Search - Giorgio Battistelli, Annarita Severini, Elvira Tamburri :: Giorgio Battistelli: Experimentum Mundi

The works of Giorgio Battistelli (b. 1953) are often linked to the theater, and even his instrumental works are highly dramatic, with various instruments and elements considered as ?characters? in a drama. In 1974 he was a founding member of a leading avant-garde group in Rome and soon made his name as one of the most interesting composers of his generation. For the past 20 years, Experimentum Mundi has been one of the most-performed works of musique concrète, i.e., music made with everyday objects instead of conventional instruments. In this work, 16 everyday tools are lined up on stage along with 16 workmen in aprons, and an actor in evening dress. The actor begins reading from the eighteenth-century Encyclopedia of Diderot and d?Alembert while the workmen make astonishing music with their tools and materials.