Caleidocicli musicali (Musical Kaleidocycles). Simmetrie infrante dei suoni, Milano, Rugginenti, 2005

Review by Giuseppina La Face Bianconi, in "Amadeus", XVIII, 8 (201) agosto 2006, p.66

Between geometry and music

Bolognese composer Luigi Verdi has written several essays and monographies. He has recently published an essay upon Musical Kaleidocycles for Rugginenti publishing company. The term “Kaleidocycle” comes from Maurits Cornelis Escher’s graphic procedures which – according to Giovanni Guanti in the introduction to the book – “have trained the wide audience to the paradox of the multiple reflexions and to the mystery of the infinite hidden or revolved in itself”. The technique of musical kaleidocycles, developed by Verdi as from 1985, is based on the “horizontal arrangement of chords upon transposition levels planned according to numerical sequences”. From a graphic point of view, kaleidocycles originate fascinating geometrical shapes, so that a musical composition of this kind can be represented also visually with multicolour panels. Verdi’s book is arranged in rich chapters and appendixes, images and graphics: if the reader is familiar both in geometry and in music, he is led to verify the manifold combinatorial possibilities of chords. Thus, this book is for “insiders” who wish to enter the meanders of composing processes and the infinite modalities of geometrical arrangements of music.

Giuseppina La Face Bianconi