I want to get to a survey of individual works promptly here, but first some quick comments by way of introduction & orientation: In January last year (2020), I started listening to some late works by Cage (some again, but for the first time in nearly thirty years...), and then was prompted to write a survey, (presumably) in part by the changed (living) conditions. And then once I was getting toward the end of that project, a Scelsi Revisited double album appeared from Klangforum Wien, suggesting (or reaffirming) that Scelsi had become a historically established composer.... So such an event offered an opportunity to shift my perspective here, not only to move away from advocacy per se, but to revisit older impressions & articulations. In particular, as I realized around a Xenakis project that called out to me around the same time — but for somewhat different reasons (albeit all assimilable to notions of revisiting my musical influences circa 1990...) — I hadn't really surveyed Scelsi's output in quite some time: About ten years ago, I did write a new survey of selected recordings, belatedly creating a Scelsi resource to parallel those I'd been cultivating elsewhere, but in some ways that project was already past its time, due to its focus on a limited set of full album recommendations. That had been my historical focus in this space, reflecting a particular musical economy, but that economy has largely shifted — plus a need to discuss the late works individually did already exist. And to that end, I spent many of the solitary hours offered by the pandemic relistening to everything available by Scelsi. (Well, mostly the later music....) I'll thus be going through works one by one, with those I'm particularly valuing (today) in bold type below. (That ends up being a little over five hours of music, not counting the central Canti del Capricorno cycle, which adds another hour or so.)
The situation here isn't the same as it was for Xenakis, though, as I'd already discussed & surveyed Scelsi's works extensively, e.g. becoming associated with North American premieres. So doing a survey like this isn't new, but I hadn't really discussed individual works from the 1970s much to this point either, so that'll be new — as will be updated impressions of the big works from the 1960s. (Some come to sound less important relative to others, as my experience with them stretches over decades, not necessarily matching earlier impressions....) Of course, my involvement in this arena has also come & gone over the decades, with a long period in the middle during which I was largely out of touch. That's also meant that I don't remember some of my reasoning from the 1990s, meaning the time when I was making my own updates to the works list, i.e. before that at Fondazione Isabella Scelsi had appeared. The point of this discussion isn't scholarship in that specific area, but I do need to note that there seem to be ongoing issues with the works list there, including pieces that don't appear.... (I don't know why.) I did take playing times from that site, though, when available, to cite below. (Regarding the timings, since Scelsi's music was generally improvised, i.e. rendered into sound before being notated, it does "already" have a length. However, these late works tend to be almost entirely legato, meaning that some time dilation doesn't change their feel much, and so the actual performance timings tend to vary somewhat — like most music.) I've also incorporated the "official" dates, but many of these pieces can be dated in multiple ways: There's when Scelsi conceived a piece, perhaps when he improvised it (if that's different, and I think sometimes it was...), and when it was notated... with the latter sometimes undergoing iterations to become more satisfactory (perhaps including development of new instrumental techniques & accessories). In some cases, this process seems to have been very involved, with Scelsi going "back to the drawing board" (so to speak) over the course of decades... or perhaps not, as details do remain murky. (Different working methods for musical composition have been developed in the interim too, increasingly making Scelsi's methods seem "merely" practical for their time, rather than outrageous, as was once widely implied....) And I should be clear that I don't feel as though I'm in a position to say anything more definitive on the works list & its chronology at this point, even though I'll be making some further remarks about individual pieces on that issue below: This project was really (only) about sound-based research, meaning listening to the pieces, albeit forming some chronological notions on that basis....
And most everything has been recorded at this point — which I think was a big reason that my attention waned at some earlier point. The last album release that really excited me (for its premiere recordings) was Mode's The Works for Double Bass, while I'd otherwise retained many of the earliest recordings (as that album was for its specific repertory as well, in many cases) as highest in my estimation, believing that not much of note was continuing to appear: But that impression was quickly overturned during this dedicated project, as in fact there are various newer interpretations that appeal, e.g. the album Rito (from 2014) being both striking for its program of new interpretations of some of Scelsi's greatest individual works & a release I simply never noticed before now.... Indeed, Scelsi's 1950s music for solo piano appears to be more popular than ever with pianists.... But I won't be featuring the latter repertory or much of the earlier music here, as I'll be focusing on music after Scelsi's revolution, i.e. plumbing the "inside" of sound: Explorations of a single note, its overtones & harmonic tensions, replaced the frenetic quality of the 1950s works, a sort of restless dynamism projected there by swirling motion, i.e. a seeming drive (already) to penetrate between the individual tones to which Scelsi was nonetheless constrained. One can really hear Scelsi trying to break free of the chromatic scale, and that process did lead into quarter tone writing already in the 1950s, with ensemble pieces such as Yamaon (1954-58), I presagi (1958), Trio for strings (1958) & Kya (1959) suggesting various elements of continuity with the "revolutionary" works that follow. If the later pieces didn't exist, perhaps I'd think of these as great works.... (And let me actually note here the LCO rendition of the Trio, dating to after I'd originally written this essay, a standout interpretation bringing a fine sense of detail to this subdued piece....) But their continuity with the later work is also greater than I'd previously realized (even as it's more obvious with e.g. the Riti (1962/63/67) series), being seduced more by the different "sound" of the later music (as I was) — as feelings of being unsatisfied with chromatic limitations do increasingly seem to waft out of these sometimes intricate, earlier interactions. And it was intricacy per se that could be (or would be) jettisoned once musical motion could proceed through the "center" of sound, i.e. rather than linking notes as points, in a kind of erector set method.... (One might thus suggest that these earlier works require a kind of intricacy in coordination that's subsumed into a sense of identity in the later music....) That Scelsi sometimes (often?) continued to revise pieces continues to suggest the aura (& perhaps more) of these 1950s explorations as well, as in some sense, those named thus far are those with which he was finished (& so satisfied), while it was the period of various ongoing solo explorations as well: Many of Scelsi's instrumental "studies" of the period presumably informed his subsequent musical creations, including in the sense of developing instrumental technique, but some continued into later periods as more "artistic" concerns (or obsessions) per se. And such works needing to be noted here — i.e. in terms of discussing the later music — are then Triphon (1956) & Dithome (1957) for solo cello, forging the first two sections of Scelsi's autobiographical Trilogia: The Three Ages of Man cycle, as well as Manto (1957) for viola. (Triphon is relatively rough — presumably befitting youth — & shows the sort of swirling frenzy that dominates Scelsi's 1950s music, i.e. as a sort of searching, while Dithome is a long — for Scelsi — sixteen minute single movement, its last section seeming to suggest a later date of notation or even realization....) The latter, for viola, is also typical of the 1950s solo studies, but takes up the image of the sibyl, and so Scelsi would continue to return to Manto (as will be noted below, even as the entire work continues to be dated 1957 at the Scelsi Foundation...).
Such varied work to that point might be said to set the stage, then, for what is usually acclaimed as Scelsi's first real masterpiece, Quattro pezzi su una nota sola (1959) (of roughly 15' duration...): What could be described as the "weirdness" of the prior ensemble pieces does shine through, but now in starkly abstract form, as Scelsi basically constructed a (chamber) symphony around (a series of four) movements devoted to single notes. There's thus a canonical simplicity to the piece — while adding color to the rather flat Trio for strings, already composed around a similar concept — but also a (paradoxical) sense of epic grandeur. Quattro pezzi... really seems to call out in a meaningful way, i.e. to express something ineffable (maybe even mythical) — & to do so according to lingering notions of multi-movement "symphonic" form. Scelsi's first great works thus unite classical form with his new sense of "material," in a sort of lingering hylomorphic synthesis. (In some sense, such a synthesis makes these works present as more radical, even as the later pieces see material subsume form per se, and so take leave of the horizon of hylomorphism....) One might suggest, moreover, that the austerity of the single-note material is backed by a Webernian sense of brevity across multiple movements.... But there's also a paradoxically dynamic sense of color, a sense of drama & character emerging from the simplest of musical materials (at least by traditional measures). Quattro pezzi... thus continues the title-language of Scelsi's earlier "study" music, yet bursts into something more. (One might compare its "message" with the more evocatively titled I presagi, transformation & even doom being common Scelsian themes.) These pieces thus (perhaps definitively) launch a project of "timbre music" (for which there was precedent...) — to be taken up by a very broad range of composers since.... A sense of epic calls into a timeless void can even suggest a kind of initiation, and so Quattro pezzi... has been recorded many times: The Wyttenbach classic can seem thin at times (although that wasn't my memory of it), buoyed by recorded resonance, such that I've come to prefer Zender's second recorded reading on Musica Viva 17 (released in 2008), even as its elegant precision sometimes leaves me wanting for more coarseness in emergence, as found elsewhere.... Beyond these, I should note the relatively grand version from Rundel on Mode (the label's orchestral recordings of the period, here 2006, tending to be especially spacious), another classic from Pfaff & Ensemble 2e2m on the Editioni RZ compilation (released in 2002), and then that of the Stradivarius Scelsi Edition, issued in 2009.... This piece provides enough inspiration & flexibility that different interpretations continue to provide different affective emphasis at times, meaning that there doesn't appear to be any sort of ideal version (as indeed so often with classical repertory), which "should" presumably be just a bit unbalanced, i.e. suggesting a remainder....
