Giacinto Scelsi: String music - 1989

Giacinto Scelsi: String music

Elegia per Ty;- Divertimento; L'Âme ailée; L'Âme ouverte; Coelocanth; Trio à cordes
Robert Zimansky, violin; Christoph Schiller, viola; Patrick Demenga, cello

Accord 200 622, 1989

01-03	-	Elegia per Ty (1958/66; viola, cello)
04-07	-	Divertimento No.3 (1955; violin)
08	-	L'Âme ailée (1973; violin)
09	-	L'Âme ouverte (1973; violin)
10-12	-	Coelocanth (1955; viola)
13-16	-	Trio à cordes (1958)

Robert Zimansky (violin)
Christoph Schiller (viola)
Patrick Demenga (cello)

Recorded: Zürich, April 1989

... The ouput of Scelsi's string writing in the mid-50s begins with Divertimenti for solo violin of which there are five; the third (1955) is recorded on Accord 200622. Scelsi apparently used the title Divertimento because these pieces are in a traditional tonal idiom -- however, they are quite serious and show Scelsi's incredible mastery of this idiom. Another earlier work is Coelocanth (1955) for solo viola (also on Accord 200622) which shows something of a transition between the traditional style and the style of Triphon. Here the first movements sound a bit unsure, but the last really looks forward to the polyphonic style which was to occupy Scelsi for the next ten years. Triphon is subtitled "Youth - Energy - Drama" and is a work of intense individuality, which would be very difficult to anticipate from Coelocanth or any other music. Here Scelsi begins the use of two kinds of metallic mutes for individual strings, and the first movement consists mainly of a slow recitative in the lower register under a fast buzzing (achieved via individual metallic mutes, at times scraping) interplay in upper voices. The sound is quite intense, and is somewhat reminiscent of the buzz of indian sitar. The third movement Drama is indeed highly dramatic, and consists of Scelsi's intense polyphonic style in which different voices use different forms of ornamentation concurrently (presenting unusual instrumental problems for the performer.) There is certainly some violence in this work, but after repeated hearings the overall effect is not a violent one -- indeed, the sharp overtone sprectrum on a sitar is considered not at all aggresive in India.
Another piece, recorded on Accord 200622, one of the Scelsi's masterpieces Elegia per Ty.
Also in 1958, Scelsi wrote his String Trio. This piece is a close companion to the following year's Four Pieces for Orchestra: it is also in four movements each based on a single note, and in fact the combination of movements in each of these two pieces serves to dissect the tritone. In the String Trio, the instrumental forces are of course much smaller and the composition itself is slightly shorter -- each of the two being approximately fifteen minutes in total length. So, in some ways the trio is more adventurous than the set for chamber orchestra: not only is the sequence of pitches between movements complicated by transposition, but the third movement of the trio has two important pitches instead of one. At any rate, there is an incredible tension about this piece which one cannot imagine from a description alone. Scelsi's music has been compared with Ligeti's use of micropolyphony; however it has quite a different effect and emerges from a completely different source: there is no mechanical quality as one so often finds in Ligeti, there is no formula of any kind, only a simple prescription of boundaries in which the imagination of the composer is given free reign: an idea going back to Josquin and beyond.

Todd M. McComb