In 1980 Mauro Annibaldi, in an essay contained in "Franco Evangelisti and some historical knots of the time" presented the results of a reconnaissance relating to some sheets of music resulting from a commission that Evangelisti received in 1979 from Unicef and which marked his apparent return to composition after sixteen years dedicated to theoretical studies.
The work for Unicef, the soundtrack of a cartoon film to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the International Charter of the Rights of the Child, will be the last work that Evangelisti will see engaged before his untimely death in January 1980.
The recent discovery, both of the film and of the album with the soundtrack, has opened the way to new questions, some of which still have no certain answer.
From the notes, which Annibaldi had the opportunity to consult, it is clear that the two pieces, used to soundtrack the film, derive from the material composed in relation to Campi integrati n.2, the last work of the maestro and daughter of previous work notes, relating to the composition of a piece entitled Campi Integrati, dated 1959.
The notes accompanying the sheets of music, examined by Annibaldi, revealed the destination of the two pieces, composed for the episodes produced by Poland and Canada, but little else to help us clarify the knots that remained unresolved around this production.
The film, Ten to Live, also known by other titles, such as Ten to Survive or Ten to Survive, had a path of realization that left very few traces in the memory of those who took part in it.
Certainly prepared between the autumn of 1978 and the spring of 1979, it had its first public release on May 21, 1979 during the thirty-ninth Cannes Film Festival; An edition particularly rich in films of considerable interest, so much so as to relegate the passage of the medium-length film to an almost total, as well as unjustified, disinterest.
It was ignored by all the critics and reviewers of the Italian press, despite the involvement in the creation of names well known to the Italian and international public.
The lack of interest was transversal between the various newspapers; for example, both "Il tempo" and "Paese sera" evidently did not consider it worthy of attention; a common fate with other cartoon films not intended for children.
Even magazines such as "Filmcritica", "Cineforum" and "Cinema Nuovo" did not take it into consideration, in spite of the obvious quality of the proposal and the considerable expenditure of creative energy, both for the sound and for the visual part.
From this presentation in May we had to wait, in Italy, for the Christmas holidays to see it revived for the first and only time.
It was not planned, throughout the national territory, for theatrical distribution and there is no foreign programming of this film, despite the international scope of the work.
It was broadcast by the first channel, divided into two parts for no particular reason, in the afternoon programming slot on 26 and 27 December 1979.
The disinterest that accompanied her at the film festival was repeated for the television broadcast. The film passed without anyone or almost no one paying particular attention to it: only "TV sorrisi e canzoni" reported it, in the pages relating to programming, with a box where a still image of the Italian episode was inserted without further references to articles or in-depth reviews.
In other newspapers and newspapers it was reported only within the programming schedules.
From this airing, until today, nothing more has been replicated and has been able to be seen again; in the RAI showcases it still lay in its original format on film and the transfer, and the consequent saving, in digital took place on the occasion of and following this research. Currently the film appears very ruined, with an incongruous general yellowing of the colors and sudden lowering of the original audio.
The film, a medium-length film of about an hour, consists of ten episodes lasting about five minutes each, entrusted to ten different nations, whose themes are inspired by each of the ten points of the international charter of the rights of the child, launched by Unicef.
The production of the film was entrusted to Augusto Raparelli's Cineteam, established a few years earlier, and would be, according to Raparelli's own memories, a possible filiation of a previous work, also commissioned by Unicef and always made with short animated episodes, dedicated to fairy tales.
In this previous production, several nations intervened with a designer who made a video to illustrate a famous fairy tale of his national tradition. It was a work made without compensation for the authors, but the individual nations that took part in it were able to use, for national television programming, the complete cycle of cartoon shorts. Ten to live follows both the formula, short episodes entrusted to different nations, and for the humanitarian purpose since everyone worked for charity and the royalties were paid to Unicef, a situation corroborated by the memories of Mrs. Irmela Evangelisti.
Raparelli was the general organizer of the entire film, with the collaboration of Giancarlo Zagni, and given the large share of Italians involved in the project, one could venture the hypothesis that the idea came only from the Italian Committee of Unicef.
