FILIPPO LUI, a great art plan with strong genius
- Elisa Nori
- Aug 6, 2022
- 50 min read
The attraction between different art forms but still an expression of the human being and soul, is no mystery. So I met Filippo Lui, I attracted by his music and he by photography and my directing studies. It could not be otherwise considering that Filippo also composes soundtracks for films.
Here I stick to the absolute importance and fundamental care of the music when it is necessary to accompany the visual aspect. Both must be of the same level to obtain that magic that Filippo seeks in every score of him.
The case wanted to underline the strong connection, but for those who think that the case does not exist to confirm the feeling, through the interest of both for astronomy.
It is precisely from astronomy and the beauties of space that Filippo draws great inspiration for his compositions. By means of sounds, he interprets the colors he imagines in his mind, he narrates the adventures that lovers of the universe undertake as soon as they look up to the sky, he represents the infinite questions that what we do not know arouses in us, he gives shape to the eternal question about our existence by means of its instruments and the writing of the parts.
The archive of musical works inspired by astronomy is truly considerable.
To name just a few, just think of: Claude Debussy with the Clair de Lune or the Nuit d'étoiles, Gustav Holst with The Planets, Karlheinz Stockhausen with Cosmic Pulses and Sirius, the latter dedicated to the pioneers of the Earth and space, Klaus Schulze the pioneer of space music with his symphonies, David Bowie with Space Oddity and Life on Mars, Deep Purple with Space Truckin', Rush with Cygnus X-1, the Rolling Stones with 2000 Light Years From Home, Elton John with Rocket Man, Black Sabbath with Planet Caravan, Queen with Long Away and Brian May with New Horizons dedicated, after earning a doctorate in astrophysics, to the NASA probe which reached and photographed a celestial body 6.4 billion kilometers from Earth, Daft Punk with Contact...e Vangelis to whom a small planet was dedicated by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, by virtue of his musical work so considerable and dense with "universe".
Even in Italy the astronomical theme stands out from Francesco Guccini's "Stars" to the more classic "Extraterrestrial" by Eugenio Finardi, from Franco Battiato with "No time no space" and "Via Lattea" to Lucio Dalla who in several texts mentions the stars as beauty parameter;
just think of "The road and the star", "The evening of miracles" and "Starfish".
The union of Vincenzo De Crescenzo and Antonio Viscione, alias Vian, who with words and music give life to Luna Rossa, is decisive.
The number of artists who interpreted it remains truly relevant: the first was Giorgio Consolini, for Claudio Villa it was a gigantic 78 rpm success, but Nilla Pizzi, Renato Carosone, Frank Sinatra also ventured to sing Luna Rossa, just to mention , Tullio Pane, Sergio Bruni, Dean Martin, Peter Van Wood, Gabriella Ferri, Roberto Murolo, Peppino Di Capri, Massimo Ranieri, Caetano Veloso and Renzo Arbore who has represented her on international stages with the Italian Orchestra for over twenty years.
Symbolic and lucky was Tintarella di luna, the first album of the Italian singer Mina.
Composed by Jean Marie Benjamin to music by Riz Ortolani for the homonymous film by Franco Zeffirelli, Fratello Sole Sorella Luna is the song taken from the Canticle of the creatures of San Francesco; the moon becomes sacred.
Let's not forget Fred Buscagione with "Look at the Moon".
And then again Claudio Baglioni with Gagarin and Alan Sorrenti with "Sons of the Stars" and "Woman Moon", Vinicio Capossela with Lady Moon..
Speaking of Luna...How many have named, admired, observed, longed for, loved and in this case sung about her?
We remember the great Frank Sinatra with Fly me to the moon, Billie Holiday with "Blue Moon" which took up the original 34 to relaunch it in 1952.
The song was also covered by Elvis Presley, Dean Martin, Bob Dylan and Frank Sinatra among others.
It is the turn of one of the symbolic groups of the seventies, Creedence Clearwater Revival with Bad Moon Rising. John Fogerty wrote this song and thought of an imminent apocalypse, after seeing the cult fantasy "The Devil and Daniel Webster".
Let's continue with R.E.M. who composed the famous song Man on the Moon which is part of the soundtrack of the homonymous film by Miloš Forman, starring Jim Carrey.
How not to mention The Doors with "Moonlight drive", one of the very first pieces written by Jim Morrison during his days spent on the roofs of Venice Beach.
Let's move on to artist Shivaree with Goodnight Moon. When it was released in 2000, the song became a real catchphrase. From the third season of "Dawson's Creek", which contributed to its success, in 2004 it was included in the soundtrack of "Kill Bill vol. II" by Quentin Tarantino.
In 2013 Spike Jonze's beautiful "Her" was released, starring Joaquin Phoenix and (the voice of) Scarlett Johansson.
So I won't forget to mention Karen O and Spike Jonze with the sweet song The Moon Song, which is played by the two actors in the film scene.
Understand that the list would be endless because faced with the immensity of the cosmos, when we look at the night sky, the feeling of feeling small is inevitable.
I find it right, after musical references on space, to look at the cinematographic ones for a moment. The world of cinema has always used space as a source of inspiration.
This has made it possible to shape real works of art that still fascinate everyone today.
Movies or series like Star Trek, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes, Solaris, Star Wars, Alien, Feat of Power, Apollo 13, The Fifth Element, Wall-e, Gravity, Interstellar, Martian, Arrival , First Man, Ad Astra, Proxima, Stranger on Board, Dune deserve to be celebrated and remembered. As for music, I have listed only a few... and also on this topic I could think, among future articles, of writing a dedicated one.
Let's go back to the "central fire".
People are so taken by themselves that they easily forget that they are very little compared to everything. This immensity, this boundless abyss is present in every emotion placed on the score by Filippo... in my opinion a visionary capable of creating fantastic images, with a strong impact, through the notes.
Only a dreamer like him can be able to cradle you in desire, in the hope that something or someone wonderful is there somewhere in the boundless ocean of stars.
Filippo sails like a good captain and as such he is capable of making you explore the seas of the unknown by closing your eyes when you listen to his pieces and sensing, gently touching, wherever you can find yourself, all the most beautiful things that only a mind endowed with great genius can transmit. Someone says that we are all connected and certainly Filippo's energy is not afraid to be felt, so powerful and engaging.
Now let's remove the moorings and set sail... the route? A long journey through his biography, on a journey made up of sacrifices, sleepless nights, questions posed to the stars but surprising results.
At the age of only five, Filippo Lui let himself be enraptured by music, took his first piano lessons and later decided to study composition at the Conservatory of his city.
With a clear rock nature and fascinated by film music, he began to write songs so that starting from the age of ten, competitions and musical events, in many cities of Italy, are no longer a mystery to him. He performs through his compositions, which give him the opportunity to enroll at the Siae in Rome, at the age of thirteen, with the title of Melodist Composer.
The piano technique that he decides to adopt becomes personal and completely felt:
leaves the task of creating complex sound textures through evocative rhythmic arpeggios to the left hand, while the romantic expressiveness of the melodies is left to the right hand.
Linearity, harmony and decisiveness are the result.
Filippo's first group is "Synthesis Alezeias" with which at the age of seventeen he made the first single "Donna delle Stelle (Starlady)", with which he reached the finals of Sanremo Giovani in '97.
The single dedicated to Lady Diana was then sent to Princes William and Harry of Windsor, responding personally with a letter of thanks to the author.
In 1998 Filippo Lui attended the "Film Music Course" directed by Stelvio Cipriani in Rome, during which he came into contact with important composers, from whose interaction he gained considerable experience which would influence his production from a technical point of view.
The same year, he composed a work dedicated to Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a piece with a classic flavor that Filippo will deliver directly to Pope John Paul II.
The meeting with the Holy Father takes place on 11 February in the "Paul VI" hall in the Vatican.
This event definitively strengthens the composer's idea of dedicating his life to music.
During the "European Music Day" in Venice in 2000 he was invited to exhibit his repertoire on the piano. In the following years he presented in the same city, Anytime and Andromeda accompanied by the Venice Philharmonic Orchestra and the original choreographies of Lucrezia Lui (sister of the composer) at the Palazzo del Cinema, on the occasion of the "Gondola d'Oro" Festival.
