Richard -- I wonder if you'd be willing to speak a bit about your own musical relationship to this question of "Oriental exoticism" (a rather loathsome term all on its own, I'd say).  I would imagine some might make that charge (wrongly, I'd think?) about some of the materials in your work over the last decade or two (instrumentation is the most obvious issue, though there are presumably similar issues having to do w/ pitch/microtonality, form, stasis, etc.).  Straying slightly off the Scelsi topic for a moment ... Where do you draw the line with issues of cultural plundering, reference, instrumentation, material, etc.?   What sort(s) of context(s) are necessary to somehow prevent the use of those materials being seen as some sort of cultural imperialism? 

(If you'd rather not ... no worries.  Just thought it might be an interesting way to make the Scelsi conversation slightly less speculative.  Plus I'm quite curious, personally ... I have some vague memory of reading some interview where you address this issue, but I haven't been able to find it.  I'll keep digging ....)

I've been watching this thread unfold with alternating interest and despair - at first I didn't post because I'd banned myself from doing so while I finished a slightly late piece of work, and then the discussion had got so heated and involved that I didn't know quite where to start. I think my position is more or less identical to Evan's: my knowledge of facts and/or rumours about Scelsi's personality and working methods (including the suggestion that some or all of the later work was transcribed by others, though I somehow had the idea Frances-Marie Uitti was meant to be the transcriber) preceded my acquaintance with his music to the extent that I'd come to feel vaguely uncomfortable about it before I really listened to much of it.

I think this is a problem for me more than it's a problem of Scelsi, but on the other hand I do think that the music engages in certain obvious respects with orientalist/exoticist tropes. You could say it's to do with mysticism, and I certainly agree with Richard's comment that mysticism is a definite component of human experience and should be acknowledged/explored as such, but it's also true that mysticism in Western art has often taken a form not untouched by orientalism/exoticism.

I think Ian's presentation of the issue made it look far too black and white (maybe more so than even Ian intended), as if orientalism was always and only a bad thing, but now that - thankfully - we seem to be out of that patch of argumentative quicksand I'm glad (kind of!) that the issue's been raised. Everyone seems to be friends again, and I think awareness of the possible contradictions and paradoxes that give rise to creative work can be illuminating, even if that's a case of just registering the tension rather than trying to reach a verdict. To give a parallel example, the tension between modernist/constructivist stylisation and the positing of something 'natural' and ungainsayable (folk music or birdsong) in the music of Bartok and Messiaen respectively seems to me to be one of the most underexplored and yet richly suggestive aspects of both those composers' work.

As for Scelsi, I'd only say, Richard, that in the orchestral pieces you mention the titles do seem to point to a continuing 'exoticist' motivation. Perhaps the fact that it doesn't bother you there as it does in the slightly earlier piano pieces simply indicates that Scelsi's learned to make better [define as you will!] music out of it?

As for RB's own music, I don't want to put words into his mouth but regarding the following:
This is surely true - as for many other composers, including several writing in a more or less advanced 'modernist' idiom (Boulez, early Maxwell Davies, Anthony Gilbert, George Benjamin, ...). But I think there's another aspect in RB's work, the first example to come to mind being EARTH for trombone and percussion, which I think I'm right in saying the composer described as 'a sort of imaginary fourth-world folk music' (there's actually a similar idea in Ligeti, who described the second movement of the Horn Trio as, I think, 'the folk music of an imaginary country located somewhere between the Balkans and the Caribbean'). The idea of representing an imaginary country's music accurately strikes me as a powerful demonstration of an alternative to the now familiar (Said-ian) notion of a real country and its inhabitants falsely represented.

Thanks for that résumé, Time.

Actually I was surprised that the "exoticism" issue came up at all, not that I think it isn't a worthy subject for discussion, but what interested me originally was the authorship question, which perhaps we've now got around to returning to.

Frances Uitti was involved in the archiving of Scelsi's recorded improvisations after his death rather than in transcribing them, although she had spent much time working with him on the interpretation of his cello music. I'm not sure whether anyone knows what the relative roles of Tosatti and Scelsi were in the composition process, although apparently Tosatti's "own" compositions are in a completely different style.

And one reason why I brought the subject up was precisely because most people I've talked to on the subject, including myself so to speak, aren't particularly concerned about who wrote what in the music, but merely in what the music itself has to offer. So if Scelsi was really concerned to create a cult of personality around himself he seems to have failed. On the other hand, if, as he claimed, he was concerned only to "deliver the post" without knowing what was in the envelopes, perhaps he could be said to have succeeded.

