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Futuro Antico. Interview with Michele Dall'Ongaro
16 mag 2023
Marco Bassan
“The future is the past propelled forward by the present.” These and other reflections on tomorrow in the words of the president of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia.
What are your sources of inspiration in art?
I would like to give a clear answer on this topic. Unfortunately, the terrain on which I have sown and continue to sow the seeds of my musical endeavors (in every possible way and with varying results: composing it, playing it, writing about it, teaching it, discussing it, organizing it) is so multifaceted that offering a coherent answer is truly problematic for me. On deeper reflection, I see a passion for the adventure of performance, cinema, radio, music, and theater, influenced by the maternal side of my family, with a taste for imagination and invention that my father—an author and journalist (like his ancestors)—tried to instill in us children with exercises as formative as they were quirky. I perceive an attraction to the magical and mysterious aspects of life, contrasted (and yet, surprisingly, complementary) by the strict progressive and militant education I imposed on myself during adolescence. And so, in this multitude of stimuli, inspirations, and presences, what I truly seek and what inspires me is the pursuit of synthesis between these worlds: finding the 'x' point on a vividly colorful, tangled, four-dimensional, and iridescent map. Guiding principles include an ethical ideal learned from the old Masters, the quest for continuity within the flow of music over time, but also a taste for freedom and enjoyment, sprezzatura, diverse forms of storytelling, and an awareness of a sometimes dystopian plurality. It is about finding a blank space in this voracious puzzle where I can place another unique entry in an infinite musical encyclopedia, a crowded yet feasible soundscape.
What is the project that best represents your identity? Can you tell us about its genesis?
I would say that the most important project is always the latest one I am working on, partly because I strive to create it differently from the previous ones, incorporating even a small sign of novelty and change. The model (naturally an ideal or even mythological one) would be Beethoven’s piano sonatas: there are 32 of them, but no two are alike because, as someone once said, he was deaf, yes, but only to the superfluous.
What is the importance of the Genius Loci for you in your work?
I believe that the Genius Loci is, if not everything, almost everything. But today, what place does the Genius Loci tell us about? For me, it’s simple: what matters is the place I have built in my mind, my labyrinth, the burrow from Kafka’s story, where the reference points are in constant transformation yet almost always recognizable. While this might have sufficed until recently, for the representatives of Bauman's "liquid society," which place’s spirit can become a common home? And, as if nothing were stable, discontinuity prevails, and History seems devoid of direction. Qualities once considered absolute—such as the perpetuation and renewal of values—are now outdated. Other categories dominate: transience, speed, interchangeability. Like the mass memory of computers, human thought endures, overwhelmed by continuous updates in a radically transformed and pluralistic society, where for a long time there has been no sense of belonging linking a sufficiently homogeneous social group. In this animated atlas, different works of reference can coexist, as numerous as the communities willing to recognize them as such, ready to make way for the next, and so forth. It will take a long time to rebuild a common home, which will inevitably be very different from the one(s) we know today. If the theme of identity is the most debated today, there must be a reason.
How important is the past for imagining and building the future? Do you believe that the future can have an ancient heart?
The future is the past propelled forward by the present. All of the past contains all of the future or all possible futures. This is also taught by music, its history, the stories of its main figures, movements, techniques, and societal impacts. An exemplary story is that of Charpentier (famous for the Eurovision theme!): in the 17th century, he left France to study under Carissimi in Rome to perfect the "Italian style," which was dominant at the time. Upon returning to Paris, he encountered an immigrant from Florence, Giovanni Battista Lulli, who, under the name Lully, had become King Louis XIV's favorite and wielded absolute power over French music as the "inventor" of the French style, leaving Charpentier no opportunities or space. Instead of spending time on a fruitless Erasmus-like experience, Lully understood that France was not a fragmented country like Italy but a nation with a strong central state that was seeking and asserting its identity and desired to express its grandeur with new music. More than academic advancement, it was the ability to perceive new social needs, the necessity for change, and the drive toward the new and unprecedented that made the difference. The past teaches us everything; it is up to us to know how to listen.
What advice would you give to a young person who wants to follow your path?
Be like Lully: courageous, bold, and curious, ready to truly follow your path at any cost. I would also advise becoming as educated as possible (and not just in music), being highly knowledgeable and technically proficient. Develop a physical awareness of musical experience by playing, conducting, composing, studying, singing, and dancing (in other words, learning to think with your body as well). Remember that music is not just an interpretation of the world but also a way to change it. And while we’re at it: be and remain a decent person, avoiding bad company and shortcuts. It takes guts, but it works.
In an era defined by post-truth, does the concept of the sacred still have importance and strength?
Art is always true, and therefore Art is always sacred and, in its own way, antagonistic. Is it needed? Absolutely, and increasingly so. As for me, while waiting for my moment to see things for what they are, I nurture the devotion to my own form of religion, feeling like a sort of priest of music—a generous goddess that gives back exactly what is offered to her in terms of passion, time, intelligence, talent, dedication, and care, while also knowing how to punish—and severely—those who offend her.
How do you envision the future? Can you give us three ideas that you think will guide the coming years?
I imagine a future that resembles our present but heightened in all its aspects. As if all the stages experienced over the centuries by different civilizations coexisted simultaneously and intensively, everywhere. In other words, I see the future as a caricature of the present, until the arrival of new light, a new creativity.
Three ideas?
I believe that the much-discussed multiverse is, for now, a very terrestrial matter, existing here and now: the challenge is to learn how to manage it.
Providing new solutions to the issues that the 20th century tried to address with inventions like democratic voting, civil rights, and labor unions. Finding new tools to answer enduring questions such as the power dynamics between the masses and the elite.
Never underestimate the power of Art. If we venture to other planets, other inhabited galaxies, their arts will tell us far more about those civilizations' interpretations of life than any comparison of purchasing power between currencies. Worse than a lack of money is a lack of ideas.