Hurqualia (1960) (15') is then in some ways more of a "throwback" to some of Scelsi's other 1950s music, i.e. there's less severity & more overt (i.e. traditionally musical) drama. It does nonetheless involve Scelsi's new conception of material, i.e. the epic calls that here seem to be figured into some kind of divine battle. There's thus a sense of ballet music as well, and I've long thought of Hurqualia — subtitled "a different realm" & so evocative of the sorts of "ballets" Xenakis would soon come to write, albeit remaining very Earth-focused in Scelsi's case — as being Scelsi's mythic "ballet." Percussion is also important here, as it would be on & off for Scelsi (around his frequent legato orientations...), buoying the sense of dramatic conflict, which can be rather tense. The Mode release from Izquierdo (2001) is also especially spacious, even accommodating the sort of roughness that seems to give an edge to Scelsi's music.... (Perhaps it's no coincidence that Izquierdo also made important recordings of Xenakis' music for Mode around this time.) There's also more sense of melody here, versus some of the surrounding works, also evoking more of a late-50s scene, i.e. seeming "busy" relative to Scelsi's later output. (There is, of course, the Wyttenbach classic to note as well, but the Izquierdo rendition really comes to life....) So perhaps Hurqualia shouldn't really be featured here, but I do continue to enjoy it as part of a branch of Scelsi's creative technique that I don't necessarily emphasize otherwise, including some of the larger works to follow....
Aiôn (1961) (19') is then the apex of this orchestral trilogy (after Quattro pezzi... & Hurqualia), and a particularly iconic early (relative to the new style) summation for me. (Aiôn was the subject of the first North American orchestral premiere, and I had the opportunity to the write program notes for Michael Tilson Thomas, so that was exciting. Of course, it came about because I was already captivated by this music, and Aiôn can still give me chills....) It opens the Wyttenbach set as well, so has been positioned iconically from the "beginning." And there's still a strong sense of multi-movement "classical" form to this entire trilogy, such that Aiôn can also be figured as a kind of apex to Scelsi's classicism per se, i.e. as his "most symphonic" piece. (He would soon come to diminish & then discard this lingering orientation on classical form....) What this piece — subtitled "4 episodes in a day of Brahma" — achieves, moreover, is a different sense of time as explicitly contrasted with chronological time (i.e. the time of counting), per the ancient Greek difference between Aion & Chronos. In other words, Aion implies a kind of timelessness, or being before or outside time (e.g. to be taken up later by Christian theology) — as then projected by Aiôn: That Scelsi needed to adjust the rhythmic orientation of Western notation (i.e. time signatures & bar lines) is often understated in assessing his contributions, in part because Scelsi's sense of time can already perhaps be analogized to e.g. mensural notation (& senses of musical time in other cultures, e.g. as also channeled by Cage for analogous reasons). In that sense, it's the modern Western ubiquitous rhythmic orientation that's a novelty... i.e. time posited as always "on the clock." (And in so many ways, this is exactly what imperial capitalism is about....) So when I talk about "legato" in Scelsi, I actually mean to summon this entire complex of ideas.... (And I should probably also contrast Scelsi with Cage here, the former more oriented on the timelessness of mythic grandeur, the latter on the space of the everyday moment....) Gigantic, timeless figures of melody thus come to emerge from chaining individual overtones (i.e. in sequences or broad arpeggios), evoking a taut & pounding ritual environment of unstable emergence.... This piece always comes off powerfully for me. That said, I also want to note the Stradivarius release with Ceccherini, again a "smoother" rendition than the classic, and about equal in my estimation at this point. (Perhaps I'll never really be released from that Accord Aiôn rendition....) I feel as though another new interpretation makes sense at this point too, after more than a a decade since the previous one: There's more that could be expressed here, the Accord reading in particular still leaving a sense of longing....
String Quartet No. 2 (1961) (17') parallels Aiôn in some ways as a 1961 summation in classical form, but here Scelsi was already moving away from four movement works (showing a brief preference for five...) — & so was perhaps inspired by e.g. Bartok, even as Webern surely also hangs over this set & its compact gestures & contrasts.... Scelsi's new sense of single-tone material is important here too, but the piece retains some 1950s vibe, including in its austerity. (It has its own "pounding," Aiôn-like quality at times too. And can be even more tautly edgy as well.) He also pulls out all the textural stops (so to speak), even generating a sort of fugal string feel out of minimal material in the 4th movement. It's clear that this piece was intended to sit alongside other mid-20th century quartets in its technical austerity, and as such it's a particular summit here — while again (perhaps) being part of a branch of Scelsi's output that I'm not otherwise featuring much. (In that sense, one might wonder if its main impulse is actually expression....) String Quartet No. 2 could certainly be described as stark, which isn't necessarily novel for Scelsi, but here that starkness can sometimes be heard as an end in itself, again presumably per its suggestive classical inspirations & indeed his technical-material innovations. (It can thus be a relatively difficult piece in modes other than Scelsi's usual novelty, never accommodating much of a lyrical quality, nor impressionism....) It does yield some mental repose amid the finality in its wake, though, i.e. in its sense of completing a classical "argument" (again as relatively unusual for Scelsi — as is its more central sense of symmetry). So let me name four significant recordings: There's the Arditti Quartet classic (reissued as part of the Stradivarius Edition in 2013), that by the Berner Streichquartett on the Editioni RZ compilation, that by the Turin String Quartet (also for the Stradivarius Edition, this time from 2007), and most recently (prompting the 2024 update here...), that from Quatuor Molinari in high-def. I'd developed a slight preference for the 2007 reading among the first three (albeit including some quiet coughing), but now the latest interpretation seems to be a clear choice via its precision & sound quality. It'd already occurred to me here that readings of String Quartet No. 2 could become more a part of the 20th century string quartet repertory in general, and that continues to seem reasonable, as it does also seem to be one of Scelsi's last attempts (at least in a major work) to sound more like, i.e. to confront directly, the classical literature.
Khoom (1962) (20') is then one of Scelsi's most characteristic & developed works, already far more lyrical than the pieces discussed above, and beginning to project his own sense of form as deriving from its romantic-nonsense content: The "7 episodes of an unwritten tale of love and death in a distant land" also bring the human voice back to this narrative, building especially upon the earlier Yamaon (but also anticipating Uaxuctum, usually given as completed in 1966, while actually being dated 1961 at the Foundation site...), but also a medium for which Scelsi had written since early in his career — also developing new techniques of articulation & timbre (in particular with Michiko Hirayama over the subsequent decade...). Khoom then unites a phonemic narrative with equally characteristic string quartet writing, percussion & also horn calls (which weren't to appear much in Scelsi's chamber music) — each "episode" involving different forces around the voice. The piece also develops the sorts of extended textures that would dominate many of the 1960s works, as well as more sudden rhythmic shifts, especially around the gestures of sharp vocal articulations. Khoom is thus lyrical throughout, but with an edge, a kind of alien quality.... This is also music that evokes a broader world rather powerfully, i.e. an "ambient" sort of scene (beyond the more dynamically extroverted drama of Hurqualia) that can evoke a Cageian passage of time, a sort of productive background to further thought seeming to arise from the midst of Scelsi's densely nuanced & (albeit in novel ways) simply lovely textures.... (There's thus a sort of welcome projected here, more so than aggression or a pushing of boundaries, a welcome into Scelsi's sonic world....) And besides Hirayama on the Arditti Quartet classic, there's also Marianne Schuppe & Ensemble Phoenix Basel on the generally appealing Rito album, making for an excellent subsequent recording. I like both, with Schuppe generally being the more aggressive vocalist. (Of course that album cultivates a ritual feel throughout. And "cultivation" is a good image for Khoom, cultivating new worlds, bustling with life....)