Each film is introduced by reading the text of the point of the international charter from which the episode is inspired; it was Marcello Mastroianni who lent his voice for the occasion. Mrs. Irmela remembers that, with her husband, they went to see cartoons, still without music, at a recording studio in Rome; An important testimony that indicates how the music was composed after the making of the film.
The film is also a symphony of different techniques and styles of animation; From the animated puppets of the Russian episode to the material figures of the Finnish episode, passing through the quotations of pictorial masterpieces of the past in the Hungarian episode, reinterpreted with a particular graphic stroke, which also unites the German and Italian episodes.
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Unfortunately, it is not known how the choice of assigning the episodes to be entrusted to the five musicians involved took place.
Nino Rota set to music the initial Mexican and Russian episodes, Bacalov the German one and the final video entrusted to England, Evangelisti, as mentioned, dealt with Canada and Poland, Macchi with Hungary and Sweden while Morricone with the films of Finland and Italy, the latter entrusted to the inks and watercolors of Manfredo Manfredi, illustrious graphic designer and illustrator, as well as writer and director, recently celebrated in some festivals dedicated to comics and cartoons.
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The titles of the songs are inspired by the themes covered in the videos.
The contribution of the music, in relation to the images, is fundamental, despite the fact that a perfect synchronization between the joints of the videos and the cadences of the songs was not sought, as a general rule.
Rota's music manages to lighten the Russian episode, dedicated to the social integration of physically and mentally maladjusted children, as much as Evangelisti's music punctually emphasizes the differences between children playing and those in the factory of the Polish episode, dedicated to child labor, in an interesting integration with the effects soundtrack made with samples of sounds taken from the world of work (siren noises, hammer from the assembly line, industrial concrete sounds) and from the world of playful childhood.
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Bacalov, in the final episode, closes the work with a song that well emphasizes the joyful character of the cartoon, in a choral crescendo of the finale, a real hymn to social and racial integration, where all the protagonists of the previous videos appear.
The film did not have any following from audiences and critics, falling into a collective oblivion disappearing from the television screens and from the memory of those who worked on it, despite its undoubted artistic value and its intimate motivations based on universal values (the right to childhood, to play, to education, to the family, to integration between peoples and between physically or intellectually handicapped people) of which it becomes a banner and promoter.
The only Canadian episode had an independent life in its homeland. Extrapolated from the context of the feature film and deprived of Evangelisti's music, it was presented at the 52nd edition of the Academy Awards, in Los Angeles, on April 14, 1980.
With the title of Every child, it earned its author Eugene Fedorenko, the award for 'Best short film of amimation'.
The album with the soundtrack was pressed, for no apparent reason, three years later, in 1983, by WEA under a CAM license in a short print run and with a very bad distribution, it was not even delivered to the State Discotheque despite the law on the obligation to copy, already in force, but widely disregarded by many music publishers.
On the cover a beautiful drawing by Manfredo Manfredi.
The thirty-three rpm record, which follows the exact order of the film's episodes in the order of listening, is very sparing with news and the credits fail to dispel the remaining doubts about the two songs by Franco Evangelisti, entitled Un nome e una cittadinanza, a Canadian episode, and Diritto all'infanzia, a Polish episode.
From the credits we learn that the Arcum children's choir directed by Maestro Lucci took part in the recording of Morricone's piece commenting on the Italian episode, while the two pieces by Nino Rota were conducted by Maestro Blonksteiner. With regard to the two pieces by Evangelisti, the testimony reported by Mrs. Irmela is useful, who recalls how an orchestral version of Campi Integrati n. 2 was performed, in the spring of 1979, in concert in Anguillara Sabazia, on Lake Bracciano. This version was directed by Maestro Pfaff who later edited the edited version in a collection, which is intended to be representative of the totality of Evangelisti's pieces, published digitally on the initiative of Robert Zank in 1998.
However, what we hear about Campi Integrati n.2 is not what we hear in the two tracks on the Unicef album; a seductive hypothesis is that the two pieces would like to be an excerpt of the material already orchestrated for the Anguillara concert. The hypothesis of two pieces written from scratch for the occasion seems unconvincing, so much so that the instrumentation proposed in both pieces seems compatible with that provided for in the score of Campi Itegrati n. 2.
