Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre

Composition Department

Giovanni Albini

Transfiguring Conventional Music Elements

A Mathematically Informed Approach to Composition

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Music)

Supervisor: Prof. Kerri Kotta

Tallinn 2021
Abstract

As a composer, when I deal with the issue of musical legacy I feel the impact of two opposing
strands: the one that can be traced back to modernism, thus overcoming tradition, and the other
under the influence of post-modernism, that often reduce tradition to a mere distant material.
Because neither of them, taken independently, satisfies me, my composition practice responds to the
need for a third approach, not renouncing the desire for novelty nor the awe-inspiring aura of the
established and intelligible material of musical legacy. In fact, the concern for tradition, the crave
for novelty and beauty, and the mathematical means have been the key points of my whole activity
as a musician and as a composer.
In this context, the general questions that had been the starting point of my artistic research are the
to shape
following. How can mathematics serve shaping musical structures that grant a neat focus on
traditional music elements and yet put them in a different perspective? And which of the several
ways I could find are closer to my individual character, aesthetics and aims?
To answer these broad questions I took into analysis from a musicological standpoint the process of
my former composition practice, recognizing some mathematically informed traits that I could then
reduce and formalize in three concepts of a specific structured compositional strategy of
combinatorial nature, that I named 1) completeness, 2) exhaustiveness and 3) equality in repetition.
These three concepts naturally emerged in my own composition practice. Thereby, such study let
me narrow down the aforesaid questions to a more specific one: the very research question of this
text. How and why the three concepts of completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in repetition
to transfigure
can serve transfiguring conventional musical elements offering a useful tools for composers?
Since the three concepts originated in the specific harmonic context of major and minor triads, my
method to answer the question had been to inductively generalize them and then test the derived
strategies in different contexts, giving rise to new scores. Therefore, I took the documentation of the
composition process and its outputs into analysis. Finally, I investigated and discussed the wider
function and potential of the core of the new strategies trying to understand not only how and why
they have been useful in my own composition practice, but rather how and why they could be
useful, relevant and effective also from a general standpoint.
Table of Contents

1. Introduction ………………………………………………………………………. 1

2. A mathematically informed approach to music composition ………………………. 3

2.1 Some aesthetic remarks ………………………………………………………………. 5
2.2 Mathematics in the composition practice ………………………………………. 7
2.3 Completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in repetition ………………………. 9

3. Graphical strategies dealing with triads ………………………………………………. 13

3.1 Hamiltonian cycles in the chicken-wire torus ………………………………………. 13
3.2 Rearranging the past ………………………………………………………………. 16
3.3 Escaping conventions ………………………………………………………………. 17

4. Combinatorial strategies handling diatonic trichords ………………………………. 23

4.1 A comprehensive strategy ………………………………………………………. 24
4.2 Layering techniques ………………………………………………………………. 27

5. Beyond harmony ……….…………………………………………………………….... 31

5.1 Engaging performance ………………………………………………………………. 31
5.2 Rhythmical elements ….………………………….………………………………... 36
5.3 A computational approach ……….……………………………………………… 40
5.4 Symbolic meanings ………………………………………………………………. 42

6. Conclusions ………………………………………………………………………. 47

Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………. 51

List of doctoral concerts ………………………………………………………………. 55

Töö lühikokkuvõte eesti keeles ………………………………………………………. 57

1. Introduction

“The present slips and vanishes like sand between the fingers, acquiring material weight only in its recollection.”
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky

“Beauty. My steps in music have all been focused on it, looking for it, struggling for it.” (Albini
2021: 249) Accordingly, I believe that art is not simply the pursuit of beauty, rather the pursuit of
the celebration of beauty, and “I consider every technique I deepen meaningful if it does nurture
my own aesthetic purposes, the ‘beautiful’ music I wish to write.” (Albini 2021: 249) Thereby,
headed by my nature and instinct somehow, I have always been drawn by two specific concepts,
two sides of the same ideal of beauty1 I am pursuing. On the one side, there is the ecstatic charm of
mathematically informed2 poetics: music and mathematics have been constantly bounded in my
composition practice and their relationship became my own uncharted music territory to explore:
beautiful means. On the other side, I have always been fascinated by the monumental, timeless
fascination of very familiar conventional music elements of Western culture, such as for instance
triads and diatonic frameworks: a beauty to be celebrated.

I personally feel that both the sides, if taken alone, tend to lead to a sort of emptiness and triviality.
A straight mathematical approach to composition risks to result in what I believe is a pure and
superficial formalism, conceptualism or structuralism. In fact, in my personal view, the
prioritisation of formal details, structures or external concepts make music shrinking to a sole
translator of other – eventual – forms of beauty: an empty musical vessel. At the same time, the use
of very exploited musical objects makes it easy to fall into clichés, getting to stereotypes of beauty.
Thus, the preliminary question: may they together enhance mutually their so fragile beauties?
Ultimately, mathematics may help revealing undiscovered paths and solution in the use of
traditional musical materials, bringing with it the beautiful seal of all its ontological purity. But at
the same time the musical materials themselves, being so rooted in Western culture and minds, no
matter how much alienated, could keep some of their expressive contents, of their history, of their
memories of beauty.

1 My concept of beauty, that is much related to the categories of wonder and discovery, is tackled in Paragraph 2.2.
2 In the context of this work, the term ‘mathematically informed’ does not mean any formal way of composing, but
simply suggests the general availment of mathematics in my own compositional strategies, practice, and
imagination.

1
 to shpae
This leads to the general question of my own artistic research: how can mathematics serve shaping
musical structures that grant a neat focus on conventional music elements and yet transfigure them?
Methodologically, I have started looking for an answer to this broad question analyzing my scores
and habits in approaching the composition process, generalizing from them some mathematically
informed strategies that could be then developed and tested in a new – more aware – artistic
practice, researching in an endless virtuous cycle: from practice to theory, from theory to practice.
This is a vast subject: during my research I noted that several answers could be given and that in the
past I had both deliberately and unawarely developed many different strategies to shape musical
structures granting a focus on conventional music elements and yet transfiguring them so to get to
something new3, that could sound unique, unfamiliar and, above all, mine. In fact this thesis is also
an opportunity for recollecting ideas that I have developed in almost two decades of artistic
endeavors and theoretical research. For this reason, I will refer also to many of my previous papers
and scores. Moreover, some strategies born when I was dealing with conventional harmonic
elements seemed to have been particularly recurrent in my composition practice. Therefore, I have
decided to focus on them, outlining their framework and formalizing their properties, so that I was
then able to test them in other – even distant – contexts, beyond the harmonic one in which they
emerged. This led to new possibilities that I highlighted and discussed, explaining how and why
they could possibly be useful, relevant and effective tools also for other composers.

Thus, I start Chapter 2byintroducing the natural regulations I could trace from my ordinary
mathematically informed process of music composition and I discuss it from an aesthetic point of
view. Against this background I define three features of mathematical nature that describe the core
of the aforesaid recurrent strategies; I named them 1) completeness, 2) exhaustiveness and 3)
equality in repetition (Albini 2018b).4 In Chapter 3, I deepen the specific harmonic structure
dealing with consonant triads from which I could identify and theorize the three features, I
introduce some extended strategies for it and their applications in some sections of my
compositions. In Chapter 4, I discuss a new strategy involving the three features that applies them to
diatonic trichords and their test in the composition of new scores. In Chapter 5, I address the
extension of the three features beyond harmony and tackling further methods of applications and
their symbolic implications. Case studies of scores and techniques I composed and elaborated are
again offered. Chapter 6 is dedicated to a discussion about the new knowledge that my research has
created, also in term of future developments and further aesthetic implications.
3 A clarification about the concept of novelty as I intend it in the context of this thesis will be given in Paragraph 2.1.
4 I have developed the three concepts of completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in repetition while writing this
thesis and I used the three neologisms for the first time in (Albini 2018b).

2
2. A mathematically informed approach to music composition

“The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” Ludwig Wittgenstein

First of all, I shall explain my attitude towards mathematics and its application to composition from
the more general point of view. As a composer, I consider mathematics not only as a musical tool,
technically developed to carry out a particular function, but I rather conceive it as a true musical
instrument that can force a musician to its own rules and possibilities. Due to a sort of instrumental
idiomaticity, I believe that mathematics compels me to rethink music itself, to bend music to its own
logic. In this respect, the creative process comes filtered by mathematics at different levels. I feel
that I do not ‘use’ mathematics while composing, but I ‘play’ mathematics. Thus, mathematics is
not just an occasional resource for the solution of the specific aims hereby presented, rather my
belief is that it is (or at least has been) my characteristic and individual device to approach music
composition and in some cases even music understanding5, or at the very least the one I feel more at
ease to use. The examples proposed in this paper are then clearly only a small part of the techniques
I have elaborated in the context of my mathematically informed process of composition and of my
mathematically informed practice and aesthetics. Furthermore, the emphasis on regulatory
principles, formalization, symmetric musical structures and forms, and in general on any kind of
mathematical concepts in music, crosses all my artistic output from its very beginning, even before
to
I realized it and I started deepen it knowingly and even when I did not deliberately rely on them.

The same can be said about my relationship with musical elements of the Western tradition. A
former composition student of mine, Alberto Barberis, yet while introducing the recordings of a set
of my works composed between 2006 and 2011, wrote: “Albini’s musical language is strongly
rooted in the Western music tradition […]. No type of material is left unconsidered – scales, simple
triads, basic voice leadings, simple chord progressions – and every component is laid bare in its
clear simplicity.” (Barberis 2012: 2). The role of mathematics in dealing with conventional elements
was as well already defined. The material was already described as “covered, disguised, twisted,
and sometimes veiled by structures, auto-similarities, palindromes, symmetries, cycles, canons,
hidden combinatory processes, mosaics and geometrical harmonic paths, in a continuous play of
5 Actually, my theoretical research has mostly been conducted in the field of a mathematical theory of music and has
paid particular attention to the structural nature of the foundational elements – especially of harmonic nature – of
Western musical culture, dealing with the issues of their formalization, enumeration, and classification as well as to
their aesthetic potentialities and implications. See for instance (Albini, Bernardi 2017), (Albini, Bernardi 2018),
(Albini 2018b) and (Albini et al. 2019).

3
glasses, quotes and references, which allows the music to ‘reveal unexpected expressive
potentialities’.” (Barberis 2012: 2).

More recently, Italian musicologist Giovanni Cestino briefly traced my aesthetics and my
relationship with conventional music materials:
“There is always an intense relationship among methods, musical materials and resulting forms in
Albini’s music. On an intellectual level, to him composing means to approach abstract musical
materials in a deeply mathematical-geometrical way. But there is no place for any kind of
Structuralist nostalgia in his often ‘automated’ compositional processes, nor a desire for
objectiveness. Almost provocatively, Albini works with rigid schemes or numeric devices to
magnify how his musical world could thus be personal and subjective. And how marvelous could it
be, since the result can easily be unexpected or only unconsciously desired. In his hands the sound
is like the stone for an ancient architect: as concrete in his physical evidence as abstract in its
conventionality, it is the tool that makes a complex idea a concrete place to finally be experienced
(i.e. to be performed and listened). And like in many old buildings, there is no need to reveal the
structure in order to enjoy their features. A symbolic level, disclosed thanks to analytical tools, is
certainly a valuable inner meaning but does not correspond to an inner value. The structural
organization per se is barely a primary discovery for the composer, even if an intriguing and often
difficult one. But he will refuse to strictly predict or control the sounding ‘effect’ of his structure.
Like an architect, again, he works with pencil and ruler but cannot say how beautiful it will be to
ascend a staircase or see what is hidden behind a door. All his efforts are better devoted to establish
enough premises in which beauty could take place. A beauty that deals with mathematics in a
different way, totally human, anything but ‘cold’, and based on choices and affections.” (Cestino
2019b: 3-4).

I totally agree with Barberis and Cestino’s comments on my music, that have been indeed
developed after a long-lasting collaboration and friendship, and I have to admit that my
conversations with both of them helped me clarifying my aesthetics and taking courage in
developing it further.