String Quartet No. 3 (1963) (18'), also in five movements, then parallels Khoom in its stylistic invocations as well, again presenting an extended, lyrical tapestry broadly evocative of other worlds & other loves: Despite its abstract & classic instrumentation, it projects another feeling of narrative, full of its own characters & rituals, even lushly melodic at times (if thinner or more distant at others...). A sense of loss seems to hover over this work, although with a sweetness too. It even suggests a multi-movement tone poem, via its evocative track titles.... (The "effects" in the 4th track can also be especially striking & characteristic.) In some ways, String Quartet No. 3 is thus the least remarkable of Scelsi's quartets — but that also seems to make it the "most characteristic" somehow too. Or maybe I should reverse the order of that statement.... (It also seems strange to me that this piece follows Khoom, and not the other way around, but the dates might not tell the full story. The vocal cycle seems to add to the string quartet techniques developed here....) It hasn't been particularly popular to record either: There was another old (& obscure) recording, but the Arditti Quartet classic was pretty much the only choice until the recent (& certainly welcome) high-def cycle from Quatuor Molinari. There's still also something ultimately uplifting, even sunny, about this piece.
And Scelsi's incredible series of so many major works in just a few years in the early-to-mid-60s continues with Chukrum (1963) (17') for string orchestra, his "biggest" piece purely for strings. Once again, pace Hurqualia, it's suggestive of other realms (& so might also be comparable to e.g. Xenakis' Shaar), in a sort of grim gathering of forces for another epic drama. It's another four movement piece as well, but doesn't seem to make an overall impression on that basis: Movements are generally individualized, active & even churning, but they also come off as technical exhibitions, i.e. as concert showpieces. (There continue to be e.g. rhythmic figures repeated over extended periods, something Scelsi's music would soon eschew. In that sense, Chukrum also shows more "balance" — perhaps more akin to String Quartet No. 2 — than the sort of asymmetric emergence that can define Scelsi's most striking later work....) It seems to fit its 20th century context particularly well, i.e. as another dissonant strings piece, perhaps suitable for cinema (& conjuring another narrative quality, not unlike Scelsi's earlier piano suites...). The piece is relatively popular to record too, starting with the Wyttenbach classic, on to Rundel on Musica Viva 17 & Pfaff from the Stradivarius Edition (2007). Chukrum can also seem like an older piece compared to what follows, but that might (again) remind that the Scelsi chronology buries various stages of creation, such that while bursts of pieces being completed over short periods may suggest the solution to a technical problem of realization, it might not say as much about the genesis of the music over time.... That said, Scelsi soon began to emphasize single movement works, leaving behind symphonic form (although the symphonic poem is still quite formally relevant for a while...), and undertook more reworkings of his earlier material. The latter activity produced a variety of notable pieces, but also changes the musical economy of his music, i.e. moves from an emphasis on individual virtuosity to ensemble coordination.... There was thus a push to create some bigger & more dramatic concert works, as well as (in the opposite direction) various pieces that take up more intimate solo ideas.... It seems that Scelsi maintained an ambition to become a major concert composer, with pieces for every occasion, and some of these works do present more self-consciously.
So Hymnos (1963) (11') takes us into Scelsi's single movement world, although there're still concrete formal poles here, i.e. a sense of imposed form versus organic becoming.... It's still an impressive, massive work, though, with two orchestras orbiting a grand organ. It's also "energy music," but with two climaxes, one relatively early (& smaller) — & with the intervening "chorale" section producing spectral "voices" that appear via harmonic difference tones. It's an eerie effect, and very audible on Izquierdo's spacious recording for Mode, making Hymnos one of Scelsi's most singular pieces. (There're also notable recorded interpretations by Wyttenbach, where the spectral phenomenon is largely inaudible, Zender & Ceccherini.) And I should emphasize that when this piece isn't being eerie (& one might not notice the voices!), it comes off very powerfully, i.e. as transformative of mood. Hymnos is, quite simply, a consistently affective work across multiple registers.
String Quartet No. 4 (1964) (10') continues the single movement orientation, now in more of a single sweep or gesture. The piece does continue to consider form in an "external" way, though, i.e. follows e.g. the golden section in its progressions.... Still, this is one of Scelsi's most acclaimed works, although I have to say, I've found it relatively limited during this project. (That's not to say it isn't a great piece! Just probably not on a shorter list of favorites for me....) Its orientation on "geometric perfection" is intriguing (& here one might, once again, recall Bartok — or in another sense, Tenney, with his calculated climactic waves...), and does retain a sort of tautness, but also takes us away from expression per se.... There's also a (welcome) sense of economy to the material, a close examination of technical means & details that would continue to inform many later pieces, i.e. according to the finest "grain" of string texture (& timbre). (The affective response from this piece can be a bit subdued, or even rhetorical, though, despite or maybe because of its impressive technical orientation. Sometimes I feel as though it promises more, including aurally, than it eventually delivers, i.e. as a sort of perpetual becoming.... In any case, it's certainly iconic in Scelsi's output.) And I'm not sure (in 2024) why I was feeling so critical of this fine piece while writing those earlier remarks, but I guess expectations really do condition response.... As for interpretations, the Arditti Quartet classic can still be worthwhile, but I'd been preferring the more forceful Pellegrini Quartett rendition from Editioni RZ for a while now, at least that is until the new high-def performance from Quatuor Molinari.... Even as it can seem relatively singular, this remains a potent, radiant work — particularly when abstracted from Scelsi's output as a whole, i.e. when standing alone.
And then Yliam (1964) (8') takes us in a different direction — although exactly where it falls in this chronological ordering is unknown — as a short, single movement choral work. It's thus a piece I could probably ignore here, but I retain a fascination with Scelsi's vocal music more generally, and his choral music is relatively scarce. (And there's a handful of solo vocal works from the 60s that I won't be featuring here....) Yliam can seem almost like a study for the choral writing of the more lavish Uaxuctum production, but given the uncertainties, there's a good chance that it was actually conceived afterward. With Scelsi there's a "ground" for musical emergence, and so less of a "seasick" quality overall to Yliam than to e.g. Xenakis' similarly tight Sea Nymphs (1994), but a sense of uncertainty & even chaos remains strong, even as erupting from this ultimately stable tonal ground. (Presumably there's an explicit sense of prophecy invoked here as well, in this case per ancient Troy....) With its constantly shifting choral sound (for female voices), Yliam is then an underrated piece, and indeed only to be found on recording on Wood's Complete Choral Music album (1999).
Xnoybis (1964) (14') for solo violin is another of Scelsi's 1960s summits, and appears (pace questions of chronology) to reestablish the solo string genre in his oeuvre: In three movements, each showing a very concentrated style, generally in the mode of extending tone into sinewy lines (as Cage would also come to prioritize for violin...), its requirements for virtuosity appear not only in the articulation of its many details, but in holding notes smoothly over extended periods (& indeed both of these at once).... And while Scelsi's Quartets had already involved notating individual strings, Xnoybis thus establishes the technique (perhaps more emphatically?) in the solo idiom. It's also a very "bright" piece, almost piercing in its use of (relatively) high registers. (The different movements have somewhat different technical emphasis, suggesting a study, but the potency of this piece is evident beyond studying....) And its subtitle "the ability of energy to ascend to the spirit" does suggest the sense of ascension conveyed (affectively) by what has long been one of Scelsi's most striking pieces: A performance by Carmen Fournier appeared already on an Accord classic, but I've come to prefer the Mode version (2013) with Weiping Lin, a rather fast performance that basically makes the piece sound easy.... (That by Marco Fusi for the Stradivarius Edition — volume 7, 2017 — is also presented as a virtuosic tour-de-force.) And in some ways, Xnoybis is "thinner" than the great solo (& duo) string pieces that follow, but very much sets the stage.... It's also been arranged (by others) for other forces, from viola to wind duo....
