In the years devoted to collecting material for this book, approaching Sylvano Bussotti was a matter of course: his name was almost on a par with Berio’s and Donatoni’s. His replies arrived on a single sheet of paper, written in hand (see fig. 2), an d while I sensed an impatience about them, they also revealed a fascinating, original personality I would have been happy to meet in person.

Twenty-seven years on, impatience seems to have prevailed: he chose not to reply to my letter inviting him to look at the text again.

Bussotti is an all-around artist: composer, poet, painter, designer, choreographer, sculptor, photographer, opera and film director. He has also led festivals (such as the Puccini Festival and the concert section of the Venice Biennale) and established his own production company, “Bussottioperaballet,” which ran a festival in Genazzano. For a time, Bussotti was also director of the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. In old age, he seems to have scaled down his activities.

I am going to try and reply briefly to the three questions.

I.

Three composers have influenced me—listening to their music as much as their personal acquaintance:

I attended the world premieres of some of their works—Il Prigioniero (Dallapiccola), Le marteau sans maître and Doubles (Boulez), and Variations (Cage). All my works composed at the time bear the imprint of those compositions.

II.

I do not exclude the outside world while composing. The so-called “sounds,” including “noises of everyday life” do not influence me much, nor do they inspire me. (Inspiration, as you are no doubt aware, is a rather moot notion. I am sometimes inspired by human beings but never by phenomena, and phonetics only to a certain extent.) A “creator” is influenced more than anything by musical culture.

III.

Self-repetition is to my mind primarily a biological characteristic of man rather than of composers. It does not emerge, it is there because we are born with it. Style is a retrospective category mostly assessed by critics a posteriori often without considering the deep sense of musical creation. However, as a mirror of myself, my personal style or conscious self-repetition are inimitably mine.