4
2.1 Some aesthetic remarks

This being so, the presence of mathematics in my compositional practice and artistic research can
be related to two interrelated aesthetic issues. On the one hand, it is based on a personal aesthetic
belief that reckons mathematically informed techniques and methodologies as tools to reveal the
inner – sometimes hidden – nature and potential beauty of some musical material.6 On the other
hand, focusing on some musical elements and revealing some hopefully uncharted aspect of it, it
serves the desire for a kind of originality in my music which nevertheless cannot renounce the awe-
inspiring aura of the established material of musical legacy. Both the issues refer to a timeless
aesthetic subject, one that could belong to an atemporal discourse of musicae perennis and that
relies on two specific dichotomies: the opposing concepts of freedom and constraint and the
opposing categories of subjectivity and objectivity.

Let us focus on the former and notice how in music composition such a dichotomy sometimes blurs.
Igor Stravinsky, for instance, underlined how constraints could grant artistic freedom: “The more art
is controlled, limited, worked over, the more it is free. [...] I shall go even further: my freedom will
be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the
more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint, diminishes strength. The
more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit.”
(Stravinsky 1947: 63-65).7
As for myself, I see in Stravinsky's chains the habits of tradition. So, if I impose well chosen
constraints to abide by while composing, I believe I can break the chains of habits and see the
conventional elements in a new light. I shall shortly explain what I personally mean by a ‘well
chosen’ constraint, but let us focus for now a little bit more on the aforesaid dichotomy between
freedom and constraint and underline how it borders in the one between subjectivity and objectivity.
In fact, the definition of constraints, rules, grammars, and in general regulatory principles “defines
the creative area into which the composer as subject has retreated”, as Leopold Brauneiss pointed

6 It is important to underline that “mathematics is not a necessary requirement – and certainly not a sufficient one for
granting some sort of artistic quality or relevance – in the variety of skills, tools and knowledge of a composer.
However, [...] in the context of specific aims, mathematics can be” - and has shown and will be proven also in this
very text to be - “a useful and reliable option that can lead to unique findings, outputs and aesthetics at different
levels: from helping to study and understand musical elements, to assisting to shape them; from being an
autonomous place of inspiration for triggering new ideas on music and to deal with its elements, to be put as the
foundation of new aesthetics.” (Albini 2019b: 57, 59).
7 It might appear unusual that a mathematically informed research in composition builds on the aesthetic discourse of
a composer such as Igor Stravinsky and leaves out of the discourse serialism. However, since I consider the
mathematical structure mostly a mean to achieve a musical result rather than the core of a musical essence, I felt it
was important to distance myself from pure structuralism as much as I could.

5
out in (Restagno et al. 2012: 124) analyzing the style of Arvo Pärt. Pärt himself went further while
stating: “before I choose a rule I have a clear idea of what I want to express. I feel the need to
retreat and to present something objective. […] It is not the result of so-called inspiration, it is
almost something objective.” (Restagno et al. 2012: 125). American composer Tom Johnson is on
the same line while he claims: “there is something particularly satisfying about projects where the
logic (the music) seems to arise naturally from some discovery outside of myself, and where
everything comes together with a minimum of tampering (of composing). There are absolutes.”
(Johnson 2007: 6, accessed December 29, 2018).

Undoubtedly, it is difficult to understand what it actually means when a composer says that he
that
retreats in a process of composition. Is not the choice of a regulatory principle still a decision which
shows that a process of composition is however underway? Does not the composer enter again the
composition process when s/he evaluates the final (even if automatic) result of such a choice, again
deciding what to keep and what to discard? I consider these to be ever open questions and for this
reason I would personally have some reservations in referring to an actual objectivity. Nevertheless,
I believe that if the regulatory principle is not entirely arbitrary, but it someway reflects a
connection with the musical material it shapes, thereby letting emerge some features of the musical
material itself, then there is indeed some sort of objectivity in it. The ‘nature’ of a material is on
some level objective, if not ontological, outside a subject's individual choice, interpretation, and
imaginings. This is what I meant when I wrote about ‘well chosen’ constraints: I consider them the
ones that let a composer stand back and give way to the emergent characteristics of a musical
material, to some extent “trying to let the music compose itself” (Johnson 2007: 2, accessed
December 29, 2018). To this end, I think that mathematics works in my compositional practice as a
trigger of a sort of auto genesis, widening the tools of composers in pursuing the beauty of the
musical material itself along with all its possibilities. This has been for sure influenced in my work
by some ideas on music as an organic system that spans over centuries of Western music tradition
and that is lucidly expressed by Italian composer Goffredo Petrassi: “What constitutes the nurture of
music? Once started to compose, the musical material suggests the procedure to follow and the
procedure then triggers a further development, in a sort of auto-genesis that underlies many
imaginative processes.” (Vasio; Petrassi 2007: 161)8.

8 This author’s translation. “In che cosa consiste il nutrimento della musica se non nella musica stessa? Iniziato il
lavoro, è il materiale musicale a suggerire il procedimento ed è il procedimento a suggerire lo svolgimento
ulteriore, in una specie di autogenesi che si può trovare alla base di tanti processi immaginativi.”

6
Moreover, I am especially interested in dealing with musical elements taken out of musical legacy
and that are of special common significance. Triads, along with diatonic scales, modes, chords and
related concepts, and some idiomatic physical movements and techniques involved in the
instrumental practice play a major role in my works. But, having them crossed many centuries and
styles in Western musical history, earning for sure an unquestionable awe-inspiring aura, and due to
their neat identity that I cannot and I do not want to completely relinquish, I face the hard task to
balance the seemingly irreconcilable categories of tradition and innovation. It is in this very
connection that I feel the impact of two opposing aesthetic strands: the one that can be related to
modernism, thus overcoming tradition favoring innovation, and the other under the influence of
post-modernism, that can reduce tradition to a mere distant material. However, to misquote György
Ligeti and what he told in a conversation with Claude Samuel, I need to “follow a third way: being
myself, without paying heed either to categorizations or to fashionable gadgetry”, to an “academic
avant-garde” or to “outmoded styles” (Ligeti et al. 1983: 123).9
A clarification is hereby needed about what I mean with the term ‘innovation’. In fact novelty is
sought
seeked in my own “individual and hopefully unique artistic contribution. In this respect, the concept
of new is to be understood as the originality of an artistic individuality, rather than an attempt of an
historical aesthetic breakthrough. […] Thus, what I mean with new is something that is already
there to be discovered. I am not seeking novelty per se, but to trigger the uniqueness of
individuality.” (Albini 2021: 249).10 An individuality that stands before the vastness of artistic
choices.

2.2 Mathematics in the composition practice

How mathematics could serve my aesthetic aims? Before starting this research I noticed that very
often my own mathematically informed process of composition, by which I aim to seek novelty in a
conventional material, has featured four steps, in which 1) I select some conventional musical
elements, 2) I study such elements by the means of a mathematical formalization, 3) I apply the
discoveries I have made to set unique constraints to abide by while composing, and finally 4) I

9 The concepts of modernism and post-modernism have been introduced only to briefly help defining the context of
my artistic research. Since the main focus of my work are the compositional methods I have elaborated and tested
to answer the research question I put, I hereby shall not elaborate such aesthetic concepts further, but I’d rather
emphasize some aesthetic topics that influenced me and that I consider closer to my research.
10 In a recent interview I went even further, declaring my own position about the concept of novelty in art, and stating
that “the word ‘new’ is meaningless for me, because art is in my opinion an eternal now, a present time dropped into
eternity, rather than an eternal future. Art visionary is to admit that we are here, not that we are going there.”
(Cestino 2019: 207, 208), this author’s translation.

7
compose in the new grammar I have set, being ultimately aware of what I have eventually
discovered and hopefully uncovering new ways to deal with the conventional material. In this
regard, the study of musical elements by the means of a mathematical formalization solely aims to
reveal some hidden features (or more in general some knowledge) that let me find a way to
compose with these musical elements granting a neat focus on them and at the same time avoiding a
conventional use of them. Setting rules to abide for, I translate the discoveries I made into ‘well
chosen’ constraints, where, again quoting Stravinsky, “I limit my field of action and [...] I surround
myself with obstacles” (Stravinsky 1947: 65), so to reveal an alternative nature of the chosen
material. Finally I can compose with the new freedom of this limited set of action: with novelty and
the focus on conventional elements ensured.

Let me clarify that such a process is not relicto aurium judicio – it is not carried out without
listening. I noticed there is a moment of particular significance between step three and four of my
mathematically informed composition process in which the musical elements appear to me for the
first time in a new light, crystallized in never heard combinations. Then, I feel like Italo Calvino
stated in a 1967 conference titled Cibernetica e Fantasmi, now transcribed and published in
(Calvino 2015), where referring to the psychological theories of Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich he
said: “It is the childish pleasure of the combinatorial game that leads the painter to experiment
layouts of lines and colors and leads the poet to experiment juxtapositions of words; then something
triggers, and one of the combinations mechanically and autonomously got, regardless of any
meaning or effect on any other level, gains an unexpected meaning or an unforeseen effect that
would never have been gained intentionally: an unconscious meaning, or at least the premonition of
it.” (Calvino 2015: 216)11.
On the basis of Calvino’s discourse – and in general of any aesthetics that refers to combinatorics,
from Ramon Llull to Raymond Queneau – is the assumption that art comes (or could come) through
an artifact that can be formalized by a combination of a finite set of elements. Such an assumption
is almost trivial in the case of literature, Calvino’s field, for which the artifact is normally finally
referable to a text, thus a combination of a finite set of alphabetical characters, but it is not at all in
the music context, in which it is not always easy to trace a univocal and shared artifact. In fact,
music seems to be “between process and product” (Cook 2001, accessed November 25, 2019),

11 This author's translation. “È il piacere infantile del gioco combinatorio che spinge il pittore a sperimentare
disposizioni di linee e colori e il poeta a sperimentare accostamenti di parole; a un certo punto scatta il dispositivo
per cui una delle combinazioni ottenute seguendo il loro meccanismo autonomo, indipendentemente da ogni ricerca
di significato o effetto su un altro piano, si carica di un significato inatteso o d'un effetto imprevisto, cui la
coscienza non sarebbe mai arrivata intenzionalmente: un significato inconscio o almeno la premonizione di un
significato inconscio.”

8
living a “dual life as text and performance” (Orden 2000: xi). However, my position as a composer
dealing mostly with sheet music scores rooted in a limited set of conventional and basic musical
pitch-related and rhythmical elements ensures the presence in my art of such an artifact.
Another essential concept in Calvino’s text is the relationship between the ontology of the artifact
and the phenomenology of the artist. “The literary machine can do all the possible permutations on
a given material; however the poetic result will be the effect of one these permutations on a man
with consciousness and subconscious, that is an empiric man into history, it will be shock that will
happen only because around the writing machine there are the hidden ghosts of individuals and
society.” (Calvino 2015: 217)12. The combinatorial mathematics is this a tool for the prophetic artist,
being an essential and basic device for experimentation. I consider it ‘essential’ because if one
accepts the idea that the artifact is formalisable as a combination of a finite sets of element than
combinatorics lets explore them all. However, I consider it basic because an exhaustive (brute-
force) search will be as powerful as ineffective in the immensity of the corpus of possible artifacts.
Mercifully, I am mostly interested in small theoretical sets of elements that are not yet the final
composition, but just a structural framework for it to be arranged, such that their combinations are
practically explorable. Thus, I can decide which path I will follow. And the discoveries can be
certainly and finally ones of auditory nature.

2.3 Completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in repetition

Researching my composition practice I noticed that the selection of the musical material, its study
from a mathematical standpoint, and the definition of a new set of rules for composing have often
undergone some further arbitrary specific regulations. Three features in particular have till now
returned in many sets of rules I defined in my compositional practice. I call the first one
completeness: I usually choose a complete a set of musical elements that is closed under a group of
transformations on its members or a coherent strict set of structural requirements and I limit myself
to use them exclusively. The core of this first procedure recalls Milton Babbitt's definition of his
twelve-tone system given in (Babbitt 1960), which, in turn, resembles the notorious definition of
structure given by Claude Lévi-Strauss. In fact, the set of elements I choose “like any formal system
whose abstract model is satisfactorily formulated, can be characterized completely by stating its

12 This Author’s translation. “La macchina letteraria può effettuare tutte le permutazioni possibili di un dato materiale;
ma il risultato poetico sarà l’effetto d’una di queste permutazioni sull’uomo dotato d’una coscienza e d’un
inconscio, cioé sull’uomo empirico e storico, sarà lo shock che si verifica solo in quanto attorno alla macchina
scrivente esistono i fantasmi nascosti dell’individuo e della società.”

