A Trajectory of Sound: Domenico Guaccero’s «Iter inverso» (1962)

Abstract

This article examines «Iter inverso» (1962) by Domenico Guaccero through the combined perspectives of source studies and analytical inquiry. Drawing on autograph manuscripts, sketches, performance materials, and correspondence, it reconstructs the work’s complex genesis, editorial history, and early reception, highlighting the circumstances that contributed to its limited dissemination despite its central position within the composer’s output. The study then investigates the compositional strategies underlying the score, focusing on the interaction between aleatory procedures, informal musical thought, and post-serial techniques. Rather than functioning as an autonomous principle, indeterminacy is shown to operate within a tightly organized network of compositional relationships that governs sonic transformation, perceptual processes, and formal articulation. By situating «Iter inverso» within Guaccero’s theoretical writings and the broader European avant-garde of the early 1960s, the article argues that the work represents a significant stage in his search for a musical language capable of reconciling structural control with openness and sonic experimentation.