With George Merk's Swiss rock band "George", with whom he released an album, he began an adventure in 2001 between various tours and participation in events such as "Sanremo Rock 2003" and took part in important national television broadcasts (I Irresistible Boys) and abroad.
With the same band he received the "Young International Talents" award in Sanremo in 2004.
In the meantime Filippo collaborates with well-known characters including Teddy Reno and Rita Pavone, with whom he participates together with the band George in a tour throughout Italy and with George Merk he takes care of the arrangements of his musical "La Mia Favola Infinita".
He has specialized over the years in the use of synthesizers and electronic sound.
Pieces with epic, intense and very direct melodic lines germinate, supported by a polychrome harmony in which the romantic sound of classical music, the electronic and spatial atmospheres of synthesizers and the energy of rock from the passion for classical music blend together. the continuous and euphoric sound research, but above all from the piano and compositional technique.
Thus was born the Crystal Music project.
Filippo founds the Crystal World Music Production Studio in Castelbelforte, a music production center equipped with cutting-edge technologies and a collection of musical instruments chosen from among the most advanced and among the legendary vintages that have made the history of modern music.
The creative thought of the artists is favored by the environment which immediately reveals itself to be well structured so as to become a real "factory of musical ideas and projects" dedicated to the pursuit of quality and artistic originality.
He works as a producer, arranger, composer and pianist for various record labels and plays with Lucio Dalla, also in that period he meets the Dj-producer Alex Bartlett, author of numerous hits in the field of electronic music, who, appreciating Filippo's compositional style decides to produce various pieces of the Crystal Music project in a Techno-Trance context.
"The Keys of the Kingdom (Tu Es Petrus)" is the soundtrack of the documentary film, the official video concerning the passage of pontificate between Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, which Filippo made in 2005 on commission from the Vatican Television Center which will translated into seven languages and broadcast and distributed worldwide.
Filippo later carried on his Crystal Music project with the management of the charity Convivium Musarum, which was officially presented at the Hilton Palace in Sorrento during a charity Grand Gala opening the Lucio Dalla concert.
In June 2008 at the Vittoriale degli Italiani Amphitheater he presented his pieces from the opera "Le Chiavi del Regno" on the piano accompanied by the string quartet as part of a charity event of music and dance in which Vittorio De Scalzi of the New Trolls and the art critics of the Sanremo festival.
In the winter of the same year he was called to propose his own music at a Rotary Club event in Reggio Emilia and opened the concert for Mariella Nava, who, appreciating Filippo's style, would duet with him during the evening.
In 2009 he created the soundtrack for the film "La Moneta", a cinematographic work distributed in the United States.
In 2010 the Crystal Music project was proposed at the Bibiena Theater with an orchestral staff of 18 elements and the special guest Tony Pagliuca of "Le Orme". The event is sold out.
Numerous other concerts followed in which the Crystal Music Project presents "Opera Elettrosinfonica", a classic-futuristic show of great impact, made of biting and ethereal music, dance, sounds and light effects, in which Filippo Lui is at the piano and the synthesizer Moog and directs the String Orchestra and the Band in a staff of 20 musicians, together with the corps de ballet of Lucrezia Lui's Convivium Musarum Ballet.
Remarkable success is achieved at the Lido of Venice, at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, at the Titano in San Marino and at the Gran Teatro La Fenice in Venice.
Many Italian musicians attracted by the quality and skill of Filippo Lui, entrust him with the realization of their projects and the Crystal Music sound becomes a real trademark. Together with the drummer Sergio Fanton and the guitarist Nazareno Zacconi, in 2011 Filippo was invited to participate as pianist and keyboardist in the Italian band of TM Stevens, on the occasion of his concert during the Euro Bass Day 2011.
He creates many parts of electronic music and orchestral arrangements, in the album "La Casa e gli Spiriti Perduti" produced by Elio and Le Storie Tese, with Nevruz Joku one of the various X-Factor artists with whom he collaborates in 2012.
On the occasion of the Crystal Music concert held on the Venice Lido during the 2013 Carnival, the composer received the "Golden Lion for Great Talents" from the Mario del Monaco Association and Venice in the World.
In 2013 he expands the Crystal World and founds the Crystal Music Academy studio in Porto Mantovano, a refined music production and teaching center which quickly becomes a sort of "Club for those who make music", where advanced courses of "alchemy" are held musical”, composition and film music, musical projects are created by cultivating the talent and artistic personality of the musicians, records are produced and concerts and selections are organized for prestigious festivals. The structure, enriched by excellent instruments available to everyone, is always evolving and is already a point of reference for those who play.
In the summer of 2013 Filippo Lui takes care of the production of various artists in the Crystal World studios and with them he wins several awards: Critics Award at the Saint Vincent Festival and at the "Festival Sotto le Stelle" in Puglia with the artist Andrès Tarifa Pardo, the First Prize at the "Festival d'Autunno" in Milan with the singer-songwriter Tony Grippi and then, with the Mantuan band "Nnebia", he won the 59th edition of "La Gondola d'Oro di Venezia".
He was contacted again by the Vatican for the creation of the soundtrack for the "Lux in Arcana" event and for the film "Scrinium Domini Papae", a work with worldwide diffusion which reveals the treasures of the Vatican Secret Archives to the general public for the first time in history .
This work brings with it a particular revolution: the songs of the Crystal Music project with more electronic atmospheres have been specifically chosen for the soundtrack.
The film is very successful and the composer will be mentioned during the presentation at the Roma Fiction Fest thanks to the particularity of the music that gives a particular and innovative tone to the video.
In 2014 he began an intense collaboration with EaEditore, an association active in the organization of important national and international art biennials.
On the occasion of the Biennale della Creatività at the PalaExpo in Verona, Filippo Lui performs with the Crystal Music Project opening with the soprano Katia Ricciarelli.
The success of the event paves the way for new concerts and collaborations with international artists, including the painter Alexander Kanewsky.
During the ArtMonacò review in Montecarlo, Filippo holds a special concert at the Cafè del Paris.
In January 2015 he was invited by EaEditore to the Palermo Biennale to hold the inaugural concert.
The event was sold out and, among other electro-symphonic compositions, the unpublished song "Donna Rosaria" dedicated to Sicily was presented, enjoying great success.
Considering Filippo's music very creative and inspirational, many artists decide to follow the musical project and create an ever greater demand for it.
The same year Filippo Lui's Crystal Music Project will be invited again, which will perform with the presentation of Red Ronnie on the occasion of the "L'Isola che C'è" review at the gardens of Villa Castelnuovo in September.
The period between the two concerts saw intense music production work and the creation of a large new production studio.
Crystal Music Records was born.
Filippo Lui's desire to create an optimal space for the production of film music, equipped with all the instruments of classical and authentic progressive rock derivation, an artistic environment in which to allow talents to express themselves and find every sound and idea they could wish for takes shape in Mantua.
Modeled on the style of Abbey Road Studios in London, the new venue becomes a point of reference for many musicians: within the large spaces created specifically for music and equipped with legendary instruments from the Moog to the Sitar, new projects are developed in which Filippo deals with the creation of new songs for the cinema and the musical creation and production of talented artists, including the band Narya (400,000 views achieved with the single "Oblivion").
On 27 April 2015 the concert "La Sagra del Buio", a project by Andrés Tarifa Pardo with music created by Filippo Lui, was performed in the theater in Gazzuolo, and was sold out.
Crystal Music Record productions obtain feedback in many national kermesses and in exclusive contexts such as the Milan Expo, and open the doors to Filippo's collaboration with the Cantagiro Festival, the Lunezia Prize, Next Generation and Video Festival Live.
Always committed to charitable initiatives, Filippo becomes testimonial for "La Sorgente dei Sogni", an association in support of cancer research and takes part in the review "Donors of Music in a special acoustic concert accompanied by guitarist Paolo Olivieri at the oncology department of the hospital in Mantua.
On the occasion of the artist Pavan's Red&Fuchsia exhibition on violence against women, Filippo elaborates the experimental musical contents for the Sensory Tunnel installed in the exhibition.
On May 2, 2015 Filippo was awarded the Certificate of Merit awarded by the MEF Association of Venice for Artistic Merits and for having contributed to the dissemination of the Opera Omnia of the great scholar Ermenegildo Fusaro.