9
elements, the stipulated relation among these elements, and the defined operations upon the so-
the
related elements.” (Babbitt 1960: 246-247). Next step is to define a grammar that let me compose in
a way such that all the elements of the chosen set must appear the same number of times. I call
these two features exhaustiveness, as the elements all appear, and equality in repetition, as they
appear the same number of times. Thus the undertaken class of elements is totally offered
preventing the emphasis on any one of its elements: the focus on the material is granted – in fact at
a higher level, the material is the class itself along with some of its underlined structural properties
– and compositional habits, as I will show, can be hopefully avoided.

I would like to underline how the three features can be seen as “devices capable of generating
musical thought and innovation” (Grande 2018: XVIII), as I discuss in this thesis. Moreover, in
(Albini 2018b) I studied these three features from an historical point of view. “Constraints have
often been used as a means of triggering ideas and inspiration and in that respect combinatorics has
the unique capability of establishing the boundaries of a set of actions. For instance, when Leibniz
in his Dissertatio de Arte Combinatoria approaches the problem of counting possible melodies, he
firstly counts the number of combinations of the six notes alone without any repetition [...]. Then,
the fulfillment of the three features – achieved even in Leibniz – underlines another characteristic: it
traces the borders and let see the elements involved in the most primitive and abstract combinations.
This places emphasis on the experimental and scientific value of such features. While looking for
something new, questions like “how many got left” enter the scene, and usually the formalization of
the issue starts with the most simplified cases.” (Albini 2018b: 23). In the same paper, while
showing how the three features have appeared in the music and techniques of some composers as
cues and means of innovation, I discussed the reasons of their aesthetic capabilities, illustrating that
“the requirement for exhaustiveness and equality in repetition in the method I have defined forces
all the elements which undergo the process to be put on the same level. They float then in a
dimension where their conventional uses, semantics and grammars are still perceivable but just as
shades, while at the same time their new possibilities are being expressed in a state of potentiality.
This could be the very first reason why they seem to appear in times of transition in the history of
music, [...]. Finally, the three features ensure structural integrity. The constrained writing they
impose is totally concentrated around a narrowed set of elements that occupy centre stage.” (Albini
2018b: 24).

A further philosophical insight, relating my ideas to the so called transformational theory, is offered
by Italian music theorist Antonio Grande while commenting my historical insight on the three

10
features that I wrote in (Albini 2018b). In fact, in Grande’s view, the three features imply a
transformative work on the material that “can be understood as the action of a mathematical group
of operations on a set of elements, a line of thought inaugurated by Milton Babbitt, who will find in
Lewin one of his greatest exponents and on which recent transformational theory has been built.
Although this approach may seem at first glance the umpteenth case of formalization of music that
always arouses (and has aroused) advocates and detractors, I would like to point out incidentally
that, in the intent of Lewin, the adoption of a conceptual category as the transformation in the
mathematical sense includes an important philosophical stance. Transformation is in fact understood
engagement
as an action that an agent ‘does’ to an object, and our engaging with the latter is not reduced to a
mere act of measurement by an external observer – in accordance with what Lewin called
‘Cartesian attitude’ – but to an integrated assumption of internal and external, of subject and object
(the so-called ‘transformational attitude’). The action towards the object – and not, as in the
conventional paradigm, from the object to us – frames its perceptual weight and phenomenological
significance. In this approach, we hear Merleau-Ponty’s thought resonate when he wrote that the
color blue is not a physical datum detected by an external agent, but «that which prompts me to
look in a certain way» [1945, 287]. […] A strong thesis of Albini’s article is that often the
application of the three operative modes is found in periods of crisis and transition, where the
problem of legitimizing the creative act becomes more acute for the composers. The auctoritas on
which many musical innovations were based could therefore be found in the use of a formal
framework centered on the three aforementioned properties.” (Grande 2018: XVIII-XIX). Grande’s
comment, while tracing some philosophical and theoretical roots about my research, underlines the
phenomenological aspect of it: the importance of the theorist/artist in relating to the studied
elements. Such idea leads back to the opposing categories of subjectivity and objectivity I dealt with
in Paragraph 2.1 and I guess it settles the issue even in the context of a higher theoretical
framework.

In the next chapters I focus on the implementation of the three introduced combinatorial features in
my composition practice, discussing how they served my aesthetic aims, how I developed their use
over the course of my artistic research, and briefly relating the techniques I have elaborated to
historical ones of renowned composers. Since the three features originated in the context of
elements of harmonic nature, I start (Chapter 3) with the first method I developed handling triads,
the method from which I could identify and theorize them, moving then to chords in a pan-diatonic
context (Chapter 4), to the treatment of musical elements different from ones of harmonic nature
and to further strategies and possibilities in dealing with them (Chapter 5).

11
12
3. Graphical strategies dealing with triads

“The hearing of changes in pitch level is transformed into a vision of changes in location, and we already had a
presentiment of the ultimate identification of the essence of visual and aural imagination.” Hugo Riemann

The first extensive harmonic structure I developed that let me identify in my composition practice
the four steps of my mathematically informed process of composition – and then the three features
of completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in repetition – is the one generated by the
Hamiltonian cycles in the topological dual of the Tonnetz. I theoretically introduced them with
Italian mathematician Samuele Antonini in (Albini 2008) publishing my study in (Albini; Antonini
2009) and I have recently generalized the ideas behind them with mathematician Marco Paolo
Bernardi in (Albini; Bernardi 2017), (Albini; Bernardi 2018) and (Albini et al. 2019), having
employed them over the last decade in several scores.13

3.1 Hamiltonian cycles in the chicken-wire torus

In 2007 “I tried to approach systematically the study of major and minor triads and of their voice
leading connections. I ended up deepening the so called neo-Riemannian theories” (Albini 2018b:
25), that have been defined by one of their initiators as “an efficient technology and descriptive
language for making and communicating new discoveries about the properties of triads and related
structures, and the relational systems in which they participate” (Cohn 1998: 176). “Initiated by
David Lewin and Brian Hyer developing some of Hugo Riemann’s ideas” (Albini 2018b: 25), such
theories “arose in response to analytical problems posed by chromatic music that is triadic but not
altogether tonally unified” (Cohn 1998: 167), “and offer a theoretical framework which has been
mostly used to approach analytical issues. But my interest and aim were different. A mathematical

13 At present, they are: the last movement of Estatica, Op. 18 No. 1 (2009); Corale #3, Op. 20 (2009) for violin and
guitar; Corale #4, Op. 22 No. 1 and No. 2 (2010) for cello and for cello, guitar orchestra and harpsichord; Op. 23,
(2010/2020) for piano; String Quartet No. 7, Op. 25 (2010); Corale #2, Op. 27 (2010) for orchestra; Notturno, Op.
29 (2011) for guitar; Fontane Veneziane, Op. 30 No. 1 and Antiche Fontane Veneziane Op. 30 No. 2 (2011)
respectively for electric guitar or harp, and string quartet; Corale #14, Op. 31 (2011) for ensemble; Corale #41 –
Tre Adagi Ciclici, Op. 32 No. 1 (2010) for symphonic band; Corali #27 e #31, Op. 32 No. 2 (2011) for violin, guitar
duo, and string orchestra; the first movement of Concerto Sinottico, Op. 33 (2011) for piano and orchestra; Tre
Studi Ciclici, Op. 34 (2012) for three clarinets; Corale #33, Op. 35 (2012) for cello and string orchestra;
Testamento Spirituale, Op. 38 (2013) for narrator and ensemble; String Quartet No. 8, Op. 39 (2013); Pange
Lingua, Op. 41 (2013) for choir; All triads, Op. 42 (2013) for ensemble; Preludio e Fuga, Op. 54 (2017) for guitar;
Op. 61 (2018) for orchestra; and Op. 63 (2019) for srting orchestra.

13
approach of the inner properties of triads and of their related structures offered me a detailed
taxonomy and an understanding of their characteristics and potentiality that serve my own purposes
better, and also led me to new ideas on how to use them in composition.” (Albini 2018b: 25). A
peculiar graph representing chords and transformation between them is of particular importance in
the context of neo-Riemannian theory: the chicken-wire torus (also known as D(Ton), the
topological dual of Euler’s Tonnetz) introduced in Douthett and Steinbach (1998) and depicted in
Figure 1. “Some of the triads are recurring twice on the borders to clearly show connections without
edge crossings. Figure [1] also shows that each of its twenty four faces corresponds to the pitch that
is shared by the triads around it and also that it can be embedded on a torus” (Albini et al. 2019), a
geometrical surface that has the shape of a ‘donut’.

Figure 1. The chicken-wire torus.

14
In the chicken-wire torus “points represent chords – more specifically, all the twenty-four major and
minor triads in the twelve-tone equal temperament – and edges represent single step voice leadings.
In fact, if we consider a motion between only major and minor triads that involves retention of two
common tones and moves a single one, it is quite easy to show that there are only three solutions: P,
L and R – respectively Parallel, Leading Tone and Relative – the so called PLR-transformations”
(Albini 2018b: 25).14

Figure 2. The PLR-transformations from/to C major.

In (Albini 2007) I have introduced a specific mathematical structure on such a graph that I found to
be of particular interest from a compositional point of view: Hamiltonian cycles. “A Hamiltonian
cycle (or circuit) is a closed path through the vertices of a graph which includes every vertex
exactly once. So Hamiltonian cycles in the chicken-wire torus represent complete sequences
through all the twenty-four major and minor triads using PLR-transformations in which each major
and minor triad is used only once. They are exclusively triadic and overall completely chromatic,
since every pitch class appears exactly six times. These classes of harmonic cycles can be a useful
compositional device to define harmonic structures that are triadic (and in some cases locally
diatonic) but without any tonal center. Thus, completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in repetition
are all satisfied, both from the point of view of triads and of pitch classes. Furthermore, the three
features can be satisfied also from the point of view of PLR-transformations. For instance, the
Hamiltonian cycle that repeats L and R twelve times grants the use of only the two transformations
that connect diatonically related triads, repeating them the same amount of time.” (Albini 2018b:
26).

I also enumerated the Hamiltonian cycles in the chicken-wire torus finding sixty-two cycles
grouped in eight transformation models, “classifying them in terms of the succession of

14 In the mathematical framework the Chicken-Wire Torus is a 3-regular vertex-transitive graph. Thus, if not labeled,
everyone of its vertices is indistinguishable from the others.

15
transformations (independently from the direction of the path covered) instead of triads. In fact,
given a Hamiltonian cycle, if n elements of [its group of automorphisms] transform it to itself, then
there are exactly 24/n different Hamiltonian cycles sharing the same model of transformation.”
(Albini; Antonini 2009: 6).
I have employed this structure in my composition practice several times, always looking for new
solutions, therefore new ways to enlighten its core materials: triads, pitch classes, and even
transformations between triads. In fact, a first approach considers triads to be the core material and
the elements of the undertaken set, that is close under the group of transformations constituted by
inversions and transpositions. All the twenty-four triads are in the set, completeness is granted.
Moreover, in a Hamiltonian cycle they are all presented just once: combinatorial exhaustiveness and
equality in repetition are granted as well. A second approach considers the twelve pitch classes to be
the core material. In a Hamiltonian cycle they all appear exactly six times. Finally, as I have already
written, there is a peculiar cycle of transformations that grants the three features from the point of
view of transformations, the one that alternates L and R. This conceptual overlapping is of much
interest from a compositional standpoint, mixing a chromatic structure and consonant chord-related
ones that in a broader sense are of tonal nature. In fact, “using alternating L and R transformations it
is possible to move through triads in the most gradual way from a diatonic point of view, as the
succession smoothly covers all the common triads of closely related diatonic systems.” (Albini;
Antonini 2009: 9).

