ALLONTANATO by Peter Peyman Farzinpour

 Peter Peyman Farzinpour Presents New Multimedia Piece 

With Francesca Bonci

I’m thrilled and honored to present my new collaboration with my dear friend, the immensely talented visual artist Francesca Bonci, who has created the video for my solo piece for piano, titled “ALLONTANATO.” Allontanato translates from the Italian as “removed,” “alienated,” “estranged,” or “distanced.” One can hear the tension in this way in the music by the extremes of the notes, chords, motifs, and themes recurring at the extreme ends of the keyboard throughout as one listens. The music is intended to conjure the feelings of anxiety of one experiencing such feelings as being alienated or literally distanced with relation to anything psychological, emotional, spiritual, or even physical, from which one is being torn away. I’d composed this piece at a point in my life when I was experiencing such emotions, as often do many artists, or anyone, for that matter, at certain points in their lives.

This type of contemporary classical music is often referred to as avant-garde, atonal, dissonant, or even more specifically “spectral music,” due not only to the perceived dissonances most listeners are not used to, but also the extended techniques being employed in the music, such as playing inside the keyboard of the piano or the use of harmonics within the piano (Harmonics are the overtones in music of which we are generally not aware, but which every musical note or pitch has; however, harmonics, specifically, highlight the fundamentals of the note itself in higher ranges than normal. On instruments like the guitar, harp, or even the piano, the harmonics generally emerge an octave higher than where they are performed and have a more “delicate” or softer quality, for lack of a better or simpler explanation.)

Most listeners are not accustomed to hearing such “avant-garde” music — even classical music audiences — and they find such music or performances difficult to listen to. But effectively, such music is not much different than looking at a Wassily Kandisnky or a Jackson Pollock abstract painting. However, in in the case of vidual arts, people have the opportunity to explore the art for a brief period and then move on if they wish. But as music is an art form that happens over time and demands the listener’s attention for the entire span of that time during which it’s performed, audiences can’t simply “move on” — they must listen to the piece in its entirety, whether it be three minutes or three hours long, rather than musing over a visual piece of art for some seconds or perhaps a minute and moving on. When conducting or presenting such music, as I often do, and I have the opportunity to engage with audiences, they frequently tell me “I don’t understand this type of music!” That is a very fair point, to which I always have a rather simple response — don’t try to understand the music, but rather just have an emotional experience with it, whatever that may be. None of us can be expected to truly “understand” what may be something of a profound nature in some way upon a first impression. Did you immediately understand or get to know your best friend, favorite piece of music, or favorite film upon just one impression? That would be impossible. But one may have have an emotional impression, at the very least, enough to be engaged one way or another, with something that may seem so foreign (and in a sense, any type of music with which one isn’t familiar is foreign, just like a foreign language). But we all can experience and have an emotional response towards something, such as a piece of art, even if we feel that we don’t understand it. Moreover, the concept of truly understanding something is often confused precisely with an emotional experience we have, especially with any type of art. I have listened to and conducted and loved Bach, Brahms, and Mahler for many years. But to be completely transparent, even as someone so immersed in the piece of music I’m conducting, I can’t, with complete honesty or certainty, say that I absolutely understand the given piece of music or the composer who wrote it. After all, how can I be certain of something, which encompasses so much thought, emotion, complexity, and intensity on the part of the one who created it for me to say that I truly understand it? But what I can say is that I do have an emotional experience, often one very intense and deep, with the given piece of music (or any art), and each time I experience (conduct or listen to) the given music, I find something or discover a new layer that I hadn’t found before, and each time, the experience can become more profound and meaningful.

In the case of such “avant-garde” music, I would strongly encourage the listener to not worry about understanding it, but rather, just take it in and have an emotional experience with it. Of course, in the case of my piece Allontanato, the beautiful video by Francesca Bonci adds a whole new dimension to the experience which may allow the listener to feel or experience the music or be immersed in it more profoundly. You may find it interesting to know that when Francesca first listened to this piece, she immediately wrote me and told me how the music had made her feel, which in a musical language, was exactly what I had hoped to convey, and Francesca isn’t a musician (though she often collaborates with them). I certainly hope that you, the listener, may also experience some sort of emotional response. Moreover, when people ask me who my influences are as a composer, my first two answers are always Bach and Brahms, whom I love dearly (of course, there are many others, including Arnold Schoenberg and other composers). But it’s crucially important for me that listeners understand that such “avant-garde” music (at least mine, and many others’) doesn’t just come from anywhere without a lineage and a historical line, and isn’t notes just “thrown” on a page (though it often sounds that way to some listeners). It’s worth noting that whether it’s Bach, Brahms, or music such as mine, there is always counterpoint (most closely associated with Bach), motifs, themes, and the idea of continuous variations on the themes (closely associated for Brahms). If one can keep these “traditional” aspects in mind while experiencing the music, it may be a bit easier for the listener to be able to relate to it or make some sense of it. At any rate, at the end of all this, I hope you will listen and have some sort of experience, which will be yours and completely personal to you.

For any of you who may be interested, you may find more of my music with multimedia on my YouTube channels:

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