On 9 May 2015 he performed in concert at the Gran Ballo Viennese Delle Debuttanti (Vernissage Expo 'I have a Dream in Padua).
On April 16, 2016 at the inauguration of the New Leone D'oro Trophy Festival, Filippo Lui received the Osella Vetro di Murano Ancescao 25th anniversary for Musical Merits from the delegate of the Mayor Giovanni Giusto.
On May 21, 2016 Filippo Lui holds an exclusive concert at the Palazzo Ducale on the occasion of the celebrations for Mantua, the Italian capital of culture 2016, registering the sold out.
Filippo creates the string parts for the international project "Vivaldi Metal Project" in collaboration with Rick Wakeman and many of the main musicians of the progressive Rock and Metal scene.
In May 2017 Filippo went to London at the Abbey Road Studios to create, in collaboration with Andy Walter, the album Opera Elettrosinfonica and the production of two Rock singles for the band of his own production "Walking Come".
On 7 June 2016, the composer took the stage of the Verdi auditorium in Verona, on the occasion of the 2016 Verona Triennale of contemporary art.
On 18 June 2016, The Crystal Music Project performs at the event Mostra Twins Art By Nacha Piattini And Roula Bechara at the Casa del Mantegna MN with the participation of Vittorio Sgarbi.
In October of the same year, Filippo Lui and Crystal Music Project received in Gualdo Tadino the National Excellence Award for Artistic Merits in Teaching, Composition and Diffusion of Music and Culture.
On December 6, 2016 Filippo Lui presides over the jury of the "Villa Palma inCanto" music competition with the tenor Davide Zenari and Andrea Innesto.
In May 2017, the composer from Mantua was at work in London at the legendary Abbey Road studios, where the analog Master of his album "Opera Elettrosinfonica" was created by Top Audio Engeener Andy Walter, collaborator of the likes of David Bowie and Coldplay.
At the Abbey Road Studios, the analogue Master is also made of the singles produced by Filippo Lui for the Walking Cone, "Lighthouse" and "Daylight" by the Top audio Engeener Sean Magee.
The beginning of June will see the composer engaged in Croatia following an artist he produced, selected for the Vodafone Europa commercial.
On 19 June 2017 Crystal Music Project concert in the Big category at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona, with Dodi Battaglia, Timothy Cavicchini, Cassano, Pierdavide Carone and Don Mazzi.
On 25 July he holds a concert to inaugurate the ArteMilano review at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan, with Vittorio Sgarbi, Moni Ovadia and Marco Travaglio.
On August 30, 2017 Filippo Lui performs with the Crystal Music Project orchestra in concert at Ca'Sagredo in Venice on the occasion of the opening of the Venice Film Festival.
On 5 September 2017 Filippo Lui is in concert at the Lido of Venice as part of the 74th Venice Film Festival at the Grand Hotel Excelsior.
Numerous concerts followed in Venice in the Giustiniani Faccanon palaces, Ca' Zenobio and in the Dem gallery in Mestre on the occasion of art events presented by Vittorio Sgarbi.
on November 4, 2017, the opening concert of the first International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Mantua takes place by The Crystal Music Project.
Filippo Lui receives the Andrea Mantegna Award "For having contributed to spreading Art through Music", always enhancing the union between notes, dance movements, lines of painting and sculpture and the passion of creative flair.
On 3 December 2017, he held a concert on the occasion of the "Incanto di Natale" event by the choreographer Lucrezia Lui, at the Teatro Sociale in Mantua.
Interviews and radio and television appearances follow.
Filippo signs the creation of numerous soundtracks for films and short films with international distribution obtaining many consents.
He holds a piano concert accompanied by the DJ at the Canottieri Club in an evening for research against Cystic Fibrosis at the Canottieri Mincio on August 26, 2018.
On 6 September 2018, for the Crystal Music Records Gala, Filippo performed with Pietruccio Montalbetti of Dik Dik and the Drummer Gianni dall'Aglio.
On 29 September he is in concert at the Teatro Ristori in Verona and again a guest among the Bigs at the 2018 Beatrice Prize.
On October 20, commissioned by the descendant of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Filippo Filma the soundtrack of the Film Bernini tells Bernini, a work officially presented at the Rome Film Festival - presentation of the film: Bernini tells Bernini.
The Gallery of Wonders and Sound was born at the headquarters of Crystal Music Records, an exhibition space for artists and a museum with Filippo's private collection of works of art, with paintings and statues by international artists, including Kanewsky and Gorni.
On 28 October at the Villa Mirra Siliprandi palace, on the occasion of a special concert, Filippo sets up an art exhibition with works from the private collection and from the collaborating artists of Crystal Music Records.
On April 7, 2019 In the Pomposa Abbey, the historic place where Guido d'Arezzo created musical writing, an electro-symphonic concert by Filippo dedicated to John Paul II and Guido Monaco will take place exclusively.
On 29 June 2019 Filippo is in concert at the Martelli Stadium in Mantua with Paolo Vallesi, Fio Zanotti and artists from the National Singers.
In August of the same year, Filippo began the production of a documentary film dedicated to the sculptor Giuseppe Giorni, entitled "Ombre di Pietra".
On 23 November 2019 he was the protagonist of a piano concert on the occasion of the Lombardy and Mantua Emigration Day - San Benedetto Po with numerous authorities of the State Police.
On June 9, 2019 Filippo realizes a concert of the Crystal Music Project on the occasion of Art Expo with Vittorio Sgarbi in Mantua, at the Teatro Sociale in Mantua.
On 7 December 2020, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Crystal Music Project and in conjunction with the 250th anniversary of Mozart's inaugural concert, Filippo Lui will hold a concert accompanied by the orchestra at the Bibiena Theater, in which he will exhibit the soundtracks created for the cinema and two pieces by Mozart, The Queen of the Night and Symphony No. 40 performed in a special version on the Moog synthesizer with string orchestra accompaniment.
The event, preceded by the art exhibition of important painters, sculptors and writers, is sold out.
In February 2020 with the arrival of the pandemic, the concert activity gave way to musical production in the studio for various artists, including the writer Roberta Tovazzi, for whom Filippo created the translation into music of the author's stories (to which will dedicate a documentary film of his own production).
At this historic juncture, Filippo goes to the Mantua hospital to film the fight against Covid in the field by hero nurses and doctors, providing unpublished content for the film "Quarantena Live" by director Giuseppe Aquino, a great exponent of Cinema of Author.
A great friendship and a close collaboration are born between the director and Filippo.
Filippo begins a cinematographic training course under the guidance of Aquino and the special "Soundtrack" is created, an Art Film in which, in a single sequence shot without interruptions, the phases of realization of the Quarantine Live soundtrack are documented by Filippo Lui, with a complete vision of the work of the protagonist, the staff and the entire creative path at the Crystal Music Records studios.
Thanks to the director Aquino, Filippo is chosen as a testimonial for the Spazio Legalità Association, a national portal dedicated to legality and problems related to adolescence, including the fight against bullying.
On December 3, 2020 Filippo, in collaboration with the writer Anna Dato, was interviewed on the occasion of the 74th edition of the Salerno International Film Festival.
On December 22nd the album Emwell Cross is released which sees the collaboration between Filippo Lui and the British artist Brian MacDonald.
The record, a concept album full of dreamy atmospheres and rock poetry, is co-produced by Abbey Road's top audio engineer, Andy Walter.
On 12 September 2020, Filippo Lui takes part in the event of 11 September 2020 aboard the Catamaran Virgilio, on the occasion of the event "Meeting with the Author Benito Melchionna" holding a concert attended by authorities of the State Police.
19 August 2021 the Crystal Music Project holds a special concert in the garden of honor of Palazzo Te with the tenor Angelo Goffredi and the soprano Cecilia Rizzetto, for which they are performed by Giulietta Siliprandi, mother of the composer, lyrics in Latin for the piece “Genesis” and in ancient Greek for the piece “Spaceman” based on the “Argonautiche” by Apollonio Rodio.
The composer Filippo Lui offers the public the union between his own sound, assisted for the first time by the use of another classic Minimoog (in addition to the Voyager, the piano and the Ms20) combining the lyric voices with the robotic vocal timbres some vocoders managed by keyboardist Stefano Farì.