It is interesting to note how Evangelisti, although stimulated by the opportunity of a humanitarian work, lent himself to an operation of composing functional music towards which he had always expressed all his opposition.
We are faced with an experience that is absolutely against the trend of what was previously written and declared.
His distrust of the "musician by the meter" has always been firm, subjected to bending his music to a function and subordinating it to the needs of the video and the director.
According to Annibaldi's writing, it was only because of the philanthropic intentions of the project; in this regard, Mrs. Irmela remembers how it was Evangelisti who imposed himself so that everyone had to work for free and it would seem that it was he who involved the other musicians in the project. Some notes on one of the sheets of the score do not appear as autographs by Evangelisti, while they should belong to the performers of the two pieces; this leads us to corroborate the hypothesis that they are an excerpt from the totality of the score of Campi Integrati n. 2, probably by Luca Pfaff on the basis of the previous concert direction of the totality of the composition. Returning, after sixteen years dedicated to theory, writing and moreover to functional, heteronomous writing, seems very unconvincing and that is why there is the firm conviction that it was a reworking, by third parties, of material already composed. EvanGeli, as Mrs. Irmela recalls, did not see the finished film, just as she did not see it, in 1979; this prevents us from knowing a possible judgment on the work, a judgment that, we can venture to hypothesize, would probably not be positive in particular with regard to the Canadian episode where the music of "Un nome e una cittadinanza" is almost completely covered by an intrusive effects column that makes it badly perceptible and in an incomplete form compared to the recording.
The fortuitous and casual recovery of the original album, which soon followed the discovery of the tape at the RAI showcases, has allowed us to shed some light on Franco Evangelisti's latest work, which can now be framed in a clearer form, although uncertainties and grey areas still remain.
A recovery that also involved one of the best names in Italian illustration and a large group of musicians, bringing to light songs that have unjustly remained in a cone of shadow for over thirty years.
Dati Discografici
LP
Ten To Survive
WEA, su licenza CAM
T 58442 – 1982
Side A
1) All children N.Rota – Mexico
2) Theme to learn L.Bacalov – Germany
3) A name and a citizenship F.Evangelisti – Canada
4) Big violin, little child E.Morricone – Finland
5) Handicap N.Rota – Russia
side B
6) The child needs love E.Macchi – Hungary
7) Children of the world E.Morricone – Italy
8) Story of an egg E.Macchi – Sweden
9) Right to the Child F.Evangelisti – Poland
10) Story of the Devil Kicked Out L.Bacalov – England
Inside the album there was originally a pre-printed bulletin to make, through a postal current account, a donation to Unicef
What music is it? Franco Evangelisti in concert
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In the course of this work, a video document of exceptional value emerged, still unknown at the time of the research carried out by the writer in 2007 about the film for Unicef.
One of the knots that was impossible to clarify concerned a first performance of Integrated Fields No. 2, a performance that would have anticipated the two pieces, published as Un nome e una cittadinanza and Diritto all'infanzia on the disc published in 1982 with the complete soundtrack of cartoon films. Annibaldi's study of 1980 suggested the same creative opportunity, given the aleatory character of Evangelisti's last work.
The concert that was held in the church of San Francesco in Anguillara Sabazia, an interesting Franciscan building with frescoes of the fifteenth century,
was incredibly filmed by RAI and the video included in the program What music is it? conceived and conducted by maestro Teo Usuelli and broadcast on September 11, 1980.
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Evangelisti, with Usuelli, were present at the evening, which was actually very informal, where, under the direction of maestro Pfaff, two possible versions of Campi integrati n. 2 were performed, in world premiere, juxtaposed with other compositions by Evangelisti, Proportions juxtaposed, by affinity with Density 21.5 by Edgar Varèse, both performed by the flutist Tamponi.
The video shows Evangelisti also grappling with the questions of a perplexed audience to the point of scepticism.
Exemplary of the atmosphere of the evening was an exchange of opinions between a spectator and Evangelisti:
I can't say that I have enjoyed music as it happens to me when I go to listen to a concert of the classics of the '700 and '800 and I would like to ask the maestro why I like this music less, what has changed in the way of writing music. It's not just a matter of aesthetics, it's just that I would less willingly buy a record or a ticket for a contemporary music concert. Why?