And 1964 was also (maybe?) the time for a next step in the Manto project for solo viola, with Manto II (4') adopting the techniques & notations of Xnoybis, after Manto I had been in the coarser (swirling) 1950s style.... (Dating of these items is especially unclear, though.) And Royer is excellent on Mode's viola album (2011), the piece still being only a few minutes long, but projecting ecstatic prophetic visions.... Manto would appear to take on more content-wise than Xnoybis, although whether it was ever really finished is an open question. Regardless, Manto II — specifically — is one of Scelsi's most potent & evocative solo string works, eventually suggesting almost the sea itself, heading off into the distance....
And then perhaps similarly, but on a larger scale, Scelsi's Trilogia revisits 1950s pieces in the 1960s as well, particularly with the composition of its concluding cycle, also in three movements, Ygghur (1965) (15'): Akin to the technical shift from Manto I to Manto II, Ygghur involves the detailed microtonal string technique of Xnoybis, rather than the rough runs & resonances of Triphon. Ygghur ("catharsis" in Sanskrit) also continues the autobiographical sense of Trilogia (although do note that Scelsi was not especially old at this point — barely more than my age now, in fact — despite that the piece figures "old age"), drawing out more of a sense of nostalgia than generally in this music, and involving a variety of sophisticated solo textures as well, e.g. chorales etc. (And of course there are the scraping "mutes" or "resonators" developed with Uitti, as well as the two-bow technique she brought, thus often coming to sound like a duo.... And considering that much of Scelsi's music was conceived at a keyboard, with parts only subsequently arrayed on other instruments, it's probably not the case that "duo" holds any particular meaning in his output: Rather it's simply music that didn't fit within the resources of an ordinary solo instrument, the latter often(?) being incidental to at least part of the musical conception.) I suspect that Ygghur was also conceived in the 1950s, but not even Dithome (as noted above) appears to have been fully notated then.... It might also be the "heaviest" of the solo string works — eventually coming to placidity. (In that sense, it seems far more personal than Xnoybis, the latter sometimes seemingly more of a "concert" piece.... Both do expand string technique considerably though.) In terms of movements, then, while Dithome (& I hesitate to affirm any date on this piece) does consist of a single, transformational arc (i.e. not so unlike String Quartet No. 4), pieces like Xnoybis & Ygghur come to suggest a series of impressions or perspectives, i.e. juxtaposition without "sonata" implications — albeit still involving tonal progression through the cycle (but without e.g. rhetorical contrasts or synthesis). That said, Uitti's latest recording on ECM (2006) is an incredibly rich & spacious tour-de-force (& surely one of the great Scelsi readings on disc...). It's amazing what she conjures from a solitary string instrument, establishing Ygghur beyond a doubt as one of Scelsi's summits. And for recordings of the entire Trilogia, there's also the Uitti classic, as well as notably that from Arne Deforce (2007), among others....
Anâgâmin (1965) (7') for 11 strings — although I once had it listed as being for 12 (for unknown reasons) — then involves a reworking of material from String Quartet No. 2 into a more compact, single movement form. And although the subtitle ("the one faced with a choice") would appear to refer directly to the Buddhist figure of the title, I suspect a far more musical prompt as well: One might suggest that it's in this piece that Scelsi really abandons his previous desire to figure his new material within classical forms, and so commits to letting material dictate form. (Scelsi's choice, then, is not nirvana per se, but the inside of sound, i.e. commitment to his new sense of material....) As such, Anâgâmin is quite a thorough reworking, particularly as the more repetitive elements are stripped away, remaining figures being "stacked" into more compact form — a form itself deriving from the (quasi-intervallic) material. (Time itself might even appear to be "reworked" by the compositional process....) It's thus likewise a tense, dramatic piece, less rhythmic but considerably shorter... often evoking the feel of the quartet (although the relation is not terribly obvious, and could be quotation, absent other information...). Drama per se thus transforms into a sense of smooth shearing, but resolving itself, in a kind of timeless epic summary(!). I've most enjoyed the reading by Christoph Poppen on Natura renovatur, but that by Ensemble Oriol on the Editioni RZ compilation is worthwhile too....
Anahit (1965) (13'), a "lyric poem on the name of Venus," is then basically a tone poem / violin concerto, the beauty of the sinewy solo violin projecting Scelsi's sense of goddess (here in Anatolian guise) surrounded by lush (chamber) orchestration, in a sort of hovering (& often searing) suspension. This piece can thus be almost hypnotic, and is surely one of Scelsi's most satisfying & prototypical, again with its one-movement sweep.... Its meandering, throbbing radiance can even come to suggest a larger, composite voice (again, presumably, resonating from the beyond — and being formally similar to Hymnos in its early & late climaxes as well...). Its expression comes to feel quite impressionistic too, in shifting microtones & surging colors, perhaps forging a prototype for spectral music more generally.... (Anahit was also the basis for the commissions of Scelsi Revisited, which were designated for the same forces.) Strangely, though, this work hasn't been recorded very often, so I guess I still prefer the Accord classic with Fournier, although there's also the smoother Zender version from 1999.... (The version recorded by Zukofsky at Oberlin in 1973, still rather potent, is also available again online.) Anahit thus seems ripe for a new interpretation (which was apparently omitted from the Scelsi Revisited project...).
And then, despite its lack of a real title, Duo for violin & cello (1965) (11') is actually one of Scelsi's most brilliant (& most recorded) pieces of the period: As noted above, duos don't really appear to "mean" anything for Scelsi, other than that the music wouldn't "fit" on a solo instrument, and so Duo doesn't e.g. suggest an opposition. Rather, it forges an extended instrument (of 8 strings) with a rather bright sound (as typical of Scelsi's violin pieces). There's also a version (1977) for double bass instead of cello.... And there's an absolutely searing rendition on the obscure Scelsi EP release (2016): I do prefer this rendering to others I've heard, but I also want to note the interpretation as specifically of a later generation, adding music inspired by Scelsi to its program as well.... (There's also the Accord classic with Fournier & Simpson, plus others! Lack of title doesn't seem to have inhibited performers from choosing this piece....) In any case, the enigmatic Duo (unusually also in two movements) is actually another highlight, apparently conjuring Scelsi's (austere &) characteristic sense of Old World mythology (maybe Egyptian, e.g. Horus...), and in a particularly forceful & sonorous set. Even when slow or quiet, even when fading into the distance, this music continues to suggest rare focus & intensity....
Few works could be more personal for Scelsi than Elegia per Ty (1958/1966) (9') in three movements: In this case, both the beginning & ending of the compositional process have (if accurate!) followed the piece, as it surely required the full resources of his 1960s techniques, this time in a duo for viola & cello (i.e. without the bright violin).... There's something of a dirge feel here, especially in the first movement (again of three), then opening up to wider movement (& lamentation, even an overturning of world...), eventually to poignant lyrical closure.... The Elegia (for his first wife, who "merely" divorced him) does also continue to suggest an older (1950s) style, though, with the sophistication of its microtonal technique & individual string notation often seeming more in the service of older musical ideas (rather than bursting brightly onto the contemporary scene à la Duo...). Still, it can project a strongly affective character, even as it retains something of a depressive mood throughout, and moreover (as a major emotional piece), presumably motivated some of his stylistic developments over the era more broadly.... And of course there's the Accord classic from Schiller & Demenga, but also a newer rendition from Mode by Royer & Ballon, the latter showing more concentration & fluidity (although also more restraint)....
Scelsi's duo writing of the period also turned briefly to winds with Ko-Lho (1966) (7'), probably his only intimate wind piece with material comparable to the string masterpieces... yet still thinner (on account of not being a "duo" of 8 string voices). And the sorts of interference patterns generated & reflected there have also come to be far more developed in (later) improvised music.... But I always feel as though I should note Ko-Lho as a piece for winds.... (And Raster's album from 1999 is apparently built around it.)
