Review of Giacinto Scelsi

GIACINTO SCELSI: Miller Theatre's Composer Portraits Series --
ensemble SEQUITUR, Thursday, February 26, 2004, 8PM. Soloists Michael
Lowenstern, clarinet, Curtis Macomber, violin, Elizabeth Farnum,
soprano, Paul Hostetter, conductor.

I expected a curiosity. The general word is that the composer
Giacinto Scelsi is an obsessed mystic, repeating single notes ad
infinitum in a peculiar, but expressive minimalism. However, the
pieces presented by Sequitur, in collaboration with George Steel's
Miller Theatre, showed a much broader portrait, one informed by
currents of traditional European contemporary music. Yes, it is true
that Scelsi was a bit, er, "peculiar." He didn't, in later years,
want to be called a composer, but instead a "messenger" or "medium"
receiving sounds from… well, don't ask.

Additionally, there is good evidence that he didn't write down some
of his own works. Maybe he didn't have the traditional technique for
that? Instead, he recorded his improvisations and visions on tape
and he would hire amanuenses to notate the scores for him. (In an
interesting twist of fate, some of these composer-assistants have
come forward later, as Scelsi became famous, claming they were the
real "authors.")

So, there is little question why this composer, a wealthy count, was
viewed in his lifetime as a musical dilettante. Almost all of
Scelsi's "mature" works have peculiar titles. Nobody seems to know
what they mean. Nor is there information on the Internet, aside from
the explanation that they are allusions to obscure Asian mythology.

Scelsi, like many composers, had several different phases of his
work. These included a brief flirtation with serialism. However, the
love affair soon soured and he had a nervous breakdown, caused, some
say, by his rejection of serialism's rigid control. His therapy
consisted of playing a single note over and over on the piano,
listening to fine gradations of tone and dynamic. These revelations
led to his original and novel views of music, in addition to, most
probably, oblique stares by the nurses at the institution where he
was recovering.

He became a dedicated microtonalist, eschewing, in later years, the
use of the pitch-limited piano. In the works presented by Sequitur
from his later, original style, one of the primary elements is
microtonal alteration of pitch. Ignoring, for the moment, the
question of provenance, let's examine some of the more exciting works
on this program, all from his third phase, regardless of how they
were written or, even, "channeled":

I found the most striking work on the program Okanagon from 1968, in
several senses. Scored for harp, tam-tam and doublebass, it includes
the use of small metal rods to touch both the tam-tam and harp
strings after they are struck. This leads to a peculiar buzzing
noise that adds an unusual contrast to the low sounds of the gong and
an almost continuous bowing of the doublebass. There are rests,
however, between strikes of the tam-tam and, curiously enough,
frequently it sounds as though the bass is alternating between the
tonic and dominant. I've never heard music quite like this.

There were somewhat more traditional pieces as well, such as Khoom,
(1962) for soprano, horn, percussionists and strings. The wonderful
soprano Elizabeth Farnum navigated the detailed peculiarities of
this score with authority and, after the concert, explained to me
that practically every note of the Scelsi score had some particular
articulation or microtonal inflection. In addition, Ms. Farnum
informed me that Scelsi invented the sung text from sound-syllables
with no discrete words from Asian languages.

The second and third "episode" (of seven) in Khoom involves a
soloistic setting for soprano and bongo-like percussion and soprano
and horn, respectively, giving a contrast to the episodes for full
ensemble. One of the more arresting is episode five, which sounds a
bit like some of the more energetic moments of the composer George
Crumb. Unlike a Crumb imitator, however, it was clear that Scelsi is
reflecting the same original Asian musical influences as heard in
Crumb's music, approaching them from a slightly different angle.

Curtis Macomber, violinist extrordinaire and new music enthusiast,
led the final and most impressive ensemble work of the evening,
Anahit (1965), essentially a mini violin concerto. This piece is
scored for mixed ensemble of eighteen but there is a preponderance of
string writing of a microtonal nature. The solo violin strings are
retuned to G-G-B-D presenting an exceptional challenge to Mr.
Macomber, who seemed unfazed. One of the salient features of this
concertante-style work is a microtonal leading by the solo violin,
followed by similar microtonal inflections in the ensemble. At the
same time, there are many tonal moments, some of the piece being in a
kind of strange G major.

A composer to remember, Scelsi is neither a minimalist, maximalist,
European, Asian, tonal or atonal composer, yet he is all of the
above. His microtonally inflected visions are entirely his own, and
spring from a deep source which he was obsessively investigating.
Even if he needed a little help along the way in realizing the sounds
he heard, the fact that he found something new counts more than
anything for Count Scelsi.

Joseph Pehrson c 2004