Evangelisti replied:
"This is a question... natural, logical but also of those who do not follow the thread of history, which is why I would now be forced to ask you to what extent you know the history of music, to what extent you enjoy it. What is certain is that this idea of "enjoying" is an idea that needs to be revised.
Now of course you follow a music that is closer to what you hear more; on the other hand you cannot come and enjoy Franco Evangelisti because I express my time and this is not such a "nice" time.
First of all, music is a very particular, non-conceptual language, and it is not possible to approach it without a real education from childhood, therefore following the whole cultural and evolution path of music."
Even more lapidary is the answer to a second question from a spectator
"Does this music express a certain message? And if so, what is this message?
What you heard!"
During the evening the graphic representation of Integrated Fields No. 2 was shown and Evangelisti was invited to explain its functions.
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"There is a number one and a number two Integrated Fields. I wrote this work in Warsaw for an electronic composition. I couldn't realize it and I left it alone. Recently I took up the idea and changed it into an instrumental structure.
Integrated fields because they are two distinct fields: one of heights and one of durations, which are precisely integrated. It is clear that there is no pitch without a duration in music, but in one field I have determined a series of musical events and in the other, well clarified, a series of events of rhythmic duration, of a certain particular type. Represented by a spiral.
This score is not a composition, but it is a "field of possibilities" to make many compositions, for nine instruments determined by me.
It is a system.
There is a quantization of notes, and I wrote them on a budget. Finally I was able to write only twelve notes, I pulled the last blow to the music! And it is like a loom where these twelve notes pass through a system of quantization, depicted in the boxes next to the spiral, of durations left free, but in the quantity established by me.
This is like a loom where the director does nothing but shuttle, go up and down, up and down, reread and reread this same material again and again with variations, a material that can change.
The two versions you will hear give an idea of the possibilities and the change that my system allows."
The first two versions performed, in world premiere, for winds and percussion is a live performance of the song which, on the Unicef album, in a studio version will be entitled 'A name and a citizenship'.
The second version is for strings, percussion and piano.
"It's another piece! Because everything changes. Not only in the instruments, but it is also a formal difference. The internal formal parameters have been changed because one can act at all levels within the constituent parameters of the composition.
The result is a completely different composition and a completely different musical atmosphere."
A question from a spectator who says she is "shocked" by the graphic layout of the score, which had not seemed to her to be such, stimulates an answer about the overcoming of traditional musical writing.
"They are instructions to be able to intervene very easily in the sound event. The correspondence of a note to the event is purely symbolic.
Writing a "C" in a certain space of the staff, designated by the history that assigns it to that particular point, actually means nothing at all! It is also indeterminate in all its features.
So the acoustic event does not correspond to the physical phenomenon.
Traditional writing is the most aleatory that exists.
I drew the consequences and created a device that, like a magic square, to make some "magic" happen that from the inside can be used for the execution of the piece, however, is all determined by some parameters that seem simple but all mathematically established."
About the aesthetics of this new music and its character of fragmentation of musical phrases.
"Webern taught us synthesis and it was very well understood that Webern's way would lead to silence, which I did.
Those somewhat poetic, expressive hints of a certain type, which someone can trace, are short, very short, hints in fact, but there is nothing more inside because we have to move on to the next episode it is the synthesis that prevails and therefore some parameters, of the possibility of learning and aesthetic enjoyment, in the suffer. This type of music tends to escape more than the others and to get closer to silence.
In my book I tried to be clear on this very subject.
What does music mean? Why is there music? Why has humanity always made music? Why has the West made it an art while for all the other populations of the world it is a manifestation of life? What is behind the sound message and how it works. This is particularly interesting to me and I had to stop writing music because I am a limited man. I had to study to see things that others, in my opinion, had never seen or investigated. To get inside the heart of music and I think I have found the way."
The program of Evangelisti's works was joined by Edgar Varèse
"I love Varese very much, especially for what it has always had to endure in its solitude. As Adorno says, Varese has never participated in the cultural industry. There is an industry of songs, but also an industry of culture that is perhaps even more deleterious."
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