In 2021 the collaboration with the writer and blogger expert in art Anna Dato is consolidated, which began a few years earlier on the occasion of Filippo's concert as part of the Milan Biennale at the Teatro Dal Verme.
Later Filippo, again in collaboration with Anna Dato, was interviewed on the occasion of the 74th edition of the Salerno International Film Festival.
Anna reports Filippo to the organizers of the prestigious Apoxiomeno Prize.
This is an acknowledgment given to personalities from sport, culture and entertainment, including 11 Academy Awards, who have valued the activity of the police forces within their professional world and have contributed to strengthening and crystallizing the sentiment of trust and closeness that characterizes the relationship with the citizen.
The event consists in the awarding of a silver statuette, a miniature of the famous statue of Lysippos created for the occasion by the sculptor Carlo Badii.
Anna Dato connects Filippo with Colonel Anania, president of the International Police Award Arts Festival (Ipa-af) and creator of the Award, who, appreciating its style, entrusts the composer with the creation of the official Apoxiomeno hymn.
Filippo creates "La Genesi degli Androidi", a choral piece and prequel to the single "Il Sogno dell'Androide", an epic composition in which the electronic hues of the Moog aim to represent the heroism and sense of duty of the police .
The cyclical restrictions due to the pandemic do not hinder the occasion of musical performances in which Filippo presents the variety of his compositions at the multimedia events of Ipa-af, which, at the end of the lockdown, invites the composer to give a concert with the Crystal Music Project during the inauguration of the Twenty-fifth Edition of the Apoxiomeno Festival in Monte San Savino (Arezzo), on 17 September 2021.
The event, in the presence of important artists including Maestro Monaldi, actors and international film producers such as the Master Director Andrej Končalovsky, president of the jury of the Film section, obtains numerous acclaim and is followed by a large audience in connection with the live streaming by Radio Effe.
The final evening of the Festival sees the awarding of Filippo Lui, who receives the prestigious silver statuette of the Apoxiomeno for the Film Music category, an award given to him personally by the mayor of Arezzo with Colonel Orazio and Francesco Anania.
The precious recognition is kept among the main works of art of the Gallery of Wonders and Sound at the Crystal studios, among the works of Giuseppe Gorni, Monaldi, Diani and Aversa.
The desire to experiment and to link science fiction passion and the robotic effect to music leads the composer to the construction of particular electronic musical instruments with the guidance of his friend Carlo Buongiovanni.
Various synthesizers and mechanical devices are created to sequence acoustic percussion and home-built electronic sounds, making the Crystal studios an even more lively and inspiring environment.
In Filippo Lui's music, mainly faithful to the tonal register, in addition to the acoustic instruments and the legendary electronic instruments of the progressive tradition, his inventions also begin to coexist, which prove to be effective and exciting.
In the summer of 2021 Filippo was summoned by the producer Lorenzo Confetta to accompany the orchestra of maestro Andrea Morricone, Ennio's son, on the piano and held prestigious concerts in Genoa (where he also performed with his own songs) and in Cattolica.
The activity in the production studio reaches increasingly frenetic rhythms and numerous songs and soundtracks are created, included in cinematographic works and in famous web portals.
Crystal Music Records increases the panorama of its possibilities, therefore Filippo, with a view to further deepening the quality of the work, decides to reduce the number of artists to follow in production, choosing talents with whom he can enthusiastically explore ever new musical languages.
The musical training at the Crystal studios is entrusted to the Crystal Music Project musicians themselves for the valid training and for the experience gained during the demanding concerts, which in the effectiveness and acclaim obtained have indicated the way to bring the Crystal world into a dimension increasingly similar to an artistic atelier, in a constant cultural research in respect of the public, collaborators and artists to follow.
2022 sees the publication of numerous albums including Filippo's soundtrack for Nodari's "Sciacalli" in conjunction with the publication of the film of the same name on Prime Video, "Soundscapes from a Time Machine" and other works on all the main digital stores .
In May 2022 the composer holds two solo concerts on the occasion of art exhibitions of international artists at the Mad gallery in Mantua.
On 28 June 2022 Filippo is in concert in Sorrento on the splendid terrace of Villa Fondi overlooking the sea. On the occasion of the event, wanted by "Gioia di Vivere Onlus", he presents the pieces of the opera "Fata Blu" in the company of the writer Roberta Tovazzi.
The composer is awarded for artistic merits by the Organization of the event with a work of art by the great sculptor Marcello Aversa.
On July 30 he officially debuted as a director by presenting the film "Shadows of Stone", a work dedicated to the sculptor Giuseppe Gorni at the historic artist's villa, in the presence of a large audience who enthusiastically applauded the screening.
The film is currently in selection at the Rome Film Festival.
Subsequently he created the soundtrack for the short film "il courage di Pierrot" by Alberto Rizzo, on violence against women, currently competing in numerous national festivals.
Currently, in close collaboration with the Convivumium Musarum, Anno Dato and Colonel Anania, Filippo takes care of the artistic direction of the Festival "Apoxiomeno - La Strada per le Stelle", a musical event dedicated to the forces of order, with the participation of the drummer Gianni Dall'Aglio, a great name in Italian discography, chosen by Filippo as president of the jury.
He is the artistic director of the musical part of the opening of the Apoxiomeno Festival, now in its twenty-sixth edition, and is part of the "Honour Committee" of the festival, in the jury of the film competition in the role of judge for the film music section.
Currently Filippo Lui deals with the creation of the Concept Album "Opera Elettrosinfonica Secondo Atto" and soundtracks for the cinema, produces various artists, is director of the Crystal Academy, professor of piano, composition and film music at the Crystal Music Academy and follows personal studies of musical experimentation, thus continuing to undertake that adventurous and exciting journey that music offers to those who live it.
I'm ready to move from soft landing to extraction, to further examine what hides this spirit of the past fascinated by the mystery of life and its destiny. Filippo looks like an alien trying to get in touch with another world that is more similar to him, another planet that awaits his return ... such is the hunger to know about him. I've always had deep respect for this thing, because I'm like that myself. We cannot limit ourselves to considering this land a simple place to inhabit without understanding much greater dynamics, how great is what encompasses us. Breathing is not enough to feel alive but alive is the one who seeks a design of life itself.
"One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind"
I'm setting foot in this interview which I believe will make us take a leap in quality and discover rare earths.
Filippo, what was music for you before embarking on the long artistic journey that celebrates you and what is it now, after specific work and human experiences? What evolutions have you been able to find and which ones have you been able to benefit from?
Music was a game for me.
It was to the same extent that it may seem an interesting toy, in the eyes of a child, that huge mass of heavy black wood, with those ancient keys that manage to operate it to such an extent that it becomes as light as a feather.
The piano was my territory: a "grown-up" machine, a ship of which at the age of 5, as soon as I understood how it worked, I began to feel like a captain.
From the piano keys I could monitor and document all those moments of life that I was collecting without even knowing how much value the continuity of this experience would have for me. There are still passages of some songs that I had composed in my adolescence, which remind my mind of that precise state of mind that I felt when I composed them.
I was small but for me that living being called the piano could become my playground on which I invented the theme song for the new episode of my entertainment with dinosaurs, with robots, with everything that was my heritage that revolved around the piano .
He was my friend to whom I confided, I told him my moods: it was enough to speak to him in his language by pressing the keys.
And it was a time machine too, and it still is.
Now that I can take stock, I must say that that nineteenth-century August Förster has always been my only certainty and I believe that he suggested to me the world that I then created for myself.
I discovered that Puccini had a piano like mine, a rather difficult instrument, not very immediate and even less suitable for minimalist executions: to be able to hear him "sing", it was necessary to elaborate a very organic music, harmonize the melodies and reinforce their expressiveness in order to obtain that effect that I was looking for and that I had heard from the students of my first teacher's upper courses, that is to say create a "real piece on the piano, complex stuff".
But the most particular thing is that the voice of my piano, in every note, recalled in my mind the timbre of many other instruments.
He had predisposed me to search for polyphonic music, not at all limited to the world of 88 keys (which in my case were 85, because my piano was ancient).