More prominently from 1966 — although (as noted above) it's now dated 1961 at the Scelsi Foundation website — is Scelsi's grand "oratorio" Uaxuctum (20'), "the legend of the Maya city that destroyed itself for religious reasons." And Uaxuctum is full of wild moments & unusual sounds, although it's also a rather unwieldy piece, its broad five-movement form seeming to generate a sense of rhetorical distance (more than intimacy or transport...). It's thus a unique work, although again seeming to relate to a series from Yamaon..., but has also never seemed entirely satisfying to me. (Some of the sound combinations, incorporating choir, ondes Martenot & various percussionists, simply must be heard though....) While Scelsi apparently wanted very much to compose big symphonies & operas, I often find the more intimate works to be more compelling.... However, if Uaxuctum didn't exist, we'd probably just be wanting for it... wondering what Scelsi would do across such a broad sonic canvas. (He actually wrote some pieces of similar ambition back near the beginning of his compositional career, but not otherwise with the developing spectral material.) Uaxuctum ends up being something of a curiosity for me then, but can be heard on e.g. the Wyttenbach classic, or in bigger sound from Rundel on Mode....
Ohoi (1966) (8') is then another reworking, this time of String Quartet No. 3 for 16 strings: Subtitled "the creative principles," this piece actually took a while to grow on me, as did all of the larger string arrangements to some extent: Moving the same piece to a larger ensemble violates my sense of musical economy, I guess, and then Ohoi is a rather disorienting reworking as well (but noted as such by e.g. Poppen's notes to the only recording so far).... However, I've come to perceive a sort of "before or outside time" vibe to this piece, its material configured completely differently from String Quartet No. 3 (or Khoom), particularly in the temporal dimension, here in one movement with a quiet or anticipatory first half & a suddenly tense second.... Per the timelessness notion, it can even evoke the mood of Aiôn (although not really its epic calls), i.e. with an "eternal" sense of before that somehow conjures the more narrative (or romantic) earlier cycles. (And again, dating these reworkings may not be clear, as they add yet another layer of realization to Scelsi's process....) Ohoi thus has a very different vibe, and I've actually come to think of it as a favorite during this project. It can be difficult to penetrate, but quite potent as a sort of background animation or prompt, again projecting a kind of hovering quality. And I'd say "spectral," in the haunting sense, except that the term comes instead to apply to Scelsi's music in a technical sense.... (It thus seems more abstract than String Quartet No. 3, a direction basically reversing that from String Quartet No. 2 to Anâgâmin.... One can still pick out some distinctive timbral figures, though.) There's thus a kind of intensification to Ohoi that isn't immediately apparent from its relatively quiet opening, a sense of simultaneity that troubles concepts of narration & event....
And continuing the reworkings for larger forces is Natura renovatur (1967) (12') for 11 strings, based rather more closely on String Quartet No. 4, in particular observing basically the same form. In that sense, Natura renovatur is the most straightforward & audible of these "arrangements," basically adding details to the gradual unfolding of the Quartet.... (Adding more players also basically reduces the requirements for individual virtuosity, particularly considering the novelty of Scelsi's string techniques at the time, but does also raise the need for coordination, i.e. a conductor....) And although the Quartet was shorter than the others, Natura renovatur ends up being a bit longer, again as a kind of elaboration (more than a temporal reworking...), showing a kind of perpetual renewal, as then buoyed by the additional capacity of the larger ensemble.... Beyond Scelsi's frequent organesque sound, this piece can almost come to sound like a choir, and he certainly thought of it as celebratory of life & creation. It also ends up being somewhat richer than String Quartet No. 4, but retains an element of geometric starkness as well (i.e. remains less overtly personal than some of Scelsi's works). (Whether one prefers the Quartet version or not is then probably an issue of one's feelings on musical economy.... And over time, my preference has shifted more toward the larger work.) As for interpretations, the reading by Poppen on the eponymous Natura renovatur album is a strong one, but I've been preferring the elegance & precision of Zender's version on Musica Viva 17, as it maintains excellent continuity across its various lines.... I suppose this is a place I tend to turn for a Scelsian "exhibition."
The later 1960s then saw Scelsi continuing largely in the mode of elaboration, as his quick outpouring of original masterpieces from earlier in the decade appears to have dried up: Besides the ongoing reworkings of earlier material, and (still) various (chronological) questions about how & when these works were conceived, it also seems as though Scelsi wanted to make bigger musical statements, i.e. so as to be a real factor in the concert hall. And as noted around Uaxuctum, I don't always find that these bigger productions come off with the same sort of affective power — or in other words, I find that their self-consciousness can undermine their effectiveness.... That's, of course, as already relating to notions of Scelsi's "usual" composition methods during the period, i.e. improvising on microtonal ondiola, but there are other groups of works that don't seem to have derived from such an organesque conception, and so indeed attempt to move away from the "legato" orientation (in a generalized sense, as described above) of so many of his works: Besides vocal music, there's thus also Scelsi's percussion music, with its sense of rhythm & repetition & simply the matter of "breaks" between notes. (Recall that e.g. Cage & Xenakis were both known for creating percussion repertories, but Scelsi is not. However, many of his works, including large pieces such as Aiôn & Uaxuctum, innovate in this arena, employing novel equipment & generating novel sounds....) This "percussion music," besides appearing in various orchestral & ensemble contexts (i.e. around the legato materials), then also engendered a handful of other works (all around this time) oriented on strumming strings: Okanagon (1968) (11') is clearly the most prominent, subtitled as "like a rite, or if you will, like grasping the heartbeat of the Earth," but I should also name the solo Ko-Tha (appearing in 1962(?) & subsequently offered in various formats... making it perhaps the most fundamental of these pieces), or TKRDG (1968), the latter involving male choir.... (Perhaps I should also mention the strange Elohim (1965/67) for 10 strings, 4 being amplified, and so evoking some of this basic sound world as well, even without percussion: A very short & enigmatic piece, seemingly deriving from earlier material, it also doesn't appear at the Scelsi Foundation, whatever that means....) In any case, I've never found any of these pieces to be especially compelling, including Okanagon, although the Léandre album is surely a classic. (The newer performance on Rito should be noted as well, and I suppose Black's too, although his is rather subdued....) There's actually some descriptions available of Scelsi improvising on a loose-stringed guitar, these performances also being taped (as usual), so the technical origins of these pieces aren't totally obscure.... And they do conjure a unique sound.
Konx-Om-Pax (1969) "three aspects of sound: as the first motion of the immutable, as creative force, as the syllable om" (18') then wraps up the 1960s for Scelsi with another big tour-de-force. (I also had the opportunity to write the program notes for the North American premiere....) But it's also about as self-conscious as can be, the "peace" theme being in the air of course (as taken up by a wide variety of composers & not always employing their most sophisticated music...), and ending with a long vocal movement repeating the Hindu mantra Om: The latter is clearly going for pure affect, but within this formal-rhetorical context, ends up seeming forced to me. A sense of affective gesture dominates the first two movements (of this three movement cycle) as well, and both include some of Scelsi's most striking orchestral material (i.e. not as three visions of peace, per the title, but as a sort of catharsis prepared by stormy materials, a common Scelsian theme...). The cycle comes off more as of an exhibition of Scelsi's style, then, than direct expression, and frankly struggles to make a consistent impact with me due to its stereotypical grandiosity. (Still, the notion of affective gesture is one that Scelsi would continue to develop in the later music, creating — in a sense — more directly practical music, which Konx-Om-Pax is basically attempting to be on a large scale....) The notion here of a specific affective outcome to each movement is then, perhaps, prompted by the incantations of Thelema (also per the title), one of many esoteric references to be found in Scelsi's music.... (Maybe this piece is ultimately just too much of a cliché, then, although that's not to say that it's unpleasant or anything of the sort, only that it doesn't consistently hit its mark for me.) That said, for recorded interpretations, there's still the Wyttenbach classic, as well as a bigger sonic canvas from Izquierdo on Mode....
