Boris Porena
Encyclopedia
Boris Porena is an Italian thinker
Thinker
Thinker may refer to:*Intellectual, one who tries to use his or her intellect to work, study, reflect, speculate on, or ask and answer questions with regard to a variety of different ideas...

, music composer and didactical expert. He is married to Paola Bučan, a famous Croatian cellist and teacher, who is a tenured professor at the Perugia Conservatory.

He was a disciple of Goffredo Petrassi
Goffredo Petrassi
Goffredo Petrassi was an Italian composer of modern classical music, conductor, and teacher. He is considered one of the most influential Italian composers of the twentieth century.-Life:...

 -together with Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, , is an Italian composer and conductor, who wrote music to more than 500 motion pictures and television series, in a career lasting over 50 years. His scores have been included in over 20 award-winning films as well as several symphonic and choral pieces...

, Aldo Clementi
Aldo Clementi
-Life:Aldo Clementi was born in Catania, Italy. He studied the piano, graduating in 1946. His studies in composition began in 1941, and his teachers included Alfredo Sangiorgi and Goffredo Petrassi. After receiving his diploma in 1954, he attended the Darmstadt summer courses from 1955 to 1962...

, Sergio Cafaro, etc.-. Although he was initially influenced by neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...

 poetics, he has later evolved towards the armonic language of the late Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 period, which he has used with originality in order to build his own musical research.

He started composing at a very young age (12 years old). Within his career, there is a first period (till 1967) during which he obtains a wide national and international success. Starting from 1968, as consequence of the evolution of both his thought and his social involvement, he has abstained from composing during twenty years, devoting himself to a grassroots cultural practice. During this period he sets up the Metacultural Centre, located at Cantalupo in Sabina (Rieti, Italy). In 1988 he comes back to composition with a renewed enthusiasm, giving birth to a fully new phase of his artistic work.

As a musical critic he has produced relevant essays about his master, Goffredo Petrassi. Beyond that, he has written several renowned texts about music; among them "Musica-Società" (Einaudi, 1975) stands out, goping beyond purely musical issues and entering with authority in the field of social and political analysis.

His writing works covers also other fields, specially pedagogy and grassroots didactics, but also philosophical reflections as those expressed in "Metacultural Hypothesis: an hypothesis for survival" (1999).

He has taught new didactics of composition at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome and he has been director of the Research and Experimental Centre "Musica in Sabina". Among his many disciples there are Jesús Villa-Rojo, Luca Lombardi
Luca Lombardi
-Biography:Lombardi studied composition initially with Armando Renzi and Roberto Lupi, later enrolling at the Pesaro Conservatory where he studied with Boris Porena, receiving his diploma in 1970. He then studied musicology at the University of Rome, graduating with a thesis on Hanns Eisler...

, Celestino Dionisi, Giuliano d'Angiolini, Derek Healey, James Clifford Brown
James Clifford Brown
-Life:James Clifford Brown, usually referred to as James Brown, was born in Ipswich on 18th August 1923. He was trained in singing and organ-playing by Jonathan Job, the Ipswich Borough Organist, then himself became organist and choirmaster at All Hallows' Church....

, Claudio Pietro, Jorge (Manuel Rosado Marques) Peixinho, Armando Santiago
Armando Santiago
Armando Santiago is a Canadian composer, conductor, music educator, and university administrator of Portuguese birth. A member of the Canadian League of Composers, his compositional output includes a considerable amount of orchestral works and chamber works...

, Oliver Wehlmann, Massimo Fornetti, Alessandro De Rosa, ecc.

His interests in natural sciences have led him to acquire a high specialisation in entomology
Entomology
Entomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of arthropodology...

 and very specially in coleopterology.

Furthermore, he has authored a rich collection of poetry, specially in German, his mother tongue.

The Hypothesis

His deep interest in the global problems affecting contemporary society have led Boris Porena, together with the Metacultural Centre, to formulate the Metacultural Hypothesis (MCH), also known as "the Hypothesis".

This Hypothesis has known several formulations.

For example:

(Formulation 1)
Every one of our acts or thoughts, being a possible communication object, has in itself a cultural component which must be relativised with regard to the culture which has produced it.

But also:

(Formulation 2)
MCH coincides with the interruption of the principle of non contradiction.

