click here for album teaser (youtube)
In 2010 I chose a unique artistic residency: inside a cave on the summit of Monte Nerone, in central Italy.
I spent a full lunar cycle in the cave (July 11-August 11) with a mezza coda piano and a tent. Every day I held a concert for those who came to visit, and recorded each performance.
I listened to those recordings over and over again, yet felt something was missing.
So ten years later, in 2020, I wrote new music inspired by and dedicated to that intense experience. I recreated the cave’s sonorous setting, incorporating it into the new music, which was recorded in my studio in Pesaro.
I never imagined I’d relive a similar experience of seclusion, albeit in different circumstances and this time shared with all of humanity, because of a crisis unprecedented in recent history.
This album was finished over the long days of sheltering at home due to COVID-19. It takes its name from the acronym of a well-known saying of the 17th-century Rosicrucian spiritual movement, Visita Interiora Terrae, Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem. (roughly translated: “Visit the earth’s interior, and by purifying yourself you will find the hidden stone.”)
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V.I.T.R.I.O.L. is also a personal descent and re-ascent that explores boundless and subconscious inner landscapes.
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Mario Mariani, May 2020
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Track list:
01 – Litofonie (2’21)
02 – L’antro delle ninfe (5’02)
03 – Omphalos (4’13)
04 – La lingua degli uccelli (3’55)
05 – Malâmatî (4’03)
06 – Ikiperu (5’42)
07 – Nocturnalia (7’13)
08 – Speleosonata (5’07)
09 – The Profundis (6’31)
10 – V.I.T.R.I.O.L. (24’09)
total time: 68’43
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Mario Mariani – piano, objects
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click here to buy (cd audio)
click here to listen (Spotify)