That the explosion of creativity emerging from Scelsi in the years around 1960 could peter out over time, becoming oriented around reworkings or creating splashier syntheses, is no particular surprise. After all, nothing continues forever, and he'd already created many great works in his own original style.... Yet, Scelsi did apparently find new inspiration in the early 1970s, producing another series of generally short & intensely detailed microtonal masterpieces. (He also returned to writing some simpler pieces, especially vocal music, in this decade as well.) In the meantime, Canti del Capricorno (1962-72), a cycle of 20 songs, seems increasingly to have occupied him. (Although one can never really trust the dates on Scelsi's material, it's still interesting to note that this cycle is dated as starting from the same year as Khoom, — & as we'll see, ending just as Scelsi started writing new instrumental masterpieces.) And all of this work was apparently done with Hirayama, so there's a tangible sense of how it proceeded, her voice iterating onto Scelsi's tapes, picking out & developing these chiseled "songs...." But there are other vocal works from the 1960s too, most I'm not featuring here, also involving similar sorts of nonsense phonemes & strangely varied articulations: Did these works come out of the same work with Hirayama? Or was Scelsi working with the voice in some other way...? In any case, these particular "nonsense songs" span a wide array of affective material as well, sometimes ornamented by instruments, but more often just for voice alone: They suggest a kind of "world music" style, including in their basic (linguistic) incomprehensibility, as Scelsi appears to strive for a sort of pan- or ur-human expression. They're strongly evocative — individual jewels in some sense, varying track by track, but also forging a substantial cycle in which one can "live" for a while. (It's difficult to describe the vocal articulations, but notions of attack — sometimes percussive — are central. There're also various — sometimes hovering — modes of sustaining shifting tones, including a sort of upturning "whip" effect at the end of some figures, but a particular style of attack does tend to define many of these individual pieces....) And at least when taken as a cycle, the Canti... are also Scelsi's longest work, not only suggesting a centrality (as noted above, as well as here via another gap in composing...), but raising general questions of length: Indeed, after this cycle of roughly an hour, Scelsi's longest late works are only around 20 minutes (so, not unlike Xenakis' distribution...), including in this period only Aiôn, Khoom, Uaxuctum, and later Sauh (as a full cycle). There's also Trilogia, again if taken as a full cycle, at a length closer to that of the Canti.... (The Canti... also aren't listed at the Scelsi Foundation, so there's no "official" duration. Maybe given the details of vocal articulation involved, there's not actually a score available?) It's probably no coincidence that a number of the longer works also involve voice (although prior works at that length include e.g. the piano suites...), as voice remains rather central to Scelsi's output as a whole. And in this case, there isn't only one "special" recording available, but two, the Hirayama classic as well as another later reading from Hirayama herself (2010)! I wouldn't want to choose between them. (Pauline Vaillancourt has also recorded at least some of these songs, across more than one production, including interspersed on the first Mode orchestral program....) These songs always seem to draw me in, even after so many years... although I have to say, I've never just listened to them over & over. (I do find myself "saving" music at times, although I'm not sure that's ever actually meaningful....)
It's difficult to know what provoked a new burst of creativity in Scelsi, but possibly it involved new working methods & new people becoming involved.... In any case, I started calling the 1970s a fourth Scelsian period many years ago, inspired originally by the autobiographical break between the first & second periods, and then the "single note" developments hailing a third.... (And as time passes, it's actually the latter "break" in 1959 that I come to hear less strongly, as various sorts of continuity do maintain — even as Scelsi also largely abandoned fixed pitched instruments over a short period. And of course, with the vagaries of dating, our impressions could very well still be distorted....) In contrast, I hear the break to open the 1970s more clearly than ever now, not only with nothing at all appearing in 1971, but already with a new simplicity being projected by simple vocal tunes in 1970.... What the following pieces achieve, though (i.e. those still to be featured here...), is a greater intimacy than most of Scelsi's iconic 1960s works & via greater concentration on microtonal details, such that the smallest shake or slur can have ongoing implications: This music seems to become even more "spectral," as similar developments would come to be called in Scelsi's wake.... But already, beyond developing a structural role for resonance & timbre, Scelsi was moving beyond a hylomorphic orientation too, i.e. no longer "fusing" his novel material with traditional musical contrasts of form, but developing a strongly gestural style, a directly affective mode of expression, i.e. a sort of play of incantations. (And in this "practical" approach, one can still hear Scelsi's personal vision of a kind of ur-humanity, a broadly mythological sense of epic as the scene from which these intimate miniatures emerge....) There would thus be no more stark spans, but rather music operating in the smallest spaces, the smallness of Scelsi's material somehow projecting great performative strength: These pieces become both intensely personal, and impersonal in the sense of use... stripped, productively, from their context in order to yield a reliable affective shift for the listener — as basically continuous transformations. (The singular focus of Scelsi's affective shifts is thus not spatially outward, but rather seeks the interior. In this, he seems to have been rather different from his colleague Cage, who also engaged stark affective principles at times, but who usually liked to maintain his own & others' personal space.... So Scelsi's is not music of external contemplation, but rather of engaged action, i.e. these later works come to be directly performative, if perhaps not quite to J.L. Austin's full sense....) Such a personal-impersonal duality also meshes with Scelsi's description of himself as a messenger (rather than "composer"). And becoming such a "medium" entailed notions of personal virtuosity as well, such that there's plenty to interrogate about virtuosity in Scelsi's music: Although it's generally transcribed, and so reflected contents largely independent of its chosen instruments, it still came to involve considerable personal development in order to play. (Notions of individual virtuosity thus intersect with those of musical economy, one of the most basic ways to make something easier to play being to have someone else help....) In that sense, there's often a feeling of study or étude to Scelsi's music, but going beyond musical technique per se, into a sort of personal-musical (incantatory?) fusion with the work itself.... Scelsi thus comes to demand a sort of "becoming" from the interpreter — & from the listener, a going beyond oneself. (So this becomes the meaning of virtuosity....) And to this end, Scelsi already developed considerable technique in the 60s, such that these later (often more lyrical) works could once again appear in quick succession. As for their ongoing relation to the earlier music, one might suggest that the "single tone style" was built into larger forms, first by recalling prior musical "erector" methods, but then by continuing to proceed inside sound: As such, the 1970s pieces might be characterized as tiny tone poems — although some have multiple movements (in which case they are sequences of tone poems). They're thus relatively straightforward to describe (if not to experience), and so I'll proceed via another series of generally short paragraphs.
Continuing to suggest a sort of ending (or else an opening!), Pranam I (1972) (7') for voice, 12 instruments (consisting of 8 winds & string quartet) & magnetic tape is both one of Scelsi's most enigmatic & most strikingly affective works. This is the only piece actually to include tape, in fact, roaring along at times, often low in the texture (& so soon to be replaced, i.e. as abyss, by bass?). Why not transcribe it? Perhaps using tapes had become too trendy to ignore.... Pranam I also continues to involve Hirayama, singing in her usual Scelsian style, as well as Vieri Tosatti (Scelsi's primary transcriber) leading the ensemble, both on a private recording issued already in 1972 (& reissued later by RZ). The large number of instruments is also difficult to distinguish (offending my sense of musical economy, thus once making this piece a low priority for me, particularly as I'd viewed Pranam II as a tighter revision...), e.g. the string quartet not really being recognizable, even as various winds do stand out at times. However, as so often with Scelsi, Pranam I is also a powerful & haunting work. (It basically never fails to move me these days... despite or because of its murky weirdness.) It begins with horn calls, perhaps recalling Quattro pezzi..., and quickly tenses, as the voice appears to track the ensemble, heavy & searing in the original Hirayama-Tosatti version, even becoming dark & twisted. (Is this Tosatti's farewell to Scelsi? I don't know.) And so the fine rendition by Schuppe & Ensemble Phoenix Basel ends up coming off as more smooth & sophisticated, even though the later album (Rito) does have the bigger dynamic in general....