It was the arrival of a first keyboard containing different timbres that allowed me to feel complete music under my fingers, full of the sounds I wanted, something romantic and, more precisely, cinematic.
All this happened according to my gestures, the engine that ignited the need to acquire the technique, to study and to materialize that imagination in music that I had intended to become possible.
Thus, not yet a teenager, I already brought with me such an intense experience of life spent on the keys that I had very clear ideas: the world of musical creativity was the only one I could live in.
So I went to the Conservatory.
Unlike high school, the conservatory had the honesty to offer me what I hoped to learn and much more: literature, art and philosophy were much more at hand in an academy that offered you the wonders of the great composers, with an attention to culture that is the legacy of classical music and that could easily be learned within those walls.
I saw my professors as people gifted with an extraordinary culture, capable of giving me any answer, from the origin of a literary work that became a melodrama to soundtracks in auteur cinema. They seemed to know everything.
I understood that art is not a boring world in which you have to shut up and observe, but a mine of emotions and inspiration truly within everyone's reach.
At the Conservatory I discovered how much reading a good book favored the birth of musical ideas in me more than listening to other music.
However, I followed my own personal line, certainly not that of a model student:
at home I began to have the first synthesizers available, I explored languages that the Conservatory seemed not to contemplate yet.
They made me want to explore music, and from those foundations I have continued my research forever.
A research that was amply encouraged by the modernity of those teachers, as an advantageous condition for expressing one's creativity.
The intensity of Catullus, of the classical myths and of that enormous literary heritage could be deepened through the study of the music that paid homage to them.
It was my composition professor who understood my propensity for music linked to images, and he proposed that I go and study film music.
So I went to study in Rome, under the guidance of Maestro Stelvio Cipriani.
Composing for film music has opened up many collaborations for you.
What were the most significant? What do you think is the secret of a good alchemy between music and cinema?
Film music represents one of those few frontiers where any taste, any style and, in general, creative freedom live without limitations.
And that panorama in which you can blend a full orchestra with the leaden atmospheres of synthesizers. It is perhaps that environment in which music mostly encounters a sort of pictorial technique, as the good Vangelis taught.
The work that captivated me forever was "The Neverending Story", a masterpiece of fantastic images and incredible music, and it is a perennial example for me, created by chance by another pioneer who, like Vangelis, had found his languages in the powerful electronic voice of the Moog and its derivatives: Giorgio Moroder.
Vangelis and Moroder had followed a personal musical path, looking for their own form of expression. This led them, albeit very different, to explore common paths, between the magnificence of classical harmonies acquired with that unstoppable self-taught fervor and the sonic experimentation that gave an unequivocal voice to their art.
It was a great response for me to understand, once I got to know these artists well, how much someone had taken the same game that I felt like playing to the stars, when I had no references and in my room I experimented with my keyboards, manipulated and cut out voice recordings from cassette tapes to have the effect of a sung line with my own notes, I'd try to build lush string harmonies and give the piano the main melody, then put it all on tape and then...you couldn't hear a tube.
At least at the beginning.
Creating a soundtrack is something very demanding, for which study and concentration are needed: a line out of place is enough to divert the viewer's attention from a scene.
Furthermore, it presupposes tempos that impose a mandatory direction even on the rhythms, and it is always a good challenge to create a theme that is linear when it comes to following particularly rapid synchronous tempos. All these things were taught to me by Stelvio Cipriani, who had followed the example of Nino Rota in his incredible playing with music expressing, with masterful improvisational ability, everything that then transformed a film into a masterpiece of sounds and images.
Every director has different needs: there was an artist collaborator of Giuseppe Tornatore who gave me a hard time, I was on the verge of having to redo the soundtrack of his work when he managed to understand that the only sound that disturbed him was a simple line of harp which in her mind brought up an unsuitable symposium image.
With that line hidden in the mix, the music was great.
I've always learned something from every director, you have to enter into communication with his idea and express his own message, so close cooperation is inevitable.
I was very enthusiastic about the creativity of director Aquino, a person who sought his own expressive delicacy in music.
Let's say that however, the keystone was a collaboration with the Vatican: they simply chose my music because, according to them, it turned out to be the most suitable for some productions which were then broadcast and distributed all over the world.
And a real revolution also happened: for the documentary film that revealed the Vatican Secret Archive to the world for the first time in history, also knowing my experimental vein, they commissioned me a soundtrack of an electronic-synth nature.
This collaboration, which significantly changed my path, was the confirmation of how right it was to believe in the simplicity of a dream, and how much titles or preferential lanes were not needed: they chose my music among many, because they simply considered it the right one.
You know that speaking together, I have always affirmed that a Philip of other times lives/relives in you… Your whole being strongly confirms this. Admit that you have a time machine in your “castle”!!! That's how you called the place where you work… Tell us a little more about this “immortal” Filippo, this “captain”.
There are things of this time that don't belong to me.
There are mentalities that risk offering such a retrograde modernity as to annoy a Neanderthalian.
In my imperfection, I can still say that I received an education based on normal values and my character has always been sociable, considering the company of others a pleasure.
I decided to defend the child that I was, somehow always out of place: I didn't play football, I liked dinosaurs and robots, I loved science fiction and adventure more than sport.
I was fascinated by those environments like the attic of the Goonies, with those ancient artifacts, swords and maps, strange devices that would have made anyone want to explore them.
So when I grew up I wanted to fulfill my childhood dreams: now I live in a castle with an Armor and an Android, what was supposed to be my workplace has become a studio modeled after my dreams.
Not just an all musical environment, but a palace full of wonders, works of art, legendary instruments that I never even imagined having when I saw them in magazines.
Each object has a meaning and a story, and they are all goals that allow me to escape from this time when it tends to become too oppressive.
Sometimes I happen to watch the rain from the window or the movement of the branches in the garden, stirred by the spring breeze, while I'm sitting on an ancient armchair, which for some strange reason, I had identified as "the right one" when it happened to me during my travels.
I thought of building the place that I would have loved to visit as a child, not unlike my family home to which I am attached, but in the company of that silence that fills the structure when the door closes behind the last musician to come out.
The place is very welcoming, not only suitable for artists.
Indeed, the Crystal Castle, inspired by Abbey Road, takes up the philosophy of "The Fox's Den" as in Edgar Reitz's "Die Zweite Heimat", not in the sense of a very long film but in that meaning more linked to the patronage that has always fascinated me and even before that my family.
The idea was to allow artists linked to Crystal to be able to personalize their spaces, but when that nocturnal silence returned to visit me I realized that not everyone is oriented towards an immersion in the world of their own fantasy, to the point of transforming it into a everyday life as it happens to me.
It is demanding and, absurdly, it involves a certain sense of reality.
Someone says I'm a lone wolf, but my character is solar, I allow myself to be skittish only when I'm on my own.
Time machine... It's a secret.
In fact, I have many memories in my mind: I wanted to live every moment of my life intensely.
I wanted to breathe it all the way down, I wanted it to quench my thirst to the last drop, I could never let it slip away. And then, at any moment, as happens to a good photographer, there was music that snapped a snapshot of the situation.
I remember everything, dialogues, facts, people. Remembering is also a necessity: an object that doesn't remind you of anything is just an object, and I think it's not my right to keep something I can't attribute a meaning to.
In the end my life looks more like that of a composer from another era... I thought about it while walking in the citrus grove of a splendid villa in Sorrento waiting to hold my concert that evening, in an atmosphere very different from the world of conventional music.
It's not better or worse, but it's really different.
I find it exciting because I can experience the ancient charm of music while also bringing all that science fiction component of electronic music together with classical.
I preferred to "consecrate" the Crystal Music project in an opera house like La Fenice in Venice, placing a Moog synthesizer on top of the Fazioli while the electro-symphonic orchestra surrounded me, rather than going to look for television worlds that I had already explored with George Merk and Rita Pavone when the environments were the right ones.
Faced with the creation of a score for strings in anticipation of a concert, even if it is modern music, my mind inevitably leads me to those candlelit contexts, to identify myself with that nineteenth-century everyday life which is so fascinating for me and so normal for the great composers of history.
I almost feel like I'm living in their time, I owe them all the nuances of what I'm passionate about.
I'm a nocturnal.