And even in a third form:

(Formulation 3)
Given any proposition p, it is always possible either to find or to build a local cultural universe LCUp within which p becomes 'true'

Writings

  • Kinder-Musik (1973)
  • Musical Inquisitions (1974)
  • Music-Society. Musical Inquisitions II (1975)
  • Music in Compulsory Schooling (5 volumes) (1975–1978)
  • Musica Prima. Musical composition: a tool for grassroots cultural practice at the school and in the territory (1979)
  • Lake of Reflected Stories (1984)
  • New Music Didactics (review and technical comments by Paola Bučan) (1988)
    • N.1 for Piano - An itinerary for the first three years of study
    • N.2 for Composition - Grammatical and Sintactical Issues
    • N.3 Music by ... do, listen, learn, discuss. For the middle school and beyond
    • N.4 for Cello - An itinerary towards professional activity
  • Metacultural Hypothesis: an hypothesis for composing differences, i.e. for survival (1999).
  • About Composition. Metacultural reflection addressed to musicians, professionals and amateurs. (1998)
  • From knowing to thinking. For the sake of an truly renewed elementary school (2003)

Biography

  • Giorgio De Martino, L'utopia possibile. Vita, Musica e filosofia di Boris Porena, (2004), 364 pages plus photographies, Zecchini Editore, Varese

Musical Works

His rich musical production, which comprises hundreds of works, has been accurately catalogued by prof. Patrizia Conti (see L'Utopia possibile). The following works should be underlined:
  • Sonatina "Vive la France!" (piano) (1951)
  • Three sacred pieces . Liturgical text (1. Kyrie 2. Sanctus 3. Agnus Dei) (1954)
  • Vier klassische Lieder (soprano, piano) 1. Die Zerstörung Magdeburgs, 2. St. NepomuksVorabend, 3. Schneider-Courage, 4. Die wandelnde Glocke (1956)
  • Der Gott und die Bayadere (baritone, soprano, choir, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, 2 bassoons, four trumpets, strings) (1957)
  • Vier kanonische Lieder (soprano, clarinet) 1. Fernen 2. Auge der Zeit 3. Ich weiss 4. Der uns die Stunden zählte (1958)
  • Drei Lieder (bass, 3 trombones – or 3 cellos) 1. Im Osten 2. Klage 3. Der Schlaf (originating also other Trakl-Lieder) (1959–1960)
  • Eine Gryphius-Kantate (Baroque cantata) (1961)
  • Music for orchestra N.1, (three flutes, three oboes, three clarinets, two bassoons, three horns, three trumpets, three trombones, percussions, strings) (1963)
  • Über aller dieser deiner Trauer. Passio judaica (1965)
  • Sei Ländler (in memoriam of Serapione) – Musical Inquisitions (piano) (1970)
  • Suite N. 1 Benjamin Britten (cello solo) Prima (1981)
  • Sonata quasi una parodia (Beethoven opus 109) (piano) (1987)
  • Traumwirrnis (Schumann) (piano) (1987)
  • Claude … déchiré (Debussy) (piano) (1987)
  • Trio N. 1 Felix (violin, cello, piano) (1987)
  • Vivaldi (four concertant violins, strings) (1988)
  • Satura for Bruno (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano) (1991)
  • About the more and the less (second version) Dialogue for cello solo (1992)
  • Wir. Scenic action in three acts plus an intermezzo (1993–1995)
  • Euphorion. Szene für einen Goetheabend (1997)
  • Bauhaus-Symphonie (Symphony N. 4), 1. Punkte, Linien, Flächen, Farben, 2. Linie, auf Abenteuer aus, 3. Gebrauchssinfonietta, 4. Räume (1997)
  • Eight preludes for cello solo (1999)
  • Eine weltliche Passion. Passio mundana (2000)
  • Quartet N. 4 (1. Figurale monodico, 2. Afigurale I, 3. Figurale armonico (corale variato), 4. Afigurale II, 5. Figurale contrappuntistico (Fuga prima), 6. Afigurale III (Fuga seconda)) (2000)
  • Suite 2000 (Suite of suites) (2000)
    • I serie Preludio Menuetto Sarabanda Gavotta Bourrée Pavana Giga
    • II serie Valzer Polka Tango Samba Ragtime Rock I Rock II Passacaglia
    • III serie estampida Girotondo Canzone a Ballo Ritmo indiano Danza dell'anitra Danza rituale Tarantella)

External links

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