Research in Musical Language
From the point of view of structure and musical language my compositions are the result of research in rhythmic organization centered in the use of ratios and number. In the field of time organization, i.e., how music evolves in time, I have explored methods such as macroformal planning and the concepts of circularity and progressive spiral transformation. I have explored musical textures of several kinds, especially polyphony and monody combined with drone, and harmony based on a specific selection of intervals, and the concept of total chromatic symmetric or asymmetric harmonic fields, among other principles. Instrumentation has combined any world instrument, from the European violin to the Australian didjeridu, from digital keyboards to the shakuhachi, just because one sets up one's own limitations. My vocal music has explored polyphonic choral writing, chant, overtone- and throat-singing techniques.
An important part of my creative work comes from the interaction of music with studies in anthropology, religion, mythology, and the role of music in "primitive societies". Because of that, my compositions are always the outcome of a gesture seeking vital and true spiritual meaning through and beyond music. I find a deep resonance with the music, art and religious concepts of traditional India, and several of my compositions are imbued with them: Marriage of Heaven and Earth in its original version is for tâbla and English horn, accompanied by two guitars, Agnistoma and Sacrifice are entirely sung in Sanskrit and structured according to patterns of Rg Veda recitation, Pralâya is the spiral cosmic dissolution of the Puranas, Sol das Almas for guitar solo is composed on râga purvi, Numen and Sun Door…at World's End use texts from the Upanisads and Gâyatrî Mantra respectively, and so on.
Composition as Cosmology
Through studies in comparative religion and mythology as just mentioned, I have come to the idea of composition as cosmology and cosmogony: the act of creating music--and art in general--is a repetition of the creation of the world. This idea, by religious studies scholar Mircea Eliade, is one of the basic premises of how I see music and my work in composition. But the idea holds true to all musicians who experience music making as a spiritual discipline, even if they are not thinking about it.
Whatever the style, music is always the order of sounds. By order I mean the Greek concept of kosmos: the mutual relationships and ways of interaction of sounds that are unique to a specific style. The musician creates those sound relationships by putting them together in a musical piece, a composition, an improvisation, or a musical style. Creative methods vary. If we take a moment to define what are the musical characteristics defining the style of bebop jazz, or of South Indian raga, or of classical European symphony, we become aware of the musical principles that make each be recognized as exactly what they are: bebop, South Indian raga, and classical European symphony, and not something else. Each style of music is like an universe of sounds with its own natural laws. Music is a cosmology. And a cosmogony, one in which the creative cycle of music is ultimately completed when the music is played and becomes physical sound during its performance.
Looking at a piece of music or at an entire musical style as an ordered universe of sounds--a cosmos--brings the issue of music cognition: how this universe of sounds makes sense to us, how we know, understand, and experience it. How do the principles that originated it translate themselves through the music so that the listener can get a notion--and therefore make sense of them--though aural perception?
The concept of composition as cosmology is, however, more prescriptive of the organization of sounds in music than descriptive or interpretative, such as musical analysis is. Musical analysis ideally attempts to describe the universe of sounds in terms of how it was made, bringing light to the composer's creativity process and the cosmology of music as intended or prescribed by the composer. However, in other cases, analysis "takes a life of its own", and becomes a description that has nothing to do with the music's creative process and , is only valid as the description of its own analytical method. An example of this could be an analysis of a modal composition according to Set Theory. Therefore, it is useful to distinguish my idea of cosmology of music from that of music analysis. I am more interested in a study of music that sheds light to the creative process than in the interpretation of the creative process through a technique of analysis that is alien to it.
One more note about the concept of cosmology of music has to do with it as a form of musical knowledge. There are two aspects to the cosmology of music: the scientific and the cultural.
The scientific aspect of the cosmology explains how the music is made. It is like a natural science of music, its Physics. It describes the structural, concrete, "physical" relationships between sounds such as principles of tonality (in tonal music), pitch organization, rhythmic organization, morphology, etc. Research in composition is usually done in this realm of musical order, which I call the scientific cosmology of music.
The cultural aspect explains how the music is a consequence of contents and meanings that initially do not pertain to the structure of music, but that can be conveyed through the structure of music. This includes any social, religious, literary, metaphysical, psychological, and so on, content that actually takes part in the shaping of a composition or a musical style. Examples of the cultural cosmology of music are the role of Indian philosophy in John McLaughlin's jazz fusion bands Mahavishnu Orchestra and Shakti, or the role of mathematics in Iannis Xenakis's stochastic music.
Some of my compositions, such as Sacrifice, Luna, Agnistoma, Sun Door…At World's End, Pralaya, and others, are connected to the scacciapensiere mandala symbol on top of this page, which stands for the possibility of a meaningful spiritual content in music. The music structure in those works is informed by ideas and conceptions related to ancient cosmologies and archetypal symbolism. I have frequently explored the mandala and the spiral as time organization principles, sometimes also determining harmony. The elements of circularity, interdependence, complementarity, symmetry, and progressive transformation, thus constituting their cultural cosmology, make these compositions become these symbols (the mandala and the spiral) in musical manifestation.
Inter-Art Projects
Sand Spirals
Metagon, a solo shakuhachi piece I composed for artist Jean-Pierre Hébert's sand spiral of the same title, is performed live along the entire 12-minute duration that this sand sculpture takes to be generated, also live, by means of a magnetic ball moving over a sandboard and controlled by computer. The computer is programmed with this and many other mathematically constructed algorhythms for sculpting sand spirals of several different shapes. Metagon is one of four compositions written according to roughly the same principles that generate the spiral created by Jean-Pierre. Experimental Dance/Theater
Irlandini plays the so-na during a
theatrical performance of Allegorie del Caos by
experimental group
QA BAL O QUA at the 1993 Festival dei Puppazzi in Perugia, Italy. 
Irlandini has also worked closely with experimental dance/theatre groups in Italy and Brazil during the 1990s. He was composer, music director, and musician with experimental theatre group QA BAL O QUA, directed by Isabela Tymm Fyminz in Rome, 1991 through 1993, with several performances in Roma, Perugia, Modena, Cava de' Tirreni, Montalcino, Montepulciano, Orte, San Quirico D'Orcia, Corciano, Albano, Frosinone, and Campagnano, Italy of the theatrical piece entitled Allegorie del Caos. |
