Jien - Noti - Jien : Ħsejjes u Stejjer
by Immanuel Mifsud and Toni Sant
Jien-Noti-Jien : Ħsejjes u Stejjer (“I-Notes-I: Sounds and Stories”) is a book co-authored two well-known Maltese cultural personalities. One is Immanuel Mifsud – novelist, playwright, poet and activist, and winner of the EU Prize for Literature in 2011. The other is Toni Sant – academic, music producer, artistic director and music journalist.
Jien-Noti-Jien is, indeed, a book but, at the same time – as the cover blurb states – “not a book”. This apparent contradiction refers to the unusual genesis of the volume. In March 2020, early in the days of the Covid-19 pandemic and at the time of the first Maltese quasi-lockdown, Mifsud turned to Facebook to keep in touch with the outside world. Increasingly disappointed, disturbed and frustrated at the racist and mindless posts on the social network, he started penning and uploading on his FB page a quasi-daily series of musical ruminations. Each post would include a link to a musical choice, accompanied by the Mifsud’s comments on the piece and its personal significance for him. As we learn in the book, the paths of Immanuel Mifsud and Toni Sant had previously crossed in their youth (they had travelled and shared a room on a trip together) and Sant, rising to a challenge posed by Mifsud, started his own series of musical posts. The lifetime of the (double) series was meant to be brief and ephemeral but, having been well-liked by the public, it unexpectedly found itself taking on a new guise as a traditional, paper publication – hence Jien-Noti-Jien, the book-which-is-not-a-book.
I’m a sucker for (play)lists and listening/reading recommendations and therefore I could not fail to enjoy Jien-Noti-Jien. However, what I enjoyed most was to note the complementary counterpoint between the two consecutive parts penned by the respective authors. As one would expect, Mifsud takes the more literary approach, his musical choices a pretext for autobiographical ruminations (which, in some cases, seem to skirt autofiction) ranging from his earliest boyhood memories to more recent experiences. On the other hand, Sant’s memoirs opt for a sociological/musicological perspective, shaped by the advances in sonic technology over the past decades and the ensuing changes in the ways we listen to and experience music.
The choice of repertoire is also different. Mifsud admits to a general lack of interest in Maltese music (he includes only one Maltese track), unlike Toni Sant, a known champion of emerging Maltese artists. Mifsud’s choices are also possibly somewhat more eclectic, with a greater presence of classical (and, particularly, contemporary) music. Surprisingly, however, both writers converge on the choice of Italian folk bard Angelo Branduardi – whose music I love, by the way, but who at first glance seems an unlikely choice for both authors.
Mifsud and Sant are around a decade older than I am, and their anecdotes of the seventies and early eighties felt distant to me. However, as their respective accounts moved closer to the present, I found myself reminiscing along with them. In one of the brief chapters, Mifsud writes about Górecki’s Sonata for Two Violins whose motoric yet passionate opening served as the signature tune for a programme of 20th Century classical music which Mifsud used to present on the short-lived cultural radio station FM Bronja. That was in the late 90s. As a rather solitary teenager just starting University, music was my passion, and Mifsud’s programme one of the unmissable highlights of the week. I was not new to the contemporary repertoire myself, and yet there was much which I discovered thanks to that programme – for instance, the minimalism of Andrew Poppy, the works of Australian composer Ross Edwards (Maninyas made a mark), the sacred music of Franco Battiato. I’d be surprised if Mifsud still remembers – but I had sent him a handwritten letter to show my appreciation, which he had graciously acknowledged. At the time, during my summer and Christmas holidays, I used to present my own radio programme on another national radio station. The broadcast was built around classical music requests sent in by the listeners, but among the Verdi arias, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and Romantic orchestral warhorses, I would slip in Rautavaara, early John Adams, Arvo Pärt and James Macmillan. Mifsud rightly takes the credit of introducing contemporary composers to the Maltese airwaves. I’m proud to say that, around that time, he had a fan who was trying to do the same.
I also felt a flicker of recognition when I read about Mifsud’s brief dalliance with the trip-hop of Portishead, Tricky, Massive Attack and the rest. In my case, I’ve never really got out of it and every so often, the anguished voice of Beth Gibbons finds its way into my playlists.
As for Toni Sant, for many years, I used to listen to and/or download his podcasts Mużika Mod Ieħor, introducing new Maltese musical talent including musicians writing songs with Maltese lyrics. I’ve lost touch now, but I note that the podcast still lives on in a different guise as a regular video upload on Toni Sant’s youtube channel. I’ve just subscribed and can’t wait to jump back in.
Jien-Noti-Jien gave
me so much pleasure that I gobbled it up in one long afternoon. And it seems I’m not the only one to have felt
something special while reading it. As I
write this, it has just been announced that it has won the 2021 National Book
Prize in the literary non-fiction category.
Not bad at all for a “non-book”.
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