I think there is maybe a problem with terminology here. A lot of what is perceived as 'mysticism', sometimes celebrated as such, often entails a rather transparent form of mystification, which is generally a thoroughly calculated thing and as such not particularly mystical. And to some extent I think this is true of some of Scelsi's work. But I'd say that I find more of a genuinely mystical experience in listening to Mozart, or Brahms, in whose works the manifestations of subjectivity exceed what can be explained by any finite set of principles, than in a great many works that wear their 'mystical' elements on their sleeve.

But I also wonder whether it is in any sense meaningful to talk about a 'true' representation of a real country? Any form of representation of anything incorporates the subjective perspective of the representer. I'm trying to think what would unequivocally count as a 'false' representation, also.

Hmmmmm - veering dangerously close to post-modern theories of the simulacra here, better step back quickly!

And not just elderly ones, apparently... anyway, it seems that Scelsi's most characteristic works are based upon transcriptions of improvisations he executed on the ondiola, some kind of electronic keyboard instrument I haven't been able to find out much about except that it could produce microtones and was monophonic. Many of the recordings consistsed of multitracked improvisations, sometimes combining a recording with a reversed version of itself. Indeed Scelsi's compositions often feature repeated or palindromic sections, which initially seemed strange to me in the context of such unsystematic-sounding music, but makes sense with the knowledge that tape-manipulation was involved in the "sketching" process. What's unclear to me is how aspects such as the extended playing techniques in the string quartets and the idiosyncratic orchestration of the larger-scale pieces came into the process of transcription.

just joining the thread and catching up now --

thank you so much for that information about the ondiola.  I always assumed it was a variant of a jenny ondioline or ondes martinot, but couldn't be sure -- and having it confirmed that he had multi-tracking capabilities is crucial information.  that instrument, and his studio recording setup, are pretty obviously the key to understanding the orchestral pieces, and they haven't been reported upon anywhere I've been able to find.  I truly hope we can have an authorized release of the original electronic recordings, I would love to hear them.

Tosatti's claims are important -- they're often the first thing you hear about Scelsi from suspicious listeners.  In the overspecified scores of the 20th century, the notation is usually assumed to be the piece & not representational or a translation, so if Tosatti claimed that the transcriber was the author, you can sort of see where he's coming from.  I know he was not Scelsi's sole transcriber -- I know Curran did his share of pieces, but I assumed it was Tosatti who did the major orchestral pieces & quartets.  And transcribing those multitracked improvs for traditional instruments certainly must have been a creative feat that deserves its due.  I haven't seen the orchestral scores, but have read descriptions of how the quartets provide individual staves for each string of each instrument -- profoundly meticulous.

It's also clear though that Scelsi's voice remains consistent through all his pieces, even the ones for fewer instruments, and I've read that Tosatti's own compositions are stylistically distinct.  So while Scelsi may have needed help to realize the bigger orchestral works, I think the charges of outright fraud against him are underinformed.  An attempt to justify dismissing music that is not to one's taste (reminiscent of the charges of Ives' backdating -- a) meanspirited & b) ultimately irrelevant)

Ian Pace's posts to this thread are informative and well argued -- I didn't know anything about those 17th & 19th century composers he references -- but also odd to me, because the East isn't one of the main things evoked for me by Scelsi's orchestral pieces.  They evoke the soul of the West fighting for what's rest of its life (to be dramatic about it).  The East is reflected in there, a definite influence, but this is such distinctly Western music that charges of appropriation seem strange.

Finding the best recordings of Scelsi since the floodgates opened in the 90's has become difficult, most of the composer-authorized ones are hopelessly out of print and I'm often at odds with the overly stringent performances that I find in stores.  These are the ones I usually loan out for first impressions:

- Jurg Wyttenbach's 3 CD box set of works for orchestra + chorus
- Editions RZ compilation of recordings from Scelsi's archive (still in print)
- original 1982 recording of Arditti playing the first four Quartets (seems to grab me more than the later re-recordings for Audivis Montaigne -- these have recently turned up online)

and once you're over the fence, you move on to the works for voice & solo instruments.

& there's a new 5.1 surround recording of 'Uaxactum' on a Mode DVD I'd love to hear.

PS to the foregoing: the CD is completed by a massive choral/orchestral piece, La nascita del verbo, which is only the second (after the First Quartet) piece I've heard from Scelsi's early period - there's something of Schoenberg about it, but to my ears it's (even) more turgid, interesting to have around but nowhere near the visionary world of his mature work.