. This characteristic is closely linked to the temporal nonlinearity of the piece, as Buccino’s instructions state that the execution of identities does not and should not be performed by reading left to right (or right to left), but this order should be governed by the hic et nunc. Furthermore, it is also possible to go forwards and then jump back to a page.

The horizontal organisation of the page reveals six strata that are, reading from the top:

• ◦ Stave for duration/time (‘Tempo’)
• ◦ Stave for space (‘Spazio’)
• ◦ Stave for the Right Hand, which is subdivided into: Action, Bow with subdivision into: Portion and Orientation (of the bow), String Portion (the contact point of the bow with the string), Dynamics (with potential subdivisions for movement, touch, and volume)
• ◦ Stave for the Left Hand, which is further subdivided into: Orientation, Elevation, Traction, Finger, String, Range, Dynamics (with potential subdivisions for movement, touch, and volume)
• ◦ Stave for Endocorporeal annotations, which is subdivided into: Gratia and Ignition, with Ignition further subdivided into Tacet, Voice, and Body.

Each parameter of each movement and action has its own gradation of possibilities. The table found in figure 2.1.1.2 shows an excerpt from the description of symbols (featuring only symbols for the right hand),^[2] compiled by myself during the process of working with the composer, notes from our sessions, and from subsequent conversations and exchanges.^[3] The ‘HN’ symbol can stand for any iteration of any of the parameters of the area where it is found, respectively. This means that if and when an HN symbol appears in the score (see figure 2.1.1.1), the performer must decide, in the moment of the performance and guided by the feeling of the performative situation, which gradation from the range that that specific parameter where the symbol is found can have, has to be used.

Figure 2.1.1.2: Excerpt from self-made list of meanings of symbols for Dario Buccino’s Finalmente il tempo è intero n° 16^[4]

• ^[1]Einar Torfi Einarsson, ‘Desiring-Machines: The Score as a Map’, at http://einartorfieinarsson.com/text4.html [accessed 24 May 2023].
• ^[2]The full list can be found as Appendix C. [Please see full Thesis, available via University of Huddersfield's repository]
• ^[3]As this list was my source in the process of working on the piece between 2019 and 2022, it is the list mainly used for reference. The legend of symbols and their meanings, which were completed in April 2022, can be obtained along with the score on request from the composer. I discuss the small differences found between the two lists that occurred through the process of creation (between the first performance in 2019 and 2022) in chapter 5.3.
• ^[4]The full list can be found as Appendix C. [Please see full Thesis, available via University of Huddersfield's repository]

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