Scelsi also returned to solo (& duo) string writing, creating some of his greatest works in that medium over a brief span in the 1970s — although of course he'd produced solo string masterpieces in the 1950s & 1960s as well. Moreover, Scelsi turned to the double bass for the first time (after Yamaon, Riti & Okanagon, that is), composing Nuits (1972/77) in two parts: The first, titled C'est bien la nuit, seems to revisit the relatively frantic sound world of e.g. Triphon, bouncing around the instrument & using bigger intervals, while the second (Le réveil profond) is much smoother & apparently composed or revised later.... I'm thus treating the two parts of Nuits separately (as I am those of Manto as well). And "discovering" the bass would apparently be important for Scelsi, as he turned to it often over the next few years — presumably inspired in large part by Joëlle Léandre (after cellist Frances-Marie Uitti had also joined Scelsi's team). He consequently produced new versions of (such stylistically divergent pieces as) Duo & Ko-Tha for bass as well, again coming to add a suggestion of an abyssal below.... (The solo bass genre was in its infancy in general, e.g. Barre Phillips' first solo album appearing in 1968, Xenakis writing Theraps in 1975/76, Cage first incorporating bass with Ryoanji in 1983, as again dedicated to Léandre....) That said, although it evokes the stormier 1950s style, C'est bien la nuit does sound like a new conception to me, perhaps intentionally retroactive, even as a study.... And beyond the Léandre classic, both parts of Nuits can be heard in a more polished rendition from Black on Mode as well. (And so I won't revisit these recording links when recalling Le réveil profond below: The pieces have only appeared as a pair, despite me splitting them here.)
And besides starting to write more for bass, Scelsi reprised his prior emphasis on the violin (& its high pitches) in dazzling fashion in his next pair of solo pieces, L'âme ailée / L'âme ouverte (1973) (8'), again emphasizing continuity (as would the remaining string pieces... after Nuits I had recalled a prior, bouncier style). There's often thus a piercing, snaking tone running through these potent works, but also a sense of intensive detail & affective modulation. So although this late pair is shorter than Xnoybis, and involves less formal scope (at least in a superficial sense), it can also be more potent, suggesting a kind of otherworldly power — somehow in spite or because of its equally strong aura of delicacy — that can exemplify Scelsi at his best. (L'âme ailée & L'âme ouverte also employ 8th notes explicitly, as would become more common for string pieces that followed, whereas much of Scelsi's 1960s music was notated in quarter tones. In both cases, this is different from later spectral composers, such as Tenney, who notate pitch ratios precisely — rather than in tempered intervals of whatever size. Various European spectral composers, such as Murail, continue to use the quarter tone approach, however.) And for these potent little pieces I generally prefer the very controlled Lin rendition on Mode, but Fusi turns in a similarly intense interpretation for the Stradivarius Edition & of course Zimansky's is the classic on Accord....
Arc-en-ciel (1973) (4') then adopts a similar style, but for two violins, this time in a single short piece. Arc-en-ciel also uses difference tones to project a sort of melody "between" the instruments (i.e. akin to Hymnos), sometimes seeming to float in midair.... It's thus a rather distinctive (if ethereal) piece, but hasn't been recorded much. (However, there's actually an excellent, recent performance on Youtube from musikFabrik from 2020, Lockdown Tapes #58.) And it's another potent piece, even if (at least superficially) it's oriented more on impressionism (than personal transformation)....
Pranam II (1973) (7') for 9 instruments (4 winds & 4 strings including bass, plus electric organ) then reprises its own short series, here without voice, but now with organ (& bass) instead of tape: It's generally more abstract than the relatively rougher Pranam I, the instruments again fusing into an overall organesque sound (with organ itself appearing more as a general backdrop than being distinctly audible...) — & once again, employs no percussion, but still often suggests murky depths, if less so than the mysterious tape of Pranam I.... Pranam II also involves some amazing polyphonic-rhetorical microtonal motion (perhaps recalling some of e.g. String Quartet No. 3), with an intricate sense of layering largely unknown otherwise in Scelsi's oeuvre. It also takes the "farewell" angle more seriously, coming to involve something of a fade to a low rumble.... It's still a highly appealing ensemble piece, clearly more sophisticated than the more unwieldy (but perhaps more directly potent) Pranam I, which it almost seems to revise — although perhaps by injecting a greater sense of distance, indeed almost as one grand (again paradoxically) personal cadence. (In some ways it can even seem to be Scelsi's most sophisticated final product: Is Pranam II actually the first piece that people familiar with later musical developments should hear to exemplify Scelsi per se? It's so short, but already something of a world to itself....) It does seem to recall various of his affective figures, now transformed within a single space.... In any case, the rendition by Ensemble Phoenix Basel on Rito is once again wildly evocative & amazing, but the most recent from regular Scelsi interpreters Pfaff & Ensemble 2e2m in the Stradivarius Edition does offer a great deal of experience with Scelsi....
Then Sauh (1973) for female voices, subtitled "liturgy" (22'), is the longest of Scelsi's 1970s pieces, although it's often presented as two sets of two pieces each (including by the Scelsi Foundation): The first two are scored for 2 voices or voice & tape, while the second two are scored for 4 voices (with the possibility of doubling, i.e. into a choir). The material is developed continuously, though, so this separation is surely only a practical matter, i.e. in terms of what forces tend to be available.... And considering the centrality of voice for Scelsi, I've long taken Sauh quite seriously, especially as an elaboration of the solo lines of the Canti into first 2- & then 4-part polyphony! In some sense, this project remains fairly preliminary, but the results are still striking (& due to the detailed articulations involved in each part, so rather differently from the prior choral technique of e.g. Yliam...), such that I've retained a fascination with this piece since early in my encounter with Scelsi. (Note that the title is also a tantric mantra.) Anyway, presumably Sauh was constructed over time by layering parts on tape, meaning that performing it as a solo with other parts on tape is probably authentic. However, I've never warmed to Schuppe's solo & tape (i.e. overdubbed) cycle of the full set on Incantations (2005). (And I should probably note that Schuppe seems not to have attempted the Canti....) That once left the Complete Choral Music from Wood for III & IV, and still e.g. the old Tre canti popolari for I & II, but the latter in particular were never very satisfying.... Fortunately, at this point, I'm able to recommend the rendition of all four parts of Sauh (without overdubs) by Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble on the anthology Hushers (2017), i.e. by a new generation of interpreters: Sauh still seems like a relatively experimental cycle, i.e. not as "polished" as many of Scelsi's ideas seem to be elsewhere by the 1970s, so it does probably remain more of a teaser than anything.... (I think of it as one of Scelsi's most advanced & challenging cycles, though. Again, it comes to reflect a sense of interweaving & collision within a confined space....)
And while I've become relatively dismissive of Scelsi's first big cycle for choir, organ & orchestra, Konx-Om-Pax (in three movements) above, I've actually come to be more appreciative of Pfhat (1974) "A flash... and the sky opened!" (9', again in four movements) at this point: It adopts a similar, gestural orientation across a series of sound-complexes (i.e. gestural movements) moving from motion to stillness — with the finale now consisting of pulsing & tinkling bells, rather than "Om" — but ultimately does so more effectively. Pfhat might seem silly at times, and I didn't think much of it (relatively speaking) early in my encounter with Scelsi, but it's affective & useful. It's both absurd & functional. Full stop. Again, there's a variety of Scelsian material forging the earlier movements, beginning with a series of calls (some whispered...), but figures are even more chiseled, including in the stark finale.... (Besides its greater concentration & general stripping away of excess, perhaps Pfhat is also more successful simply on account of not ending with the wave-like third movement, which might otherwise suggest more similarity to the progression of Konx-Om-Pax. Instead, it ends not with an evocation of peace, but almost with a kind of alarm....) The title is actually evocative of what comes to occur affectively... and hence Pfhat also ends up seeming less rhetorical & self-conscious (or else, so much more so that it ends up working!). However, in keeping with earlier impressions trivializing this late piece, there's still only the classic Wyttenbach recording, which comes off as relatively subdued. Another reading is overdue....
