Filtering and Synthesis: IT-Based Approach in the Compositive Process of Giovanni Verrando and Fausto Romitelli

To investigate the influences that information technology has brought to musical writing and compositional process, the cases of Giovanni Verrando and Fausto Romitelli – Italian post-spectral composers of the 1960s generation – will be examined. After their studies at IRCAM in Paris, they integrated tools of digital sound treatment and musical form management into their notation, opportunely mediated by software and informatics tools. Two fundamental aspects of their language will be investigated: the cyclical organization of the form, and timbral generation techniques as filtering for Verrando and synthesis for Romitelli. It will be demonstrated how the principles indicated, deriving from specific methods of digital treatment of sound, are applied to the creation of complex timbres reproduced by the orchestra or by the ensemble. In both cases, the results are a writing process, compositional way of thinking and sound outcome hybrid between acoustic and electronic, determining a formal management mediated by sound data and according to a prominently IT-based approach.