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quartertone
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« Reply #45 on: 08:45:28, 23-03-2007 » |
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I think the attribution issue is extremely interesting here, as it raises the question of what constitutes a composition, and hence also of what constitutes a composer. It's quite ironic - or fitting - that Richard raised it, as his music is so timbrally-specific that it would be unimaginable for it to have been composed on one instrument and then transcribed for others. Who knows how similar the compositions we know as "Scelsi" are to his actual improvisations? The formal approach, while never varying all that much, could well be more the work of his transcriber(s) than himself, and the role of instrumentation in such timbre-oriented music makes the function of the "arranger" much more important than it would have been in other works. I find him to be one of those single-minded composers with whom a few works are essential and the rest are more or less interchangeable. But we'll probably never know whose fault that is...
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #46 on: 12:08:24, 23-03-2007 » |
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I've been thinking, during the course of this thread, about Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Ioanna.
Not really sure how this all hangs together (or if it does) so bear with me...
I think that I see Scelsi's invocations of the music of several Other civilisations, and the rituals of those civilisations to be more in line with a sort of Blakean 'emanation' to balance and complete his failed (possibly on socio-economic lines?) Italy. That it has less to do with the actual East, but more to do with what he perceives as lacking in Italy.
That doesn't really tie into tMFoQI, but the book just triggered this idea off. Something to do with allegory or analogy or something.
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #47 on: 17:56:19, 26-03-2007 » |
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Who knows how similar the compositions we know as "Scelsi" are to his actual improvisations? I assume at least a few people do since they improvised with him and some of the results ended up as pieces - Carin Levine, Joelle Léandre, Frances-Marie Uitti? Have there been any moves to issue the surviving tapes of Scelsi's own ondiolina efforts? Have some of them even already been issued? I have a vague and nagging memory of something of the sort although that's the kind of thing my brain sometimes invents in a wishful-thinking sort of way. |
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quartertone
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« Reply #48 on: 21:17:22, 26-03-2007 » |
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I assume at least a few people do since they improvised with him and some of the results ended up as pieces - Carin Levine, Joelle Léandre, Frances-Marie Uitti? Well, those are the late solos - but I don't think we'd find someone who could tell us precisely how Anahit, Konx-Om-Pax or the 4th quartet were composed, to name a few classics. A solo piece worked on with a performer is a rather different situation, and probably rather closer to the improvisatory aspect, than an orchestral work. |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #49 on: 01:43:26, 12-05-2007 » |
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Have there been any moves to issue the surviving tapes of Scelsi's own ondiolina efforts? I understand that the archive was in a sorry state of chaos until recently and that when it's properly organised it will be made available in some way, though whether that means available to scholars or available on CD I don't know. I've also recently heard that in fact the transcription/composition process was far more involved than Scelsi handing over a tape and having it converted into notation. That seems to have been the first stage in a multi-stage redactional process, in every stage of which Scelsi took an active role, which goes some way to explaining the instrumentation of the pieces qt mentions as well as the special string techniques used in the solo part of Anahit, most of the Fourth Quartet and so on. |
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marbleflugel
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« Reply #50 on: 10:37:06, 12-05-2007 » |
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Thanks for an illuminating discussion. I'm wondering what Scelsi's ethnicity was ancestrally, and thus how fathe
eastern influences and improv were natural to him. The historic links of wealth to fascism presumably had something to do with Scelsi's hermit position in the left-oriented culture of his time?He may of course have had something of the Jeffrey Archer or Johnathan Aitken, or indeed Berlusconi(eg ethnically headscarfed meeting Blair) about him. In this case, but not always, the polemic/ charcacter of the guy seems to me to matter. (I'm sure we've all encountered /fielded examples of the faux and dodgy)
On Ian's passing mention of Saint-Saens and co invoking what may seem like tokenistic orientalism, I'd suggest that they worked with the resources and aesthetic and technical inter-translation visible to them at the time. I believe the early Russian ballets
choreographed by Petipa, for example, were in a similar confinement despite the trans-continental reach of the geography (I'm not sure of the composers involved in those, perhaps RT knows?). Gradually the ethnic traffic broadens till Stravinsky and co integrate the genre.