The night offers you an overview of time, it's easier to imagine the history of a place where I am when the buildings are covered by a black sky and enveloped in silence.
It's easier to imagine hearing the voice of some loved one or distinctly seeing some place in the future, illuminated by the low lights of the studio and the flashing lights of the synthesizers that are taking me there.
The night offers us an overview of space.
It's ancient on earth, but you only need to look up to see the future and realize you're traveling among the stars.
I just can't give up all these suggestions.
Classical music is one of the most complex and enigmatic forms of art. It is said that it has the power to transform a person, to reorder his inner harmony thus reaching the divine world or, on the contrary, upset him, sinking into the deepest abyss. In fact, there are more gloomy, dark and gloomy sounds of perdition and damnation.
What does the music hide between the notes? Are you fascinated by this double game of light and shadow? In addition to finding yourself, have you ever lost yourself with music towards the most remote, hidden…unknown part?
Classical music is an incredible journey, and in its important beauty it is truly within everyone's reach.
A symphony is a great gift in which the emotion is offered to the audience so that they can grasp it. The immense Ezio Bosso told me what music was for him, making me understand, in the fortunate situation that allowed me to have a chat with him, how much his sensitivity was great enough to understand that of the greatest composers.
Given that every world has its own musical languages, I still believe that classical harmony really has great power in being able to represent the nuances of emotion.
There are movements, passages of chords and cadences in the presence of which the sensation of being in front of a complete, extremely articulated and absolutely unique language of its universal kind is unmistakable.
The movement of a note within a chord, a small delay, a rhythmic effect is sufficient to clearly perceive a precise state of mind, which from the voice of nature of Vivaldi and Mozart, to the sweetness of feeling of Beethoven of Ich Liebe Dich up to the melodrama of "Alone, Lost, Abandoned" from Puccini's opera Manon Lescaut, loudly anticipate the highest film music.
The sensation of this living representation of sentiment can be felt right from the piano keys, with notes that, like caresses, tell the sublime.
And they can also terrify.
Horror cinema calls for dissonances, sharp sharps, phrases that "surrender" in drama.
It is no coincidence how brilliant it was for Kubrick to use Ligeti's "Scary Piano" in an agonizing scene in Eyes Wide Shut: a few simple notes repeated over several octaves with more evocative effect than ever.
It's not just a question of context, it's really a question of writing: there is a film from the 80s, a dramatic horror film entitled Changeling in which the soundtrack, orchestrated only at times, scans all those instants in every single passage of classical harmony which through the voice of the piano recall the spectator's empathy or make him jump out of his chair.
At the turn of the twentieth century, in the search for different languages with respect to a harmony that with its cadences and structures ended up being, to the ears of certain composers, something pre-packaged from which to emerge, musical Europe was in the grip of turmoil impressionism, dodecaphony and atonal music.
Something fascinating, which then also intrigued the great Nino Rota, who made it an instrument for his production but, thanks to his maestro Casella (and also thanks to God!), without abandoning the horizons of tonal music and that more universal, listenable classical harmony.
In the conservatory we studied all these things and it was really difficult to appreciate some compositions where you didn't even hear a single note, and the effect, just like when thoughts don't have a linear order, was of an unnerving tension.
In the end we listened to hundreds of experimental compositions, which in the end, due to their sonority and the emotion transmitted, were indistinguishable...and even a little cloying.
Classical harmony, on the other hand, at least for me, has always been that super partes bulwark that could allow emotional perception from the most radiant heavenly luminescence to the most macabre abyss of the underworld.
I have chosen to experiment mainly with sounds when it is necessary to create effects of drama and anguish, and even in this the synthesizer is an inexhaustible mine.
But my need is not limited to just sounds, and a song, whatever emotion it represents, must "sing" it for me.
It is certainly more complex to recreate a play of light and shadow with the succession of notes, a sure heritage of the recurring Puccini here.
Today the availability of virtual sounds and samples allows to recreate and continue indefinitely a style of film music full of twists and turns, in which a few notes are enough to make a theme (which repeats, chases, climbs, climbs up to to get to an explosion then stop!) and generally get people. But if I have to be honest, I find in some epochal soundtracks a much more suitable representation to confirm the concept than harmony can represent the chiaroscuro of emotion.
I find an example of this in the splendid soundtrack of Robocop by Poledouris or Dark Crystal by Trevor Johnes.
In my opinion, music is beautiful in all its forms, but it should never be allowed to betray its role: in cinema it is certainly at the service of narration, but it fulfills its function if it lives on its own dimension.
A violin might have nothing to do with a rather pissed off cyborg, however the phrase written by Basil Poledouris in the scene in which Robocop remembers he was a human gives back to the music that spectacularity which constitutes a further language, another key to interpretation to reinforce the power of the scene.
Here, in the greatest classical works this effect is very clear.
What are the compositions for cinema you love the most and the respective artists. In reflection, which are the films that in your opinion have obtained the maximum performance thanks to the music created?
I can definitely mention "Lawrence of Arabia" with the soundtrack by Maurice Jarre.
But also Highlander with the music of Queen; a masterpiece.
"The Princess Bride" with music by Mark Knopfler, and I could go on and on with the fantasy.
Then there is Nino Rota who dazzles in "The Godfather" and "Il Casanova di Fellini", in which he manages to make "ugly" music of a disarming beauty, capable of accentuating the grotesque squalor of a desperately romantic Giacomo Casanova, in an eighteenth century now decapitated.
And as a good progressive musician, I certainly find Simonetti's Goblin soundtracks incredible, which in some cases I even prefer to the same films they are associated with.
Tell us how a composition for the cinema is born. Tell us about the stages you go through,
the tools, technique and emotions needed to achieve the magic.
Quite a difficult question, I will try to summarize the world in a handful of gravel.
Music usually arises by itself.
A soundtrack must have distinctive features and its own personality.
When composing a main theme one must think of complete music that fully represents the suggestion of the work, from the melody to each part to be performed, including sound effects.
If there is no montage, the composition must be free and functional in order to facilitate it later. Often it is the music itself that influences the way the scenes are then filmed.
Usually the composition happens quite quickly: I have my own method that allows me a sort of translation from the narration to the sounds, which I call "emotional classification of the harmonies", which usually seems to work well.
Once the most important theme has been established, secondary themes are elaborated and one proceeds with the creation or extrapolation of those passages, so to speak, of commentary.
We need to grasp the emotionality of the subject and mark the salient points by paying attention to the director's message.
As for the genre, it certainly depends on the context: if it's a detective story, there are sounds between 70's funky and slightly jazzy romanticism that are so present in the common imagination that they become dutiful, provided they are not trivial.
It always depends on the era you want to tell, since music is effectively a time machine.
There are other clichés that really need to be discarded, such as the stubbornness of putting on music boxes every time there is a little boy on stage, perhaps even a grown up one.
However, everything depends on the work, but I usually understand the soundtrack as the creation of a single piece of music that develops in the concatenation of themes associated with various elements or characters of the film, recurring but with all the timbral variations according to the moments.
In this case, through these themes the music has its own personal dimension, that is to say that each of them becomes a sort of "song" of a specific element.
At this point, a theme associated with a character will reach its maximum emphasis in its most important scene and can be found throughout the soundtrack reproposed with lighter and more dilated sonorities or more pressing and complex harmonizations.
In the specific case of a theme, it is necessary to take into account, in the composition of the melody and harmony, the whole relative narrative overview, at 360°.
With current means it is possible to work on the scenes in real time, and nothing is as effective as improvisation: I often happen to work on montages that I see for the first time, forcing myself to express on the piano the sensations that I are transmitted. It is very difficult to throw something away, because spontaneity offers ideas that reasoning is not always able to give.
The next job, after having completed the entire draft on piano or synthesizer, consists in enriching the arrangement that already came to mind in the first phase, then I elaborate the atmospheric sounds and the orchestral structures, which in case of important productions involve the summoning of the violinists and all the other instrumentalists that I have foreseen when composing the piece.
It may seem strange, but it's easier for me to hear already complete, orchestral music in my head when the images flow and I follow them with the piano.
As far as timbres are concerned, synthesizers offer exceptional expedients even in contexts that must seem acoustic and woody: a remarkable pathos can be given to a driven string quartet with a Moog or MS20 bass or an ethereal and suspended atmosphere capable of enhancing even more a minimal piano part.