3.2 Rearranging the past

One of the first uses I made of this structure has been to rearrange the harmony of well-known
scores. This has been made to test the capacity of the structure to transfigure the original material.
The most iconic example is perhaps my Corale #4, Op. 22 No. 1, for cello (2010).

Figure 3. The first four bars of my Corale #4, Op. 22 No. 1, for cello (2010).

16
The score begins with the iconic first two bars of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Prelude from the Suite
No. 4 BWV 1010 for cello solo and keep them as an arpeggiated pattern to cover a Hamiltonian
cycle in the chicken-wire torus. The harmonic cycle of triads is the following: E flat major, G
minor, B flat major, D minor, D major, F sharp minor, F sharp major, A sharp minor, C sharp major,
E sharp minor that enharmonically is equivalent to F minor, F major, A minor, A major, C sharp
minor, E major, G sharp minor, G sharp major that enharmonically is equivalent to A flat major, C
minor, C major, E minor, G major, B minor, B major, and D sharp minor. The score can be repeated
ad libitum.
I felt the transfiguration worked out: Bach was recognizable, at least at the very beginning, and the
character of his music and the pureness of triads were kept, while the score led – at least
harmonically – completely elsewhere. Moreover, the score let me think about the capability of some
Hamiltonian cycles in the chicken-wire torus to express the concept of infinite.

3.3 Escaping conventions

Sometimes I have required further constraints in the use of a harmonic sequence given by an
Hamiltonian cycle in the chicken-wire torus.

A representative example is one of my studies for piano Op. 23 – the creative project of my third
year doctoral studies about which I write more extensively in Paragraph 5.1 –, more precisely the
ninth study, the entire score of which can be found in Figure 4. The constraint is given by the
limitation to use only diatonic major and minor scales, in the harmonic context of the tonality for
which the triad of the sequence is the tonic, and so to change scale when the scale reaches the
moving pitch in the passage from a triad in the sequence to the next one. The result is an intricated
exercise for a pianist’s finger that is apparently in contradiction with the simplicity of the material
(triads and diatonic scales) and the calm pace and conciseness of the score.

A very similiar idea has been orchestrated from bar 18 to bar 38 of my Op. 61 15 (2018) and is
offered in Figures 5, 6 and 7: the scale and the harmonic cycle start pianissimo with the lowest pitch
alone on an open fourth string of a double bass and end fortissimo with a sounding tutti. The
structure offered here a material useful for a slow and effective crescendo.
15 Op. 61 has been composed in the context of the creative project of the second year of my doctoral studies and its
premiere was given by the EMTA symphonic orchestra conducted by Paul Mägi in the context of the Sügis Fest on
October, 20th 2018 at the Estonia Kontserdisaal, Tallinn.

17
Figure 4. Op. 23 No. 9 (2020).

18
Figure 5. Op. 61, for orchestra (2020), page 4.

19
Figure 6. Op. 61, for orchestra (2020), page 5.

20
Figure 7. Op. 61, for orchestra (2020), page 6.

21
I consider the exploitation of other constraints in dealing with the hereby discussed harmonic
sequences crucial for increasing the process of de-contextualization of triads, as it let incorporate
them in a syntax that, while composing, could help avoiding the habits of their conventional use. In
fact, in my Corale #4, Op. 22 No. 1, for cello solo the unfamiliarity of the harmonic sequence is
mitigated by the conventionality of all the other elements: chords change according to the metre and
the writing resambles the original Bach’s prelude.
Instead, this is – at least partially – avoided in the examples given from my Op. 23 and Op. 61,
where the change from a triad of the sequence to the next one is rather given by other constraints.
Moreover, it is important to underline that the additional constraints are somehow derived from the
peculiar characteristics of the starting structure, that has been obtained in the context of the three
features of completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in repetition. The scalar constraints for the
triadic sequences built with Hamiltonian cycles in the chicken-wire torus exemplifies it well: the
diatonic scale changes accordingly to a rule that is totally determined by the harmony.

Finally I would like to emphasizes how other strategies have been involved to magnify the
transifguration in the actual composition process. A recurrent one has been the employ of abrupt
stretchings of time that allows 1) to focus on certain sections of the harmonic sequence or 2) even
the presentation of the whole sequence in such a short span of time that can appear in its entirety as
in a single sound object, like it happens in my String Quartet No. 7, Op. 25 (2010) – Figure 8.

Figure 8. Bar 46 of my String Quartet No. 7, Op. 25 (2010) offers a rapid presentation of a
complete harmonic sequence of 24 triads built with Hamiltonian cycles in the chicken-wire torus.

22
4. Combinatorial strategies handling diatonic trichords

“There is still plenty of good music to be written in C major.” Arnold Schoenberg

A set of musical elements I deepened for this very artistic research is the one made up of trichords
spanning no more than a seventh and under the requirement that they can be built in a diatonic
scale. The idea is to refer to the simplest chords in a pan-diatonic 16 framework limiting them inside
the range of an octave and avoiding pitch-class repetitions.

In this regard, since I am dealing with the abstract elements of chords whatever their pitch
implementation, I shall classify them in term of the two consecutive intervals that constitute them,
more specifically, I shall use numbers counting the number of semitones that they span. Therefore,
for instance (1, 2) is a trichord that is admitted in my set of musical elements, in fact in the
(diatonic) C major context it can be implemented in two different trichords: (B, C, D) and (E, F, G).
On the contrary, (1, 1) is not an admitted trichord, as two consecutive semitones are not present in a
diatonic scale.

To shape the set of musical elements so to consider all the possible trichords of the aforesaid kind I
relied on some notorious theoretical results. In fact, recalled that in the framework of diatonic set
theory17 a generic interval is the number of scale steps between notes of a scale while a specific
interval is the number of half steps (semitones) between notes, as proven in (Clough; Myerson
1985), a set of n generic intervals generate under all transpositions exactly n + 1 different patterns
of specific intervals. This property, referred as to Cardinality equals variety for lines, grants that
generic n-chords always generates n distinct specific n-chords under all the generic transpositions.
Consequently, since there are exactly fifteen possible trichords of generic intervals spanning
maximum a seventh, there are forty-five trichords (of specific intervals, hence sonorities)
constituting the set of musical elements I shall deal with. To avoid confusion, the former will be
represented as a couple of generic intervals between square brackets, the latter as a couple of
specific intervals between round brackets. They are shown in Table 1.

16 The term pandiatonicism usually refers to any musical technique that deals with diatonic elements beyond their
common historical use, if not even “freely in democratic equality” (Kostelanetz 2013: 465).
17 Diatonic set theory is an application of the methods developed by theorists such as Milton Babbitt and Allend Forte
in the context of musical set theory which studies the diatonic collection by the means of discrete mathematics.

23
 Generic trichords Specific trichords
[1, 1] (1, 2) (2, 1) (2, 2)
[1, 2] (1, 4) (2, 3) (2, 4)
[1, 3] (1, 5) (1, 6) (2, 5)
[1, 4] (1, 7) (2, 6) (2, 7)
[1, 5] (1, 9) (2, 8) (2, 9)
[2, 1] (3, 2) (4, 1) (4, 2)
[2, 2] (3, 3) (3, 4) (4, 3)
[2, 3] (3, 5) (3, 6) (4, 6)
[2, 4] (3, 7) (4, 6) (4, 7)
[3, 1] (5, 1) (5, 2) (6, 1)
[3, 2] (5, 3) (5, 4) (6, 3)
[3, 3] (5, 5) (5, 6) (6, 5)
[4, 1] (6, 2) (7, 1) (7, 2)
[4, 2] (6, 4) (7, 3) (7, 4)
[5, 1] (8, 2) (9, 1) (9, 2)

Table 1. The fifteen possible trichords of generic intervals spanning maximum a seventh and the
forty-five related trichords of specific intervals. Numbers have different meanings in the table, in
fact, diatonic intervals are given in square brackets (first column) while semitones are given in
parentheses (second column).

4.1 A comprehensive strategy

A first example of the use of this set of elements in the context of the three features of
completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in repetition can be given by referring to my String
Quartet No. 9, Op. 57 (2018), the first score in which I employed them. The undertaken material is
the set of all the possible trichords spanning a seventh in a diatonic set.

While in the harmonic structure of Op. 57 the order and the position of chords inside each generic
group of three is arbitrary, a specific order has been followed in arranging the groups: moving from
smaller chords to bigger, from maximal evenness between the pitches – i.e. they are spread out as
much as possible – to minimal one, establishing first more density between lower pitches and then

24
between the higher ones. Figure 9 shows the chords in the order they appear in the score the first
time (with no repetitions), while at the center of the score they are offered backward a half-step
higher. The figure represents generic intervals also graphically, showing the proximity of scale
degrees with black (sounding) and white (not sounding) circles. In Op. 57 the features of
completeness, combinatorial exhaustiveness and equality in repetition are then all satisfied, and the
focus is all on diatonicity and trichords in two diatonic frameworks (the distant ones of C and of C-
sharp major).

Figure 9. The trichords of Op. 57 in the order they appear the first time they are presented in the
score, with dynamics, and harmonic structure in relation to specific and generic intervals.

25
Moreover, the harmony determines also the durations and the dynamics18, the development of which
is used with the purpose to underline the core material itself, trying to avoid traditional musical
rhetorics. In fact, the total interval span of each chord defines both the duration and the dynamic
indication of the chord: the bigger the interval, the lower the duration and the higher the volume.
The more the chord is spread the more it is powerful and short, all the energy of the bowing goes in
speed and pressure.

Figure 10. The incipit of my String Quartet No. 9, Op. 57 (2018).

Finally, a sort of combinatorial exhaustiveness occurs also in the instrumentation. In fact, the
second violin, the viola and the cello always present the three pitches of each chord (spaced a
further octave), while the first violin double the highest one (in unison or an octave higher). In

18 For the sake of clarity, only dynamics are given in Figure 3. However, Figure 4, depicting the incipit of Op. 57,
shows also the duration of the first nine chords.

26
 doing so there are six possible permutations of the main three instruments, all of them employed
through
along the score: one for the three chords spanning a third, one for the six chords spanning a fourth,
one for the nine chords spanning a fifth, one for the twelve chords spanning a sixth, one for the
fifteen chords spanning a seventh, and finally the last one – having them in the most idiomatic roles,
the highest notes to second violin and the lowest ones to cello – for all the second retrograde C-
sharp section in which the forty five trichords are repeated backward.

This comprehensive approach, where several parameters are determined by the harmonic material
trying to satisfy at many different levels the three combinatorial features and to avoid the
conventions of traditional rethorics satisfied me only partially. I think that this happened basically
for one simple reason: I was not able to really define a new convincing real musical rethorics. The
rhetorics
mathematical approach did not just set a new material, rather it defined a score in its entirety,
without leaving room for a proper, freer composition practice.
Moreover, coming to the aesthetic aims I set at the beginning of this artistic research, I felt that this
keep
work – that still I decided to kept in my opus list as a turning point in my production – is biased
towards the structural side and let not resonate the vast memory of the material undertaken. The
reason can perhaps partially be explained with the words I used to describe a 1985 work by Tom
Johnson, Chord Catalogue, a piece that “consisted of all the [8178] chords possible in one octave,
played one after the other. […] The chords are simply stated, in a logical sequence, rather than
being composed, and the main concern of the piece is to remain open to all sounds, all harmonies.”
(Johnson 2007: 3-4 accessed December 29, 2018). In fact, the way I composed the trichords in Op.
57 I think that contributes as well “to make them a ‘list’, a dictionary of isolated, atomized
possibilities, rather than the working and interrelated constituents of an artwork. Consequently, they
do not conventionally set or foster any substantial musical development. They seem to be
mathematical compositions, rather than mathematical compositions, and just appear in their neat
absoluteness, the eventual aesthetic value of which is indeed now not in question.” (Albini 2018b:
27). The ‘structural’ thinking overcame a ‘musical’ one.

