Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988)

[steve ridgway]

Well put it like this, I've been completely hooked by Suites 8 to 11 over the past three days!

The piano music doesn't grab me like the orchestral works and I haven't listened to much of it.  Suite 8 sounds OK in places though, maybe it'll grow on me.



On the other hand I'm finding Cinque Incantesimi, Quattro Illustrazioni and Krishna E Radha quite listenable now, can play this album with the intermixed flute pieces all the way through.

[T. D.]

Revisited this after discovering to my surprise that I still own it:

Enjoyed Suite 8 more than I did in the past (going back over 20 years), though I still find it uneven (some movements sounded motoric or clangorous in places). I prefer Suites 9 and 10, both of which are highly interesting. I'll no longer dismiss Scelsi's piano music, but will continue to listen to other instruments/ensembles more often.

[Mandryka]

Revisited this after discovering to my surprise that I still own it:

Enjoyed Suite 8 more than I did in the past (going back over 20 years), though I still find it uneven (some movements sounded motoric or clangorous in places). I prefer Suites 9 and 10, both of which are highly interesting. I'll no longer dismiss Scelsi's piano music, but will continue to listen to other instruments/ensembles more often.

Try 9 when you're in the mood. 9 is the one which some people dislike because it's not visceral, it's peaceful.

[Mandryka]

Has anyone explored the divertimenti?

[Mandryka]

I've started to explore the cello trilogy "Ages of Man" -- Triphon, Ditthome and Ygghur.

I just couldn't resist posting the score of Ygghur



Four strings, four staves, not even Bach wrote such contrapuntal music for a cello.

The first recording I think was made by Frances Maria Uitti, and she's repeated one of them for ECM. She studied the music with the composer. Anyway, that's the one I'm listening to today. But there are plenty of others.



The first part of Triphon is for a prepared cello -- all sorts of metal things attached to the strings to make a buzzing sound. And the music is intense to the point of being brutal, Scelsi takes no prisoners. The first time I heard it, and even the second, I thought my speakers had broken!

[Mandryka]

Oh and another thing, the second quartet -- which is the first quartet in Scelsi's own voice. As far as I know only Arditti and Quarteto d'archi di Torino  have dared record it, so I was pleased to find this live one on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/v/nYv86ZyBw-o

The uploader of that says that Scelsi wrote

He writes:
"My music is neither this nor that, it is not twelve-tone, it is not puntilista, it is not minimalist ... What then? Do not know. Notes, the notes are not that coatings, clothes. But what what's inside is generally more interesting, no? The sound is spherical, is round. Instead you listen to him always as duration and height.'s not good. Everything has a spherical center: you can scientifically prove. need to get to the heart sound: it is only aloora musicians, otherwise you are just craftsmen. A craftsman of music is worthy of respect, but it is not a real musician or a true artist. [...] You have no idea what a sound ! There are counterpoints (if you want), there are mismatches of different timbres, harmonics that produce effects that are different, that not only come from the sound, but who come to the center of the sound, and there are also divergent movements and concentric . It then becomes very large, it becomes a part of the cosmos. minimum even if there is everything inside. [...] a note arguing for a long time it becomes large, so large that it feels more and more harmony and it will expands to ' inside, the sound surrounds you. I assure you that is a different story: the sound contains an entire universe, with overtones that never feel. The sound fills the place where you are, you rings, you can swim in it. [ ...] When you enter into a sound it is wrapped, you become part of the sound, little by little it is swallowed and you do not need another sound. [...] Everything is in there, the whole universe fills the space, all possible sounds are contained in it

But where did he write it?

I'm getting irritated by the dearth of Scelsi studies available to me. I've just taken the plunge and ordered this



https://www.amazon.co.uk/Giacinto-Scelsi-aujourdhui-Pierre-Castanet/dp/2916738010