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'...A celebrity is someone who didn't get the attention they needed as an adult'
Arnold Brown
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richard barrett
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« Reply #51 on: 11:07:02, 12-05-2007 » |
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I'm wondering what Scelsi's ethnicity was ancestrally, and thus how fathe
eastern influences and improv were natural to him Being a member of the Italian aristocracy I would assume his Italian roots would be fairly deep, but his consequent life as a man of leisure allowed him to travel and steep himself in various non-European traditions. Apparently the atmosphere in his villa tended to the pseudo-mystical in a way that simply wouldn't be possible for someone who actually had to work for a living. In the same way, his compositional methods could only really have arisen in a situation where he could afford to pay his assistants (a story I've heard is that one of these announced that he was leaving Scelsi's employ to take up a lucrative teaching job, at which Scelsi immediately offered to top whatever salary the conservatory was offering). This "dilettante" approach naturally enough earned him the disdain of most of his contemporary Italian colleagues, which is one reason why his reputation as a composer remained so low for so long. But, while noting these circumstances, I think there'S still much to be derived from quite a lot of his work. |
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #52 on: 15:28:26, 27-05-2007 » |
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I've been listening to the Kairos recording of Yamaon, Anahit, I presagi, Tre pezzi + Okanagon this morning.
I think that Anahit is by far the most successful piece on the disc to my ears. It sounds sufficiently 'other' without sounding too much like 'World Music', unlike Okanagon, which summons up too much Tibetan ceremonial music for my comfort. I presagi and Yamaon are also very good in a completely different direction. There seems to be a real tension between conventional gestures (the sort of oom-pah figurations that crop up in both pieces, redolent of the wind band) and the post-expressionist language that Scelsi uses for the vocal and some instrumental lines. It's strange, funny, and alienating and sustains well. Will need to listen to the Tre pezzi again. They rather passed me by.
When listening to Okanagon, I did start thinking about Richard's idea about 'fourth-world music' that he mentioned in the programme note for EARTH. Is this an interesting/useful thought?
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #53 on: 15:32:54, 27-05-2007 » |
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I'm not an expert, but I've never heard any Tibetan ceremonial music that sounds anything like Okanagon. I'd like to, though, if there is any!
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #54 on: 15:48:15, 27-05-2007 » |
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I'm not an expert either, but it reminded me of some of the tracks from this CD: http://nrgmusic.com/album.nrg?m=N452LEG2Particularly 'Blowing of the big and small ceremonial horns with cymbals'. Instrumentation completely different, but somehow the combination of sonorities just brought it immediately to mind. |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #55 on: 18:15:36, 27-05-2007 » |
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I can kind of see what you mean, but it doesn't particularly call up "world music" associations in my mind. I agree about Anahit though, that's one of the top Scelsi pieces for me. Have you heard the new CD on Mode with Uaxuctum? (I think that came out while you were buried in your thesis.) It's quite different from the previous recording with Wyttenbach in that the details of the choral writing are sharply-defined rather than getting lost in a "mysterious" kind of ambience. It sent me scurrying off to find my copy of the score... until I remembered I'd already packed it in preparation for housemoving.
The term "fourth world" originally came from the trumpeter and composer Jon Hassell by the way!
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« Last Edit: 20:38:53, 27-05-2007 by richard barrett »
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #56 on: 20:34:57, 27-05-2007 » |
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I'm still buried.  I'm also banned from buying CDs until I get a job, so I've been depending on downloads and library CDs to keep me sane. Will enquire chez Fitch regarding the Scelsi. I'll also listen again to Okanagon a little more carefully! |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #57 on: 11:05:59, 28-05-2007 » |
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OK, the Tre pezzi are very pretty.
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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pim_derks
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« Reply #58 on: 21:34:23, 12-02-2008 » |
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Have there been any moves to issue the surviving tapes of Scelsi's own ondiolina efforts? The answer is yes. I recently heard on German radio that the Scelsi Foundation is going to issue all the tapes on CD. The first discs will be issued later this year. I heard some excerpts from the tapes in this feature on WDR 3: http://www.wdr.de/radio/wdr3/sendung.phtml?sendung=WDR+3+ART&termineid=417292As you can see there's a music list on this site. I think the original tapes were used for the feature, the CDs are probably not ready yet.  |
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"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
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