4.2 Layering techniques

The experience with Op. 57 let me then reflect upon a different, hopefully more effective, use of the
same harmonic material of the diatonic trichords under the constraints of the three features of
completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in repetition. Such a reflection has led me more than one

27
year later to the composition of the first movement of a new work: Natale, Op. 69 for soprano,
mezzo-soprano, alto and organ (2019)19. It is organized in fifteen very slow bars, each one with a
different key signature from seven flats to seven sharps (losing flats and gaining sharps one by
one)20 and considering no accidentals, so to grant the pan-diatonic sonority. Each bar is occupied by
three specific trichords of the same generic kind, sung by the three female voices. The order of
appearance is shown in Table 2: smaller to bigger (both from the generic and from the specific
interval point of view) and maximal to minimal even with clusters from left (low) to right (high).

Generic trichords Specific trichords

[1, 1] (1, 2) (2, 1) (2, 2)
[1, 2] (1, 4) (2, 3) (2, 4)
[2, 1] (3, 2) (4, 1) (4, 2)
[2, 2] (3, 3) (3, 4) (4, 3)
[1, 3] (1, 5) (1, 6) (2, 5)
[3, 1] (5, 1) (5, 2) (6, 1)
[1, 4] (1, 7) (2, 6) (2, 7)
[2, 3] (3, 5) (3, 6) (4, 6)
[3, 2] (5, 3) (5, 4) (6, 3)
[4, 1] (6, 2) (7, 1) (7, 2)
[1, 5] (1, 9) (2, 8) (2, 9)
[2, 4] (3, 7) (4, 6) (4, 7)
[3, 3] (5, 5) (5, 6) (6, 5)
[4, 2] (6, 4) (7, 3) (7, 4)
[5, 1] (8, 2) (9, 1) (9, 2)

Table 2. The trichords of Op. 69 in order of appearance.

Notice that the three features of completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in repetition are not
satisfied only for trichords, but also for key signatures21, since all the fifteen ones involving just
sharps and flats are considered and appear once, a single bar each.

19 Natale, Op. 69 was premiered on December, 12th 2019 in the Church of Santa Maria dei Piccoli della Quiete in
Udine (Italy).
20 The lyrics are a christian poem about Nativity, so I wanted to represented the rise of God with the harmonic voyage
from the diatonic context of C-flat major to the one of C-sharp major.
21 However, they are not granted for diatonic sonorities. In fact, enharmonically there are repetitions.

28
What is new is how I dealt the organ part, that was written with much more freedom in the pan-
diatonic context imposed by the key signatures and with which I wanted to shade and support the
upper voices: shade with scattered imitations and support offering a bass and chords of occasional
tonal memory. The gradually thickening counterpoint of the organ part had to resemble the
independence
functional indepence of voices and to be elusively reconducted to the principles of species
counterpoint and to vague and partial cadences, as only the bones and the fascination of Western
culture had survived. However, the compositional freedom here is indeed neither random nor totally
arbitrary, but it rather underwent a loose approach to some conventional compositional techniques
with a precise aim. An excerpt is offered in Figure 11.

Figure 11. Bars 10 and 11 from Natale, Op. 69 (2019).

Therefore, in the composition of Op. 69 the regulatory system structured by the three features of
completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in repetition has established a framework in which I
could compose with much more freedom: I truly felt it helped me avoiding habits but without
limiting my choices and musical expression and individuality. I could still ‘compose’. I think that
this was possible thanks to the balanced layering between the schematic abstract process undertaken
by the three voices, exploring a list of all the possible diatonic trichords, and the less restricted part
of the organ, where traces of the conventions of the Western tradition could appear, but confronting
with the trichords and adapting to them. Moreover, the ever-changing diatonic framework serves a
general harmonic brittleness (that I feel to be attractive), but still preserving locally the pan-diatonic
sonority in each bar.

29
30
5. Beyond harmony

“The deductive method is the mode of using knowledge, and the inductive method the mode of acquiring it.”
Henry Mayhew

Although the employment of the three features of completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in
repetition originated in the specific harmonic context of triads (Chapter 3) and has been tested in
other framework of harmonic nature (Chapter 4), I have tried to use them with musical elements of
different nature, not necessarily related to pitches, in particular those related to performative
techniques at a physical level (that I will tackle Paragraph 5.1) and rhythmical ones (Paragraph
5.2). Moreover, in this chapter I will introduce the use of technology to generate and explore
musical structure involving the three features (Paragraph 5.3), and the employment of the three
features in musical contexts that include acting and a libretto, introducing its symbolic potential
(Paragraph 5.4).

5.1 Engaging performance

Trying out possible applications of the three features beyond harmony, one of my attempt was to
regulate conventional elements related to the performance, such as for instance fingering issues,
shifting attention towards the performers’ embodiment and instinctual imagining of music. The idea
was to approach with mathematically informed strategies the fingerings before the actual music,
again seeking for innovation but from – and towards – different perspectives. In fact, the goal was
to reach novelty on the performative level and then, by implication, on the pure musical one. I
wanted new performative, physical situations mathematically shaped to reach new ‘musical’ ones,
so to break the ‘chains of habit’ on a performative level – thus extending the set of techniques of a
performer – and to consequently break the ones on the compositional one, my actual aim.
But what are performance habits? “They rely on overlearned connections, developed through years
of practice. Habitual playing, of course, is often derided as mechanical, unthinking. [...] Because I
am not fully aware of my habitual actions, they may at times work against my conscious intentions
(as when I drive home ‘on auto-pilot,’ even though I had planned to go to the grocery store).
Nonetheless, habit also enables human performance.” (De Souza 2017: 17, 18).

31
Within this framework I composed some of the studies for piano of my Op. 23, the creative project
of my third year doctoral studies, and in particular No. 10. I conducted the composition of this set of
studies22 working with a pianist, Matteo Generani, at the time a PhD student at the University of
Missouri-Kansas City. The idea behind all of the scores is that no preparation of the piano was
allowed, “nor extended technique inside the instrument: I wanted everything to be founded on the
use of the ten fingers on the keyboard” (Albini 2021: 254), relying on – and challenging – the finger
memory without breaking the borders of the shared and most common practice of piano
performance. “My question was: how could I employ the ten fingers of a pianist to establish a new
set of technically demanding instances that could extend and enhance the capabilities of a piano
performer and at the same time be perceived, at least to some extent, idiomatic, as a continuation
and upgrading of the already familiar? Hence, in the specific context of the composition of these
studies for piano, the conventional music elements undergoing a mathematically informed process”
(Albini 2021: 254) – as well as the three features of completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in
repetition – have been some of the most idiomatic techniques approaching the keyboard, and, in the
specific case of the score I am going to take into analysis, fingering patterns.

Op. 23 No. 10 is an suite in four movements – No. 10a Allemanda, No. 10b Grave e maestoso
(Corrente), No. 10c Sarabanda and No. 10d Giga – resembling the Baroque dance one, and lasting
totally around nine minutes. The idea behind it is a question Matteo Generani asked me: is it
possible to find a succession of all the feasible two-fingers simultaneous combinations (hence
resulting in bichords) that puts them in an order such as if a finger appears in one it does not in the
following, thus having no fingers in common? In fact, “keeping in mind that pianists label the
fingerings with the first five integers – 1 represents the thumb, 2 the index finger, 3 the middle
finger, 4 the ring finger, 5 the little finger – there are exactly ten possible two-finger” (Albini 2021:
254) combinations, which are 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5, 2-3, 2-4, 2-5, 3-4, 3-5, 4-5 . Such combinations are
the same and symmetrical for each hand. A succession that put them in an order without repetitions
of fingers “if repeated several times, would – from the performative point of view – create a
fatiguing extreme” and uncommon “situation that could be useful for training a performer’s hands
and that could offer me as a composer a constraint to abide by while composing. This would be a
constraint that also granted 1) idiomaticity, 2) the three combinatorial features of completeness,
exhaustiveness and equality in repetition, and 3) hopefully”, while linking a finger to a set key of
the piano, “sequences of bichords that are most unlikely to be found in literature.” (Albini 2021:
254-255).

22 Excluding No. 1A, that was composed in 2010, thus the early opus number of the whole set of studies.

32
To answer the pianist’s question and find such sequences of combinations I represented them as
vertices of a graph connecting only the ones that have no fingers in common. The result is the three-
regular graph of Figure 12. Therefore a sequence of the desired kind is a Hamiltonian path or cycle
on that graph, namely open or closed routes on it that visit every vertex exactly once, in a similar
manner of the sequences of triads built in Chapter 3 on the Chicken-Wire Torus.
to

Figure 12. The ten possible two-fingers combinations formalized as graph vertices that connected
by edges only if they have no fingers in common.

The musical setting is different, however the mathematical solution is similar. Unfortunately there
are no Hamiltonian cycles, but there are exactly 240 Hamiltonian paths (sequences that do not
cycle) I found and enumerated through a brute-force algorithm23 I wrote in Javascript.

23 Generally, to determine whether a given graph contains Hamiltonian paths or cycles is said in computational
complexity theory to be a NP-complete problem, thus can be solved by a restricted class of brute force search
algorithms, that consist of systematically enumerating all possible candidates for the solution.

33
I randomly chose four of them, one for each movement of Op. 23 No. 10, and I limited myself
composing with it. They are:

Op. 23 No. 10a 2-3, 1-5, 3-4, 2-5, 1-4, 3-5, 24, 1-3, 4-5, 1-2
Op. 23 No. 10b 5-4, 1-3, 2-5, 1-4, 2-3, 1-5, 34, 1-2, 3-5, 2-4
Op. 23 No. 10c 1-3, 2-4, 1-5, 2-3, 4-5, 1-2, 34, 2-5, 1-4, 3-5
Op. 23 No. 10d 2-4, 1-3, 2-5, 1-4, 3-5, 1-2, 45, 2-3, 1-5, 3-4

Since there are no Hamiltonian cycles, and it is impossible to end one of the 240 sequences and
begin it again without no finger repetitions, to get the same result I often alternated a sequence with
its reverse, keeping in common the first and the last two-fingers position of the sequence as shown
in the two examples from the beginning of Op. 23 No. 10b (right hand only) and from bars 15 and
16 of Op. 23 No. 10a (both hands symmetrically) given respectively in Figure 13 and Figure 14.

Figure 13. The incipit of Op. 23 No. 10b showing a sequence comprising the all ten two-fingers
positions with no repetitions followed by its reverse for right hand only.

Figure 14. Bars 15 and 16 from Op. 23 No. 10a showing a sequence comprising the all ten two-
fingers positions with no repetitions alternating with its reverse in both hands symmetrically.

34
 the
Another example of employment of the three features to fingering issues is the one of my Op. 23
No. 3, where the core idea is the use of all the permutations of patterns of three fingers. Such
strategy, forcing the performance to learn the music through ever different patterns, put the focus on
a feature that has been present in other former scores of mine and that has been defined by
composer Alberto Barberis ‘cerebral virtuosity’, namely a “different approach to virtuosity [that]
overcomes the limitation of an exclusively idiomatic and technical difficulty; instead, it calls for
focus and mental commitment that is not necessarily in a direct relationship with performative
skills.” (Barberis 2017: 121). Body and mind are both challenged. Thus, “the composer is able not
only to develop the technique of the instrument indirectly through an unusual but parallel path, but
also to challenge his and the performer’s mastery, in the search for an ultimate balance between the
abstract compositional idea and its actual sonic realization.” (Barberis 2017: 129).

Figure 15. The incipit of Op. 23 No. 3.

35
5.2 Rhythmical elements

A first example of employment of the three features in dealing with rhythmical elements can be
found in the first movement of my Estatica, Op. 18 No. 1 (2009) for solo guitar. Four rhythmical
patterns of a repeating pitch, each of them characterized by a specific right hand fingering, had been
taken in consideration (Figure 16): all the possible 24 permutations of such patterns are then
presented in the score in ascending order (Figure 17).

Figure 16. The four patterns, named A, B, C and D, of Estatica, Op. 18 No. 1.

There is a defined set of musical elements that is closed under a group of transformations on its
members, the four rhythmical patterns and their permutations: completeness is granted. All the
permutations and the four patterns appear the same number of times (the 24 permutations appear
once, while the 4 patterns appear 24 times each): exhaustiveness and equality in repetition have
been satisfied as well.

