Fuochi by Marco Baldini

Featuring the 1885 pipe organ of Chiesa di San Martina a Maiano and using musical materials derived from Vincenzo Galilei's Fronimo (1581), these pieces articulate the evocative possibilities of sustained tones and low tessituras. The protracted durations of these skeletal structures foreground their lush and often unexpected harmonic progressions, each moment revealing a world of subtle mystery and drama.

"I had gotten close to the pipe organ while working, with Daniela Fantechi and Luisa Santacesaria, on writing Parva Lumina (2017), a piece that we later recorded in 2018 on a beautiful 19th-century Tronci organ in the church of San Giusto a Ema, in the countryside near Florence, and featured in Anabasi (Kohlhaas 2020), the fourth record by our ensemble Blutwurst.
These two pieces were recorded in the summer of 2020 in the Church of San Martino a Maiano, in the green hills looming over Florence, very close to the village of Fiesole.
In San Martino there is an organ built in 1885 by Demetrio Bruschi, a carpenter and organ builder originally from Loro Ciuffenna, in the middle valley of the Arno River.
The organ is located in the choir loft on the back wall of the apse.
Mechanically transmitted, it has 16 stops and a mellifluous and opaque but powerful sound that gives its best in the lower register.
Fuochi's pieces remained buried in my hard disk for almost four years.
I liked them very much, despite their raw and somewhat monolithic nature, but the overabundance of pipe organ records in the field of modern composition, some that have since become iconic, and a chronic insecurity of mine had put me off proposing them earlier.
Dark timbres and low tones are favored in these pieces, and the hands of Luisa Santacesaria, who plays the organ in both pieces, rarely exceed the lower half of the instrument's keyboard, while often the sound descends into the very deep notes produced with the pedals.
While 'Fuochi' is a solo piece for pipe organ in 'Ombra con coda' Luisa is joined by Ensemble Schallfeld member Elisa Azzarà on bass flute, Niccolò Curradi on cello and Blutwurst member Maurizio Costantini on double bass.
They are both skeletal studies on stasis and slowness as well as the evocative and emotional possibility of sustained sounds and low tessituras, some concepts that have been quite central to my musical research in recent years.
Both pieces are based on excerpts from lute pieces by Vincenzo Galilei from his famous treatise 'Fronimo' (1581)."

-Marco Baldini

Dinzu Artefacts is focused on the contemporary art of sound by musicians interested in experimental practices, modern composition, improvised music, noise and field recordings.

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