Egisto Macchi and Antonin Artaud: from «A(lter)A(ction)» to «München-Requiem» and Beyond

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the project for Egisto Macchi's «München-Requiem» (1968) as a further step in the trajectory that the experience of the music theatre piece «A(lter)A(ction)» (1966-1968), and the meditation on Antonin Artaud, had initiated in Macchi's production. The analysis of the autograph score of the incomplete work for «München-Requiem» offers the opportunity to uncover Macchi's openness to a diverse range of solicitations and to look into his musical discourse as stimulated by the exchanges and the mutual dynamics between artistic languages. The visual connotation characterizing the score appears to document in fact the composer as involved in a musical writing that shows an interest in the interaction of image and word. At the same time it attests to Macchi's reflection on the relations between sonority, visuality and writing.