Since the passage has to be performed as fast as possible (Prestissimo possibile) the resulting effect
is one of almost timbral nature. “Taking advantage of the guitar’s ability to play the same
note on different strings (also marked in the score), the composer is then able to precisely control
the subliminal accentuation of the repeated notes – which will always coincide with the 16th-note
played with the thumb – as well as the ever-changing timbral-sound effect.” (Barberis 2017: 127).
“The number of repeated notes and their accentuation, defined precisely through the ascending
order of each permutation, are thus determined since the beginning. The effect is that of a single and
strongly characterized sound entity evolving along a predetermined process of constant
metamorphosis. Therefore, when performing this passage, the difficulty and the virtuosic
feature do not reside in the speed of the arpeggio, but in the constant alternation of the four types of
right-hand fingerings. Moreover, because [pattern C] is ternary, it disrupts any possibility of mental

36
binary subdivision and thus the quest for an order based on usual structures. Therefore, the use of
permutations allows Albini to expand the possibilities of a traditional technical gesture – the
repeated note – allowing it to evolve into an unusual and destabilizing one.” (Barberis 2017: 128).
rhythmical
This strategy applied to rhytmical elements not only could contradict the most familiar metrical
organization of durations, but could also expand the possibilities of a familiar physical gesture and,
in this specific context, shift the effect to one of timbrical nature.

Figure 17. The entire first movement of Estatica, Op. 18 No. 1. Notice that from the thirteenth
permutation to the last one the same pitch is given as a natural harmonic on the fifth string. This has
been done to underline futher the beginning of each pattern.

37
Another example can be found in my recent Ratio Diatonica Naturalis, Op. 64 No. 1 (2019), for
tuned percussive elements. As stated in the first page, “the score can be performed by any kind of
instrument, by any amount of performers and/or in any situation of automated playback. There are
only two requirements: 1) that the written bichords must be performed in just intonation and 2) that
the rhythms are accurately performed. Apart from that, any kind of composition and/or
improvisation and/or dramatisation is permitted.”
The score presents a bichord per bar; it starts with the unison, then an octave, a major seventh, a
major sixt, etc. comprising all the intervals of the diatonic C major scale. This happen from all the
degrees of the scale, thus there are exactly 56 measures offering the following intervals (the
subscript ‘n’ stands for a generic octave to be decided at the beginning of the performance):

Cn-Cn, Cn-Cn+1, Cn-Bn, Cn-An, Cn-Gn, Cn-Fn, Cn-En, Cn-Dn

Dn-Dn, Dn-Dn+1, Dn-Cn+1, Dn-Bn, Dn-An, Dn-Gn, Dn-Fn, Dn-En
En-En, En-En+1, En-Dn+1, En-Cn+1, En-Bn, En-An, En-Gn, En-Fn
Fn-Fn, Fn-Fn+1, Fn-En+1, Fn-Dn+1, Fn-Cn+1, Fn-Bn, Fn-An, Fn-Gn
Gn-Gn, Gn-Gn+1, Gn-Fn+1, Gn-En+1, Gn-Dn+1, Gn-Cn+1, Gn-Bn, Gn-An
An-An, An-An+1, An-Gn+1, An-Fn+1, An-En+1, An-Dn+1, An-Cn+1, An-Bn
Bn-Bn, Bn-Bn+1, Bn-An+1, Bn-Gn+1, Bn-Fn+1, Bn-En+1, Bn-Dn+1, Bn-Cn+1

The three features are here satisfied from many point of views, rhythmical, pitch and interval-wise.
However, the characteristic approach of the score is the rhythmical representation of the pitches
played, since the rhythmical ratio between the pattern are exactly the ratio between the pitches
performed. Under some harmonic rules of mathematical nature the three rules of completeness,
exhaustiveness and equality in repetition are all satisfied.

What I consider interesting here is the use of mathematics as a medium in between two sets of
elements of different nature. Mathematics shows is potentiality in connecting distant elements, a
feature that let it be a metaphor of everything. As French philosopher Simone Weil wrote “Arts
properly so called are made of a matter that exists in the physical meaning. Poetry itself is made by
language seen as a set of sounds. The matter of mathematics is a metaphor; and what does this
metaphor correspond to?” (Weil 2018: 27).24

24 This author's translation. “Le arti propriamente dette hanno una materia che esiste nel senso fisico della parola. La
stessa poesia ha per materia il linguaggio visto come un insieme di suoni. La materia dell'arte matematica è una
metafora; e a che cosa corrisponde questa metafora?”

38
Figure 18. The incipit of Op. 64 No. 1.

39
5.3 A computational approach

The vast number of combinatorial possibilities in arranging the musical elements generated
according to the regulatory principles I have described makesitparticularly efficient to avail of
automatic procedures to speed up generating and exploring them, giving also way to different
aesthetic consequences and insights. Although the method described in this paragraph is still mainly
realted to elements of harmonic nature, its capability in creating and in dealing with the aimed
musical structures are of a brader application and interest.

A representative example is Op. 60, for people, composing system and harpsichordist
(2017/2018)25, that was part of the creative project of my first year doctoral studies. It is based on a
software I coded that runs on Android and Mac as a standalone application that can quickly and
autonomously compose, engrave, show and play a massive number of ever new ricercare for
harpsichord, exploring the combinatorial harmonic possibilities of the same musical material:
trichords made up of intervals spanning an octave in a diatonic context. I mathematically
enumerated such trichords, proving that exactly a hundred and one of such kind of chords can be
built. Accordingly, I studied their structural features and relations and I decided to impose to present
them in my score so that one of them appears a second time only after all the others have made their
appearance, so to satisfy the three features of completeness, combinatorial exhaustiveness and
equality in repetition. The technique ensured then that all the aforesaid chords sounded as often as
one another, preventing the emphasis of any of them and thus avoiding close recurring chord
progressions. At the same time, it granted an overall diatonic, modal sound. I finally worked
composing abiding by this simple rule and making it to coexist with other musical concepts, such as
for instance polytonality and permutative cyclical patterns. A user of the software can visualize and
play the generated scores, sending then the ones s/he likes the most to the composer to be enrolled
for being featured in a concert. The user interaction is very limited: s/he can only generate ever new
scores without any control over the generation. The user is only allowed then to explore the
possibilities automatically and randomly sorted by the software and choose the score s/he prefers.
Thus, this work let me establish the features of possible aesthetics informed by combinatorics and
probability; namely: the participatory aspect in the process of music composition and the
participatory aspect in the discovery of artistic values. In fact, since the composing system of Op.
60 explores a specific and stylistically pretty constrained set of short pieces for harpsichord, all

25 In (Albini 2018a) I tackled the aesthetic framework of Op. 60 in relation to the importance of the participation of
non-musicians for the creation of new music with it and taking into account related historical examples.

40
based on the same musical idea, the users of the software helped me exploring all the possibilities I
set and so evaluating which ones can be considered effective and which ones are considered
insignificant, and accordingly helping me changing the software rules themselves.

Figure 19. A ricercare generated with the composing system of Op. 60. I operated it, so the score
shows my name as the ‘ghost’, making reference to the aesthetic concept offered in (Calvino 2015)
and hereby presented in Paragraph 2.2.

41
 Figure 20. Four screenshots of the composing system of Op. 60 running on an Android device.

5.4 Symbolic meanings

The creative project of my fourth year doctoral studies, 1982, Op. 68 (2020), for voice, piano,
screen and acting, involved scenic action and a libretto, and featured the employment of the three
features of completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in repetition in musical structures that
symbolize the impled meaning of the action.

The libretto is directly made from Italian second longest palindrome26 by Giuseppe Varaldo,
prominent riddler, who endorsed the project of putting it in music. Abiding by the strict rules of
constrained writing, the text is a sparkling stream of consciousness about Italy and the 1982 World
Football Championship, that the Italian team won against the German one. The setting is a room, a
piano is on the stage as well as a screen. A man wakes up at the beginning of the action and fall
asleep at the end. The text is elusive and confused, rich of possibile interpretations and meanings.
The man sings and keeps busy with daily affairs (even dueting with a recorded himself played
backwards), stuck in a sort of temporal loop that I feel that can represent our daily routine and our
lives (and my own artistic research as a composer – 1982 is also my year of birth): a struggle for
meaning and indentity out of ordered chaos and habits. The varied musical material on which the
score is based, that includes several heterogeneous musical references and explicit citations,

26 A palindrome is a text which reads the same backward as forward.

42
undergoes many different mathematically informed constraints, that echo the strictness of the
structure of the palindrome and the contrast with its elusive meaning.

In this context, a musical structure derived from the libretto and complying with three features has
been particularly relevant. It is a sequence of pitches thas is depicted in Figure 21 and it has been
derived by all the possible sixteen combinations of the ascending and descending ordered intervals
1, 9, 8, and 2, where the numbers – derived from the score title – represent semitones. Such
sequence, that interval-wise complies with the three features, gives also rise to a series of eight
triads that are as well recurring in the score.

Figure 21. The sequence of pitches given by all the possible sixteen combinations of the ascending
and descending ordered intervals 1, 9, 8, and 2 (numbers represent semitones). Sections ascribable
to triadic sonorities are underlined under the staff.

While working on this project I felt the powerful potential of these organizational elements in
symbolizing the implied meanings of the action – the situation of being stranded in a loop –,
strengthening the bound between the varied music materials, the text and the drama. Therefore, the
potentiality of mathematics in connecting distant elements is hereby even enhanced by the presence
of further extramusical layers. Moreover, I feel that the regulatory principles that organize the text

43
and the diverse musical material involved gives a unifying order to the kaleidoscopic result, adhere
to the represented action, and reinforce its symbolic message.

In Figure 22 it is shown an excerpt from the very first page of Op. 68 in which the aforesaid
sequence appear for the first time during a quick instrumental introduction. The sequence is given
with a fast pace, compressed in a single octave: a structural key for reading the rest of the score is
given, but in a rather blurred manner that is connected to the symbolic meaning of the opera at
different layers. In fact, the protagonist appears himself confused all over the action and the text of
the libretto is as well puzzled.

Figure 22. !The beginning of the sequence of pitches given by all the possible sixteen combinations
of the ascending and descending ordered intervals 1, 9, 8, and 2 as it appears for the first time in the
Op. 68, compressed in a single octave.

Figure 23 shows the beginning of the following scene, a cavatina based on Gioacchino Rossini’s
Largo al factotum from Il barbiere di Siviglia. The music is derived from the famous Rossini’s
cavatina, but reshaped in a pan-diatonic context that changes the underlying diatonic scale
following the order of the ones that can be generated while taking as their tonics the triads that
appear in the interval structure of Figure 21. In the bars of the given example G flat major, D major
and B flat major are the scales involved. The cultural memories of a cavatina are blurred, re-
structured and re-contextualized.

44
 Figure 23. !The beginning of Op. 68 cavatina that introduces the protagonist.

After all, “it is quite obvious that music does not always operate in a manner similar to
mathematics. If so, music would not have the primary need to articulate sounds. But neither does it
always operate in a similar manner to verbal language. Music elaborates through itself with a
greater system of cognition in which music shares some aspects with mathematics and language in
general. In this way, within the thresholds of similarity and analogy, many pivotal aspects of
reasoning and emotion unite music with the mathematical abstractions, and with numerous aspects
of verbal and gestural intercourse” (Pareyon 2011: 6-7). In this context in (Albini, Cocchiarella

45
2019) the authors have revealed a remarkable structure in the first aria of Henry Purcell’s Dido and
Aeneas showing how, in the history of music, mathematical elements have already conveyed
dramaturgical meaning in a operatic setting. Such research reinforces my confidence that
mathematics could be an extremely valuable tool in relating elements of different nature and let
them operate in new consistent and relevant ways, even carrying unique symbolic meanings.

46
6. Conclusions

“Of all things the measure is man: of those that are, that they are; and of those that are not, that they are not.”
Protagoras

I have started the artistic research of this text aiming to answer how mathematics can serve shaping
musical structures that grant a neat focus on traditional music elements and yet put them in a
different perspective. To do so I took into analysis the process of my former composition practice
and I recognized a recurring strategy that I used to seek novelty in a conventional material. Such
strategy involves four steps, in which 1) I select some conventional musical elements, 2) I study
them by the means of a mathematical formalization, 3) I apply the discoveries I have made to set
unique constraints to abide by while composing, and finally 4) I compose in the new grammar I
have set, hopefully uncovering new ways to deal with the conventional material. I then focused on a
specific method I realized that was implicit in most of the constraints I defined to abide by while
composing and I formalized it introducing the three concepts of completeness, exhaustiveness and
equality in repetition. Therefore, I narrowed down the original broad question to a more specific
one: how and why the three concepts of completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in repetition can
serve transfiguring conventional musical elements offering a useful tools for composers? To answer
it I tested the employment of the features of completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in repetition
working with musical elements of different nature and in different musical settings.