I'm usually quick to understand where to put my hands and what to use, and the use of analog instruments allows me to create effective sounds on the spot, made especially for that scene, which once recorded will have to give way to new settings on the panel , so they will be deliberately lost: they have only one opportunity!
My method always involves the use of manual things, while I resort to software automation only in the mix phase.
I believe that music must be a tangible experience, and although the use of so many instruments, cables, microphones and technical equipment may seem uncomfortable, nothing gives me the warmth of certain sounds that cannot be reproduced electronically and of all that I can achieve" by hand".
I believe that the breath of a violinist and the expressiveness of a phrase articulated on the piano have the same value as an intense gaze into a scene. There are nuances that cannot be ignored, and this is an artistic aspect that could easily be grasped by Stelvio Cipriani and all my masters of reference.
A soundtrack is always a horizon and a blank sheet to write: it's always different every time, but it's still the opportunity to compose something that was unexpected for our minds, an exciting challenge.
We have seen how astronomy is strongly present in the musical past and present, as well as in the cinematographic field.
Man needs to understand… to know and what encompasses us is such a vast space that it is often easier for many to believe that what they see is the only yardstick.
Yet we are small, so small that we need to feel big.
Sometimes it is ignorance, other times fear that keeps us from pushing beyond the area we know, that asks us questions, that makes us interested in everything. In your opinion, what are the most representative works that deal with this topic and that combine music and cinema perfectly? What artistic products have given the possibility to break these chains and to involve, intrigue, document and open human minds?
I think cinema is certainly one of the highest frontiers of culture also for all that it teaches.
We're talking about an art form that can literally show what it wants to represent even from an emotional point of view, so it's undeniable how much cinema knows how to teach or even simply inspire knowledge.
We have known the epic, romantic and monumental eighteenth century of Barry Lyndon and the darker one of Casanova, who managed to be part of the most splendid eighteenth-century society only when that century had already been guillotined.
In Nino Rota's music, deliberately disturbing in a sublime way, the moods of the writer were perceived by the audience reinforcing the images offered by the genius of Fellini in his cinematic vision of Giacomo Casanova.
Thanks to historical films it is possible to know, in the directors' reconstruction, not only the personality of the great leaders, but also the reasons, the historical events and everything that other cultural means had not always been able to show.
The downside is that very often the public, in history, was influenced in a way that was not always right, as in the case of films between cowboys and "perfidious" Indians...
Excluding a priori propaganda when it exploits the cinematographic medium, in my opinion a low form of opportunism, I would say that however there are many situations in which cinema has managed to "open the eyes" of the public.
We have known the fate of ancient peoples in Rapa Nui, we have seen ancient and modern history, we have peeked into the future giving space to what we could fear or dream about.
Just think of science fiction: cinema made us understand, in the scientific care of the directors, some details of the immeasurable greatness of the universe. And precisely in the case of science fiction films I find it fascinating how the directors of some of the biggest blockbusters have been able to let their imaginations run wild to create their own story on a scientific basis often above any discussion. I could quote Kubrick, with 2001 A Space Odyssey, but I think that even Gravity has been able to teach the public that the universe is more immeasurable than simply inhospitable.
Cinema has shown us time travel, the possible cloning of dinosaurs (maybe!!!) on interesting scientific theories, the genetic manipulations of the Alien universe and other frontiers that have prompted researchers to follow tracks in various fields opened by the imagination of the authors. A consequence of Aasimov and Jules Verne, with a little more technology.
It must be remembered that our daily life is full of objects derived from the colorful fantasy of science fiction series such as Star Trek: the communicator that Captain Kirk used to contact Spock became a tangible reality in the 90s in the hands of those who, with perhaps less exciting and dangerous missions , he found himself having to communicate to his mother to throw down the pasta by signaling his imminent arrival in the mother spaceship called home, using a "communicator" called, coincidentally, Star Tac.
Technology, robotics, information technology, everything that modern times have offered us apart from teleportation, are revolutions in my opinion strongly involved in cinema, and it is no coincidence that today's engineers and scientists were children passionate about fantastic sci-fi series and movies.
My grandfather, who sold and repaired televisions in the sixties, observing the progress of technology, predicted that future generations would have an instrument capable of doing everything, even showing the constellations by pointing it at the sky and learning the names of the stars, in one graphics that strongly recalled the supercomputers of the spaceships seen on TV.
Even all the touch devices we have today and which even today's spaceships have, have the same derivation: the science fiction universe made up of instruments as fascinating as they are desirable, for which technology and engineering had to evolve.
So let's say that cinema is an incentive to evolution as well as to knowledge: it is a powerful frontier of that universe made up of fantasy and intuitions, which has always been the driving force that has pushed man towards knowledge.
One way or another, cinema shows us the heroes or anti-heroes we would like to be. He shows us a whole story in the two-hour parable. He taught us the Greek myths, the strength of heroes like the D'Annunzio Maciste, good that wins over evil, knowledge that wins over ignorance, justice that triumphs over oppression for those who know how to open their eyes. But there are also contraindications: recent years have made "the dark side of the force" as fascinating as inspiring, fashions have led vampirism to transform itself from a horrible state of damnation and darkness to a fascinating fashionable condition, sadists and psychopaths as role models for weak minds. But above all, by showing us the entire unfolding of a story within two hours, we end up thinking that real life can also have these timings. There are many who have lost the sense of waiting and the long-term vision of life and its projects, as if the fulfillment of each personal story were to constitute a conclusion of the work: this is the case with some interpersonal relationships. You feel like you're in a film and you're surprised when, at the end of something, the end credits don't arrive. We therefore end up feeling that very current sense of despair when in front of us, at the end of something, there is still a boundless horizon to explore, which scares us more than encourages us.
They are all risks of identification, it is up to the balance of the public to choose what to observe. I have always preferred works that give me ideas, something to build, something that inspires my games and my imagination. I wasn't looking for a personality to acquire, even though I grew very fond of my favorite characters like Trinity, Robocop, Han Solo, Jareth and Atreyu.
There is a disproportion between the cultural benefit that cinema has brought versus more unwanted variables.
I am convinced that if this great art form hadn't existed, all the positive evolutions of our society in the social and scientific fields would have been very difficult if not impossible.
What do you think cinema can give to music and vice versa in the current era? Do you think there has been a leap in quality or do you have any suggestions to offer for a more optimal collaboration?
Cinema can give music a very special dimension. The birth of film music is the emblem of how the emotionality of music could be a fundamental ingredient in the cinematic message. If before moving images, a sort of conjunction between theater and dance, constituted a choreographic work in which music marked its completion, writing music specifically for a film made the emotionality of harmony available to offer a even more complete reading key to the viewer.
In the evolutions that the centuries have brought to music, film music has reached a sort of academic snobbery to the detriment of even the young Morricone, who must work hard to raise this musical genre today so noble to its rightful rank.
In fact, it was thought that it was a sub-brand of the real composition, fortunately today things have changed.
Cinema offers a composer the possibility of expressing himself with the means he deems suitable: one can present music of classical derivation to the public, with orchestral sonorities and Puccini harmonies and feel at one's place.
Just think of the Dark Crystal soundtrack by Trevor Johnes: a suite of the highest level that in modern times, especially the present ones, would have had a difficult life in a music market. I think the same thing about a masterpiece like the soundtrack of Star wars by John Williams: from the cinema, the audience not only accepted orchestral music, but they really expected it: for this reason, the language of reaching that large audience was always understood. more interested in more immediate genres.
Today a bit of everything is mixed: there are Italian productions in which the soundtrack is made up of radio tunes, a choice that doesn't drive me crazy, personally.
I have always perceived a clear distinction between a song written for a film compared to a song written for the radio: Neverending Story, Take my Breath Away, Danger Zone and Midnight Express also climbed the radio charts after inextricably marking the cinematographic masterpieces of which were part, in the hands of the legendary Giorgio Moroder.
In my mind they were songs with something more.
With these songs, the aim was to have an emotional content linked to a story, leaving behind the need to be necessarily universal, yet then they worked all over the world.