To answer ‘why’ my mathematically informed strategy could transfigure conventional musical

understanding
elements and add novelty to the their familiarity has been much easier than to understand ‘how’ to
effectively employ such strategy. In fact, “the requirement for exhaustiveness and equality in
repetition in the method I have defined forces all the elements which undergo the process to be put
on the same level. They float then in a dimension where their conventional uses, semantics and
grammars are still perceivable but just as shades, while at the same time their new possibilities are
being expressed in a state of potentiality.” (Albini 2018b: 24). In a side research I published in
(Albini 2018b), I have additionally detected some characteristics that are identical or similar to the
three features of completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in repetition in the music of other
composers (Ludwig van Beethoven, Arnold Schoenberg, Josef Matthias Hauer, Fritz Heinrich
Klein, Milton Babbitt, Arvo Pärt, Paul Glass, Tom Johnson), so to prove their efficiency as means of
innovation, since “they often appear in precise periods of the output of a composer and of the

47
history of music, when a challenging balance is asked between novelty and tradition.” (Albini
2018b: 21). I did so without “alleging (or denying) that such features have been knowingly
employed by other composers, nor that they have been used with the same aesthetic goals as mine.”
(Albini 2018b: 21). The focus of my research had in fact been just the potentiality of the three
features. I deliberately left all the details of this musicological inside and comparison out of this
thesis, where I preferred to focus on my own compositional practice, outputs, artistic research and
outcomes.

To answer how my mathematically informed strategy could be employed effectively, satisfying my

aesthetic means has been indeed more problematic.
First of all there is the elusive aspect of the artistic process. “No matter how much to analyze, not
everything fo an artist’s artistic process can be understood: there is always an irrational element that
cannot be defined. Even if the composer explicitly states that he complied with a specific structure
or technique and that those are the cues to understand his music, the indescribable and not
rationalizable mystery about the aesthetic result remains and cannot be describe if not by the means
of parallelisms and metaphors.” (Vasio; Petrassi 2007: 159)27 This is a common issue in artistic
research, however Petrassi’s argument is fundamental even in relation to my own ‘rational’
approach to the artistic practice. While conducting this very research I understood that I had to let
my own musicality come out without the need to understand and control all of its aspects. The
strategy I elaborated has to break the chains of habits and must not enchain me elsewhere and again.
The final awareness of this led me to the first conclusion about how to employ my strategy: since its
aim is to transfigure a material what it outputs is and must be still a material that needs a composer
to properly compose with it. If a ‘new freedom’ is not set there will not be a proper artistic results.
As written in the Protagoras’ famous sophism that I put as the epitaph of this chapter, “man is the
measure of all things, of those that are as they are and of those which are not as they are not.”
However, even deciding where to stop in setting the rules to abide for while composing is quite
challenging. As I pointed out in Chapter 3 in relation to my Corale #4, Op. 22 No. 1, for cello, the
risk is to have a ‘new’ material but to use it in such an ‘old’ way that the transfiguration process is
almost ineffective. I have to thank Prof. Kerri Kotta for making me understand it. The issue shifts
then to decide how to set further rules after the establishment of a set of musical elements satisfying
the three features of completeness, exhaustiveness and equality in repetition. It is again Petrassi who
27 This author's translation. “Ma per quanto si analizzi non si può capire tutto, proprio tutto di che cosa sia il processo
creativo di un artista: resta sempre un elemento di irrazionalità non definibile. Anche se il compositore dichiara
esplicitamente di essersi attenuto a una struttura e a una tecnica determinata e che quella è la chiave per capire la
sua opera, tuttavia permane il mistero del risultato estetico che non è razionalizzabile e non è descrivibile se non in
termini paralleli, per metafora.”

48
suggests a good answer: “the musical material suggests by itself the procedure to follow and the
procedure then triggers a further development, in a sort of auto-genesis that underlies many
imaginative processes.” (Vasio; Petrassi 2007: 161)28 The composition practice I conducted in the
context of this research suggested me that a good approach is to define rules that are related to the
transfigured material, that highlights some of its peculiar features while combining it with musical
elements of different nature. In this way not only the other aspects of the whole compositions are
connected to the novelty of the core ‘new’ material, but also it can be that the new grammar could
force even new rhetorical ideas. Obviously, as I have already said, a difficult issue is to decide when
to stop in setting the rules so to leave space to the composer, to what I personally consider ‘actual’
composition.

In defining the aforementioned rules and looking for new ways in dealing with them while
composing, I noticed that the widenings to elements of different nature were particularly effective.
Perhaps, the transfiguration was then amplified, putting the original element in a different context
and perceptual setting. For instance, the stretchings of time I described in Paragraph 3.3 about my
String Quartet No. 7, Op. 25 that allows the presentation of a whole harmonic sequence of 24 triads
in a very short span of time, let it to be perceived as a single sound object, almost a unity of timbral
nature rather than the original harmonic element. Similarly, the regulatory principles that are at the
core of Ratio Diatonica Naturalis Op. 64 No. 1 highlight the natural acoustic overlap between the
pitch and the rhythmical dimensions, playing on the blur between them. This unexpectedly
introduced in my research the dual concepts of liminality and perceptual thresholds that are usually
related to spectral aesthetics. Knowing it and making experience of its effectiveness in my test
totally
compositions gave me a total new framework of reasoning while composing that I need to deepen
with further music and research.

Could such a strategy be relevant and effective also for other composers? I think so, as it offers a
precise methodology to follow in dealing with musical materials, objects that serve the composer: it
offers a tool for – hopefully – finding new tools, regardless of the aesthetics and the aimed beauty, if
any. Mathematics itself is just an instrument that can be forgotten after it made what was needed. It
helps translating an artist’s fantasy in true imagination. Moreover, it could offer in any case an
original and suggestive inspirational framework.

28 This author’s translation. “È il materiale musicale a suggerire il procedimento ed è il procedimento a suggerire lo

svolgimento ulteriore, in una specie di autogenesi che si può trovare alla base di tanti processi immaginativi.”

49
In this regard, I’d like to conclude again with the words of Goffredo Petrassi, who underlined the
difference between fantasy and imagination in the artist’s work. “Fantasy […] drags out of reality,
in a state where a mind wanders into disparate and unlikely things, with no connections, without
any limit. In imagination there is rather a minimal perceptions of contents that, although being not
rationalizable, still hold some elements of the current human condition. This is very important,
because in such a moment of imaginative freedom a mind can catch some unforeseen excitement
that could be employed in the creative work.” (Vasio; Petrassi 2007: 153, 154)29

29 This author’s translation. “La fantasticheria […] trascina del tutto fuori dalla realtà, in uno stato in cui la mente
vaga fra cose disparate e improbabili, sciolte da ogni legame, senza limite. Invece nell’immaginazione rimane una
minima percezione della coscienza su contenuti che, pur non essendo razionalizzabili, tuttavia conservano qualche
elemento delle condizioni umane in cui ci si trova in quel momento. Questo è molto importante, perché durante un
simile passaggio di libertà immaginativa, la mente può captare qualche fermento imprevisto che potrà essere
utilizzato nel lavoro creativo.”

50
Bibliography

Albini, Giovanni 2007. Modelli Matematici per l’Analisi e la Composizione Musicale: uno Studio
sul Tonnetz e sulle Teorie Neo-Riemanniane. Final essay (M.Sc). Manuscript. Università degli studi
di Pavia.

Albini, Giovanni; Antonini, Samuele 2009. Hamiltonian Cycles in the Topological Dual of the
Tonnetz – Mathematics and Computation in Music: 2nd International Conference, MCM 2009. Eds.
Elaine Chew, Adrian Childs, Ching-Hua Chuan. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, pp. 1-10.

Albini, Giovanni; Bernardi, Marco P. 2017. Hamiltonian Graphs as Harmonic Tools – Mathematics
and Computation in Music: 6th International Conference, MCM 2017. Eds. Octavio A. Agustin-
Aquino, Emilio Luuis-Puebla, Mariana Montiel. Cham: Springer Verlag, pp. 215-226.

Albini, Giovanni 2018. Combinatorics, Probability and Choice in Music Composition: Towards an
Aesthetics of Composing Systems for Non-Musicians – Proceedings of Bridges 2018:
Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Education, Culture. Eds. Eve Torrence, Bruce Torrence,
Carlo H. Séquin, Kristóf Fenyvesi. Phoenix, Arizona, USA: Tessellations Publishing, pp. 395-398.

Albini, Giovanni 2018. Combinatorial Features as Cues and Means of Music Innovation – Rivista
di Analisi e Teoria Musicale. Rivista di Analisi e Teoria Musicale XXIV, 2018 (1). Ed. Antonio
Grande. LIM Editore, pp. 21-38.

Albini, Giovanni; Bernardi, Marco P. 2018. Graph Theory and Music: A Mathematical Tool for
Musicians – Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Geometry and Graphics. ICGG
2018. Ed. Luigi Cocchiarella. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, Vol. 809. Cham:
Springer, pp. 1813-1824.

Albini, Giovanni; Nastari, Fabrizio 2019. Composing New with the Old: Musical Stylometry as a
Means of Composing New Music for Classical Guitar – Proceedings/Program of the II Dublin
Guitar Symposium. Dublin, 22-23 February 2019, p. 32.

Albini, Giovanni 2019. Matemaatiliste Formuleeringute Piirangud ja Iseärasused Muusikalise

Kompositsiooniteooria Esteetikas – Teater. Muusika. Kino. April 2019 Issue, pp. 82-89.

Albini, Giovanni 2019. The Music of Reason, the Reason for Music: Mathematics at the Ser ice of
Composition Practice and Aesthetics – Arta muzicală. No. 2, pp. 54-59.

51
Albini, Giovanni; Bernardi, Marco P. 2019. Tropical Generalized Interval Systems – Mathematics
and Computation in Music: 7th International Conference, MCM2019. Eds. Mariana Montiel,
Francisco Gómez-Martín, Octavio A. Agustín-Aquino. Springer Academics, pp. 73-83.

Albini, Giovanni; Bernardi, Marco P.; Cocchiarella, Luigi 2019. Transformation-based Musical
Graphs – Proceedings of the 12th Asian Forum on Graphic Science (AFGS2019), pp. 55-56.

Albini, Giovanni; Cocchiarella, Luigi 2019. Reflections between Image and Sound: A Joint
Retrospect on Velazquez’s “Las Meninas” and Purcell’s “Dido and Æneas” – Proceedings of UID
2019, Riflessioni / Reflections, XVI Congresso dell’ Unione Italiana per il Disegno, XLI Convegno
Internazionale dei Docenti della Rappresentazione. Roma: Gangemi Editore, pp. 29-32.

Albini, Giovanni; Oppizzi, Matilde 2019. Distant Reading Strategies Aiding the Composition of
New Idiomatic Music for Classical Guitar – Proceedings of the Nordic Sound and Music
Computing Conference 2019 (NSMC2019) and the Interactive Sonification Workshop 2019
(ISON2019). Eds. Andre Holzapfel, Sandra Pauletto. KTH Royal Institute of Technology, pp. 47-50.

Albini, Giovanni 2021. Mathematics For, Through and Towards Composition Practice:
Combinatorial Features as Means of Music Innovation – Music – The Cultural Bridge: Essence,
Contexts, References. Wrocław: The Publishing Department of the Karol Lipinski Academy of
Music in Wrocław, pp. 249-259.

Babbitt, Milton 1960. Twelve-Tone Invariants as Compositional Determinants - The Musical

Quarterly. Volume 46, Number 2. Oxford University Press: 246–259.

Barberis, Alberto 2012. The Language of Giovanni Albini – Giovanni Albini. Musica Ciclica. CD
Brilliant Classics 9294, p. 2.

Barberis, Alberto 2017. ‘Cerebral’ Virtuosity in two Examples of Contemporary Music for Classical
Guitar - highSCORE Proceedings 2012/2013. Pavia: highSCORE Publishing.

Benetti, Marco 2014. A sound born in the Word – Giovanni Albini. Musica Sacra. CD Brilliant
Classics 95072, p. 2.

Calvino, Italo 2015. Una pietra sopra. Milano: Mondadori.

Cestino, Giovanni 2019. Fra Cronaca e Profezia. Pensieri Sul Rapporto Tra Compositori e (Nuove)
Tecnologie. Una Conversazione con Giovanni Albini e Alberto Barberis – Dialoghi Con I Non

52
Umani. Eds. Gaetano Mangiameli, Emanuele Fabiano. Milano-Udine: Molimo, Nuova Serie 9,
Mimesis, pp. 193-211.

Cestino, Giovanni 2019. A Musica Monumentalis: Giovanni Albini’s String Quartets – Giovanni
Albini. String Quartets. CD Brilliant Classics 95717, pp. 3–7.

Cohn, Richard 1998. Introduction to Neo-Riemannian Theory: A Survey and a Historical

Perspective. Journal of Music Theory. Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 167-180.

Clough, John; Myerson, Gerald 1985. Variety and Multiplicity in Diatonic Systems – Journal of
Music Theory. Volume 29. Duke University Press for the Yale Department of Music, pp. 248–270.

Cook, Nicholas 2001. Between Process and Product: Music and/as Performance - Music Theory
Online. Volume 7, Number 2. http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.01.7.2/mto.01.7.2.cook.html,
accessed November 25, 2019.

De Souza, Jonathan 2017. Music at hand. New York: Oxford Uuniversity Press.

Grande, Antonio 2018. Editorial – Rivista di Analisi e Teoria Musicale. Rivista di Analisi e Teoria
Musicale XXIV, 2018 (1). Ed. Antonio Grande. LIM Editore, pp. XV–XXI.

Johnson, Tom 2007. I Want to Find the Music Not to Compose It.
http://www.editions75.com/Articles/I%20WANT%20TO%20FIND%20THE%20MUSIC.pdf,
accessed December 29, 2018.

Kostelanetz, Richard 2013. A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes. London and New York: Routledge.

Restagno, Enzo; Brauneiss, Leopold; Kareda, Saale; Pärt, Arvo 2012. Arvo Pärt in Conversation.
Champaign, Dublin, London: Dalkey Archive Press.

Ligeti, György; Várnai, Péter; Häusler, Josef; Samuel, Claude 1983. Ligeti in Conversation.
London: Eulenburg Books.

Pareyon, Gabriel 2011. On Musical Self-Similarity – Intersemiosis as Synecdoche and Analogy.

Helsinki: The International Semiotics Institute, Imatra.

Van Orden, Kimberly A. 2000. Introduction. Music and the Cultures of Print. New York: Garland, I-
XXI.

Vasio, Carla; Petrassi, Goffredo 2017. Autoritratto. Modena: Mucchi editore.

53
Stravinsky, Igor 1947. Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.

Weil, Simone; André Weil 2018. L’arte della matematica. Milano: Adelphi.

54
List of doctoral concerts

1. Combinatorics, randomness and choice

Date: 14.05.2018

Venue: EMTA Orelisaal, Tallinn, Estonia

Performers: Matilde Oppizzi (guitar) , Riccardo Lorenzetti (harpsichord)

Program: Albini (WP)

2. Limiti e meraviglia

Date: 7.05.2019

Venue: Palazzina Liberty, Milano, Italia

Performers: Ensemle Testori (string orchestra), Diego Ceratta (conductor)

Program: Albini (WP), Dvořák

Date: 20.10.2018 *

Venue: Estonia kontserdisaal, Tallinn, Estonian

Performers: EMTA sümfooniaorkester, Paul Mägi (conductor)

Program: Albini (WP), Beethoven, Forsyth

* Submitted as a recording

55
3. A divergent keyboard

Online YouTube A/V recordings

Performer: Matteo Generani (piano)

Program: Albini (WP), Bach

4. 1982

Date: 23.04.2021

Venue: EMTA Suur saal, Tallinn, Estonia

Performers: Tambet Kikas (voice – bass), Kristi Kapten (piano), Liis Kolle (stage director)

Program: Albini (WP)

56
Töö lühikokkuvõte eesti keeles

Käesoleva töö idee pärineb isiklikul esteetilisel võitlusel. Mind on alati paelunud kaks kindlat
kontseptsiooni, ühe iluideaali kaks poolt, mida järgin. Ühest küljest lummab mind matemaatikas
peituva poeetika ekstaatiline võlu: muusika ja matemaatika on minu kompositsioonipraktikas
korduvalt seotud olnud ning nende suhtest on kujunenud minu jaoks kaardistamata muusikaline
territoorium, st ilusad vahendid, mida uurida. Teisest küljest on mind alati köitnud lääne muusika
hästituntud konventsionaalsete muusikaliste elementide, näiteks kolmkõlade ja diatooniliste laadide,
monumentaalne ajatu võlu, st ilu, mida tuleb tähistada.

Nagu kirjeldan Peatükis 1, tunnen isiklikult, et mõlemad pooled üksikult kipuvad kalduma justkui
tühjusse ja triviaalsusesse. Puhtalt matemaatikapõhise lähenemisega kompositsioonile tekib risk
saavutada tulemus, mida pean ehedaks ja pealiskaudseks formalismiks, kontseptualismiks või
strukturalismiks. Minu arvates taandab formaalsete detailide, struktuuride ja väliste
kontseptsioonide prioritiseerimine muusika ainuüksi teiste, matemaatiliste, iluvormide tõlkijaks, st
tühjaks muusikaliseks anumaks. Samas on laialtlevinud muusikaliste objektide kasutamisel lihtne
langeda klišeedesse ja ilu stereotüüpidesse. Siit tuleb ka esialgne küsimus: kas mõlemad pooled
võivad koos vastastikku tugevdada oma sedavõrd habrast ilu? Lõppkokkuvõttes võib matemaatika
aidata leida avastamata teid ja lahendusi traditsioonilise muusikalise materjali käsitlemisel, haarates
kaasa kogu selle ontoloogilise puhtuse ilusa pitseri. Ent samaaegselt võib lääne kultuuri ja
mõtlemisse nõnda sügavalt juurdunud muusikaline materjal, olenemata kuitahes palju sellest
võõranduda, säilitada osa oma väljendusrikkast sisust, ajaloost ja ilu mälestustest. Siit tuleneb minu
loometöö üldküsimus: kuidas saab matemaatika abil kujundada konventsionaalsetele muusika
elementidele keskenduvaid muusikalisi struktuure, pannes need samas teistmoodi perspektiivi?
Teisisõnu: kuidas saab matemaatika abil avastada hästituntud muusikaliste elementide kasutamise
uusi võimalusi, et tunda taas imestust nende käsitlemisel ja kuulamisel?

Selle taustal peatun ma Peatükis 2 oma uurimuse esteetilistel alustel, kirjeldades nende päritolu
ning seostades neid teiste heliloojate (Stravinski, Johnson ja Pärt) ning filosoofide (Calvino ja
Gombrich) diskursusega. Tutvustan teoreetiliselt ka matemaatilisi regulatsioone, mida olen leidnud
oma kompositsioonipraktikas ja strateegiates. Selle taustal määratlen kolme matemaatilist
tunnusjoont, mis kirjeldavad eelmainitud korduvate strateegiate olemust; nimetasin need 1)

57
terviklikkuseks, 2) ammendavuseks ja 3) võrdsuseks korduses. Antud tunnusjooned tulenevad minu
varasemalt loodud partituuride analüüsist, kus on käsitletud kompositsiooniprotsessi ning üldistatud
ja formaliseeritud mõningaid matemaatikapõhiseid tavasid, mida sain seejärel uuel, teadlikumal,
viisil loomepraktikas arendada, testida ja lõputus suletud ringis – praktikast teooriani, teooriast
praktikani – uurida.

Peatükis 3 süvenen konkreetsetesse harmoonilistesse struktuuridesse – konsonantsetesse

kolmkõladesse –, mille põhjal saaksin tuvastada eelmainitud kolme tunnusjoont ning nende üle
teoretiseerida. Lisaks esitlen mõningaid laiendatud strateegiaid, mis käsitlevad taolisi struktuure,
arutledes nende rakendamise üle oma kompositsioonide teatud lõikudes. Selles kontekstis testin
esmakordselt nende kolme tunnusjoone võimet kujundada ümber konventsionaalseid muusikalisi
elemente.

Peatükis 4 võtan vaatluse alla uue strateegia, kus nimetatud kolme tunnusjoont on rakendatud
diatooniliste trihordide puhul ning arutlen nende kasutamise üle uue muusika komponeerimisel.

Peatükis 5 käsitlen kolme tunnusjoone laiendamist väljaspool harmooniat ning süvenen erinevat
tüüpi muusikaliste elementide täiendavatesse rakenduslikesse meetoditesse, mis pole tingimata
seotud helikõrgustega, vaid eelkõige esitustehnikatega füüsilisel tasandil ning rütmidega. Peale selle
tutvustan eelmainitud kolme tunnusjoont hõlmavate muusikaliste struktuuride genereerimist ja
uurimist kasutavat tehnoloogiat ning nende rakendamist näitlemist ja libretot kaasavas muusikalises
kontekstis, esitlemaks nende sümboolset potentsiaali. Taaskord on juhtumianalüüsidena esitatud
minu komponeeritud ja välja töötatud partituurid ning tehnikad.

Peatükk 6 on pühendatud arutelule minu uurimusest tulenevatest uutest teadmistest, pidades silmas
ka tulevikuarenguid ning esteetilisi järeldusi. Keskendun uutele leitud võimalustele ning arutlen,
kuidas ja miks need võiksid olla kasulikud, olulised ja efektiivsed vahendid ka teiste heliloojate
jaoks. Toon esile, kuidas kirjeldatud strateegia, mis hõlmab kolme tunnusjoont – terviklikkust,
ammendavust ja võrdsust korduses –, pakub täpset metoodikat, mida muusikalise materjali
käsitlemisel selle originaalsete kasutusviiside avastamiseks järgida. Juhin ka tähelepanu, et tegemist
on tõhusate innovatsioonivahenditega, kuna need võivad luua olukorra, kus algne muusikaline
materjal hakkab justkui hõljuma dimensioonis, kus selle tavakasutus, semantika ja grammatika on
endiselt tajutavad, aga vaid varjunditena, samal ajal kui selle uusi võimalusi väljendatakse
potentsiaalsuse staatuses. Rõhutan siiski, et tulemus on ja peabki olema ikkagi materjal, mis vajab

58
sellega korralikult ümber käivat heliloojat. Matemaatika on vaid vahend, mille võib unustada siis,
kui see on oma eesmärgi täitnud. Tegelikkuses selgus minu jaoks antud töö raames läbiviidud
kompositsioonipraktikast, et heaks lähenemisviisiks on määratleda ära ümberkujundatud materjali
puudutavad reeglid, et tõsta esile mõningad materjalile omased jooned, kombineerides seda samas
erinevat laadi muusikaliste elementidega. Niisugusel moel pole mitte ainult kogu kompositsiooni
ülejäänud aspektid n-ö uue tuumikmaterjaliga ühendatud, aga uus grammatika võib läbi suruda ka
värskeid retoorilisi ideid. Kindlasti on keeruline otsustada, millal lõpetada reeglite kehtestamine, et
jätta ruumi heliloojale, sellele, mida pean n-ö tegelikuks kompositsiooniks. Lisaks märkasin
eelnevalt mainitud reegleid määratledes ja neid komponeerimisel uute mooduste otsimiseks
kasutades, et laiendused erinevat tüüpi elementidele olid eriti tõhusad. Niisugune teadmine ning
sellega eksperimenteerimine oma helitöödes andis mulle täiesti uue arutlusraamistiku
komponeerimisel, millesse pean muusika ja uurimise läbi edaspidi rohkem süvenema.

59