The fact is that cinema is always an opportunity for music, even in the case of Barry Lyndon, in which Kubrick, at the thought that no contemporary composer could create more suitable pieces than the works of Bach, Schubert and the great artists of history, however he entrusted those themes he chose to the hands of modern composers who would have been able to adapt precisely those melodies to a cinematic level.
It often happens that, thanks to the cinema, even a certain musical language reaches the public more than it would with the discography: this is the case of "Oblivion": a stupendous soundtrack, considered by many to be almost more beautiful than the film itself, therefore a source of inspiration for many composers.
Cinema is an art full of facets, colors and atmospheres. The possibilities with which you can inspire are many and its main merit towards music lies precisely in the variety of what it can entail.
Some art atmospheres can be ideal for experimenting with new sounds, romanticism can be expressed in the very white notes of a piano as in "pride and prejudice", there are frightening and powerful sounds that can give life to a cyborg and underline the drama of his story with a fine orchestral texture.
Where there are images, messages and meaning, music has an opportunity to flourish.
What are the future jobs you would like to tackle in film composition? Are there genres that you would like to tackle more than others? Dreams in the drawer in this sense.
I would like to work in science fiction and fantasy, two territories that are congenial to me: I brought the Crystal Music Project, a classical, electronic and rock orchestra to theaters with which I staged Opera Elettrosinfonica, a science fiction story set to music that I written years ago, disturbingly very close to current reality.
An ideal condition is the enjoyment of creating music, and these territories lend themselves well to lighting a fuse. I'm also always immersed in creating sounds and languages to experiment with using everything, including the robots I've built: machines I've created to play with me.
In general, every film genre fascinates me and for me it's an opportunity, a mine in which to find ideas.
Furthermore, I like all of music, therefore, even in the presence of my own style, there are many worlds that I feel I want to explore.
The variety is the most intriguing thing: by writing a soundtrack you become attached to the work and the characters and feel melancholy once the work is finished, like abandoning an island where you have lived for a long time. So venturing into new journeys, albeit different ones, is always something I look forward to.
We have arrived at the final question: cinema is visual art, music allows us to imagine even with our eyes closed, therefore it enhances that vision by making it tangible and concrete. Together they allow us to experience real or fantasy situations, allowing us to also have a hypothetical vision of the future. How do you see your future and how do you see the future of these two sectors?
Sand had I received this question twenty years ago I would have certainly answered in the same way: I haven't the faintest idea what my future might look like. I know what I want and I know my character, it has led me to adapt to various situations without losing sight of the need to be prepared and have a little imagination.
As for cinema, already several years ago we could glimpse the connotations that would lead to changes. It is undeniable that there is much less freedom of expression: the amazing quality of the special effects constitutes the point of arrival that we hoped to reach when in the 80s the pioneering enthusiasm led to the creation of masterpieces whose scenic ingenuity does not constitute a problem in the slightest. However, I honestly find that certain current films, a triumph of computer graphics, remain less tangible over time: it is as if that virtual world represented with such care, however, did not take root over time as happened to the blockbusters of the past. There are films that have been talked about for 60 years. I don't think other current masterpieces will have the same response.
There is something that makes them less unforgettable dishes, perhaps the standardization of certain characters, the in some cases exasperated respect for social messages, the standardization of the musical structure.
I don't believe in the possibility that a modern version of "Labyrinth" with other super actors will survive the times like the historical one with the immense David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly and Frank Oz's crazy puppets. It would certainly be shot in another way, certainly spectacular in the cinema, certainly with high-level music, but its strength over time would be different.
I believe that the fundamental ingredient is that ingenuity as genuine as it is professional which led producers to even want to take risks.
In the eighties they would never have seen the light of day
of movies like 'Avatar', 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Harry Potter'. Nor "Dragonheart" and "Jurassic Park", whose last episode that I took care to go and see gave me so much satisfaction but was full of revival elements.
Maybe today we try to meet the public as much as possible, to please them beyond the limit, even never to piss them off with indelicacies.
The fact remains that there is not that energy, that enthusiasm which instead made the audience of "Top Gun" so much want a sequel today: the desire to go back there, so to speak.
I think this is also a consequence of our time.
I can't say that cinema has completely gone astray because absolute masterpieces still exist, but the feeling of a marsh age is quite tangible and this creates in today's artists a strong desire to create something in the manner of their childhood films.
Today you can have any kind of sound in your home studio, even the most unthinkable. You can write a soundtrack with a full orchestra almost worthy of classic Decca records. There is a huge saving, everything is more immediate. However, going to the studio to conduct an orchestra that plays your notes, follows your tempo, respects your dynamics and gives life to a real soundtrack is the origin of an energy which then, within a film , will shine brighter than any other current gimmick. Seeing is believing.
In my opinion, the ideal would be to allow cinema and music to keep that "manual" aspect, certainly taking advantage of the expedients they can offer from new technologies, but still considering the cinematographic work as something alive and experimental.
One would get away from certain current stereotypes such as characterizations of little depth and from the feeling that the film was made with elements that can be assembled, including the soundtrack, often made up of large explosions and little memorable music.
I am convinced that there are still great stories to tell and fantastic notes to write.
So cinema will undoubtedly have a future because no one could give it up.
Standards can be respected, but with an eye to the personality of the cinematographic work.
I am referring to the main difference between the vision of the great directors and that of the industry, because if on the one hand the market pays off, on the other it is the imagination that makes history.
And with Filippo's last words, which remind everyone that imagination and creativity make the difference, I head towards the end of "Missione Lui". It has allowed me to explore interior places not yet known, interact with new forms of ideas, of thinking aimed at always asking questions about what is best to make this journey and one's own art form extraordinary. Who does not ask questions is destined to leave nothing lasting.
I found a Filippo full of passion and emotion, of knowledge but also of continuous search for personal improvement, consequently collective, because we are constantly connected with others.
If our method of artistic communication were always refined and made as sublime as possible, those around us could also benefit from it.
I share many points of view with Filippo starting from the importance of maintaining one's own personal vision of the world especially in the creative phase, without following standards that risk making everything flat and clone of influences that don't belong to us.
It is true that in many respects many films have become just an easy way of earning money, without the impact that can make them the pillars, as many others in the past have become. Although the means are more limited, perhaps once upon a time more courage was required and the greater was the risk also given by not having all today's technologies and facilities available, which have made so many people physically and mentally imprisoned. When you have to ingenuity to create something you are automatically stimulated to find the best solutions, while when most of the things are already available you often feel entitled to take them for granted.
The imperfection of the past has made certain masterpieces perfect which, although not made with today's means, still manage to have a shocking impact on the public.
Personally I believe that the screenplay of a film is as basic as a composition is for the music; the screenplays if properly cared for and written, leave a strong grip on the psyche of the beholder. People need to find each other, to identify with each other, to reflect... and I believe that even intelligent comedy requires reasoning, unlike many who divide cinema into light or heavy.
Certainly the film composition, also through this interview, we learned that it is in constant symbiosis with the creative act of the director. A composer must be able to grasp an unequivocal message that each feature film or short film brings with it, especially in the writing phase. Words become images and images, like words, are a continuous source of inspiration because they would not exist without each other.
The power of Cinema is precisely this, that's why everyone falls in love with it.
At the service of narration, the music that binds to cinema is those unspoken words, those perceived but undeclared moods, those movements of the heart and body that make the audience vibrate in a room, as well as an entire orchestra vibrates with energy at the height of its artistic performance; Music and Cinema are very reminiscent of the harmonic dance of merging galaxies, completely penetrating each other. Great responsibility revolves around the composer, who is the one who has to finish the director's thoughts, has to seal and amplify them.
Two conductors, each in his own way, who coordinate many other people destined to be the means for the final result. You understand that it is an immense and memorable work. "Cinema is the most direct way to compete with God."
But we want to do better... We want the entire universe to manifest itself through cinema, to be the key to opening doors, to opening visions, to broadening knowledge.
We are ready to countdown to the next launch. And you?
CONTACTS:
Official site: http://www.thecrystalmusic.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/filippo.lui & https://www.facebook.com/TheCrystalMusicRecords
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FilippoLui
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0IkzVsDUT4d9EZSXDd3OBk?si=WpWeqh-iQ3qnXFpV8iwiqw
Instagram: https://instagram.com/thecrystalmusic
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