1974 was also the year for the final iteration of Manto, with Manto per quattro (1974) (4') apparently being securely dated: That piece reworks Manto III for an ensemble of voice, flute, trombone & cello. It's also enjoyable, although apparently not popular to record (even as it was once available in an old rendition from Hirayama & Brizzi).... It also seems to be a compromise for Scelsi, transcribing the relatively intractable Manto III for more musicians, i.e. such that a performance becomes practical. And although there's little dating of its chronology, Manto III was apparently developed (or reworked itself?) early in the 70s, based on Scelsi's known inquiries into a female singer who could also play his difficult viola part: The piece exemplifies an ongoing desire to fuse a vocal work with string writing, and apparently Scelsi really wanted that to be in the physical body of a single performer — perhaps even to the point that "additional voices" could appear to arise (again) in interference patterns between the fused parts, and likely further suggesting an urge to "score" each individual vocal cord as he had strings.... (Ignoring this sort of affective-virtuosic orientation, Manto per quattro is a perfectly good rendering of the material, but does project a very different musical economy around its different sense of virtuosity....) That was, I guess, about accomplishing the full Scelsian image of a sibyl. In any case, not unlike Sauh, Manto III continues to seem like a piece suggesting further development.... But it's also been recorded more often this millennium, e.g. by Ruth Killius (2009) & Geneviève Strosser (2011) in broader anthologies, as well as by Royer on his Mode album: It seems odd to hear a man's voice amid this imagery, but his is clearly the best recorded interpretation thus far, i.e. in terms of closely fusing the two techniques.... His brisk Manto III is under 3', but engages many of Scelsi's final compositional concerns & developments....
And many of Scelsi's compositional concerns & ideas did apparently continue to be worked out at his microtonal (ondiola) keyboard, but Scelsi also hadn't produced any actual keyboard music since abandoning the piano in the 1950s: Perhaps it came to be about disguising his working methods, or otherwise transforming his musical output before presenting it to the public. However, not so unlike the sudden & unique appearance of a part for magnetic (as it's called from those days, for younger readers...) tape in Pranam I, the final sharp peak in his production did turn to some actual keyboard music: In nomine lucis (1974) (6') for organ is thus, in some ways, the least transformed of Scelsi's late pieces, presumably being close to its original form from his own organ-like keyboard. (I should also note that it's presented as a single piece at the Scelsi Foundation & I didn't find distinctions online, but an old anthology includes two versions, with Roman numerals even suggestive of more.... I've no idea at this point what that signifies. Perhaps a single piece is conceived in multiple versions?) As its title suggests, In nomine lucis is also a luminous piece, not really troubled by the sorts of searing tensions found in so many other works, its clear tone & melody soon sounding more evocative of Scelsi's short & simple, starkly tuneful vocal settings of Christian texts elsewhere in the period.... Perhaps more prominent for keyboard is then Aitsi (1974) (6'), specifically for a piano modified such that its decaying resonances are captured & so able to be made louder again (by electronics) in waves: It's a strange effect & a unique piece in general (at least until reprised as String Quartet No. 5 toward the end of Scelsi's life...), electronics allowing for sharp chordal piano attacks to have their overtones individually manipulated & extended. Ultimately it's a kind of repetitive, fading piece... presumably suggesting another farewell (& via an instrument that had obviously meant so much to Scelsi...), perhaps even heralding e.g. Cage's (future) trajectory as well, as the latter's final solo piano piece One5 (1990) is also largely concerned with sharp attacks & decaying resonances (albeit without electronics) — & indeed Aitsi does suggest another sort of "prepared piano." (Within Scelsi's output, perhaps the sense of repetitive, percussive attack recalls Okanagon....) And since its technological approach apparently hasn't been copied, Aitsi does remain something of a curiosity. In any case, much like the tape featured on Pranam I, perhaps Scelsi didn't pursue these methods more because the sonic result would end up being too close to the medium from which it'd originated — as he apparently came to prefer a process of transcription. (Or, in an alternate universe, perhaps he'd've written far more for this sort of modified piano, had it been conceived sooner....)
That said, there's still more from 1974 for our survey(!), next turning to Voyages (1974) (8'), Scelsi's two final pieces for solo cello: This is actually a set that had to wait until recently for a complete recording, although the second piece (Le fleuve magique) had already appeared on an old Méfano disc (with Arc-en-ciel & Pranam II apparently without the string quartet...). That may be a matter of difficulty, as cello runs through Scelsi's oeuvre centrally for three decades, including various developments of technique: Of course, such comments suggest a performance by Uitti (i.e. per her work on Trilogia etc.), but no such recording has appeared.... (The one complete recorded performance is thus that by Simonacci from 2017 — a rather staid interpretation.) These two pieces don't exactly suggest a pair either, but rather independent concerns: The longer first (Il allait seul) involves a main line troubled by another (or its own resonances), sometimes seeming long or repetitive in (typical) waves, but also sometimes melancholy & autobiographical. The second piece is more impressionistic, exploring a sort of bouncing technique in harmonics, again suggesting textural novelty — or perhaps depicting the vision (à la Arc-en-ciel?) resulting from the asceticism implied by the first piece.... (Moving a sense of "bounce" into harmonics might also be about refiguring the more frantic early string material, now within a different context....) And to this point, neither part of Voyages has really made the same impression on me as some of the other late string pieces, although that might still be a matter of waiting for the right interpretation.... (I do retain an interest, and so continue to highlight the work here.)
And then turning back to Scelsi's series of late string duos, Et maintenant c'est a vous de jouer (1974) (6') is the most straightforward, coming to function (at least for me) as a sort of overture: This short piece for cello & bass basically begins — & with little "foreplay" or buildup — with a couple of orgasms, and then winds down from the climaxes, according to a generally soothing aura of afterglow.... It could thus be viewed instead as a program ender, but I do believe that Scelsi intended the overture scenario: Relieve (sexual or musical) tension, perhaps even directly in a tantric sense, then get down to the (calm &) important (spiritual) business (or play) at hand.... Et maintenant... thus spends most of its duration moving away from its initial climaxes in increasingly broad waves (i.e. per a formal contour more or less reversed from so much other music...). The classic recorded performance by Léandre & Uitti thus shows an agreeable roughness, even as listening can sometimes feel like turning voyeur.... (There's also a more polished version from Black & Fan on Mode's double bass album.) In any case, this effective little piece can be very easy to hear as sexual.
Kshara (1975) (13') marks yet another high point in Scelsi's late oeuvre, particularly as a piece I'd eyed longingly on his works list since early in my encounter — as well as being one of the few (true) late multi-movement works.... And it did (finally) receive a recording, i.e. the excellent interpretation by Black & Eckhardt, again on Mode's double bass album (from which I've taken the timing here, Kshara being listed at only 7' by the Scelsi Foundation, perhaps indicative of a single movement...). This piece (which likewise employs notated 8th tones) has indeed gone on to reward intensive listening, especially again for this project, and while retaining its powerful & mysterious aura: It's immediately striking via a rich low tone, intertwining subtly & shifting through microtones almost chaotically, and can soon become almost overwhelming.... The second movement then suggests something of a "distant radio" vibe (as I've interrogated in contemporary improvisation elsewhere...), easily transposable into the Scelsian universe as the subject of a (musical) message, or indeed the object of the medium-composer.... (Its sort of balanced, interference interplay also recalls a bit of Arc-en-ciel....) The third movement then presents a real conclusion or arrival, with a tensely ominous confrontation or synthesis, followed by a slow fading away.... Kshara leaves one listening, almost numb, to silence, i.e. in a transformational way: It thus seems to establish a new sort of backdrop (or sonic basis) for perceptual reality....
Continuing the series of late string duos (i.e. in the wake of Arc-en-ciel, or earlier, of Duo...) is then Dharana (1975) (8'), reprising the cello & bass pairing of Et maintenant.... The (precise, chronological) order of some of these pieces is also (as usual, of course) actually unknown, and Dharana did arrive originally as something of a surprise, again on Mode's double bass album: Unlike Kshara, I hadn't known it existed, and certainly not that it's another major piece. Dharana is also in a single movement, surely Scelsi's most dynamic late single movement: There's a sort of doubled gesture to its form, not simply with two dynamic peaks (as in so many works by Scelsi...), but enacting a sort of twisting or inversion across its duration, making for a grittily transformative piece in general. It opens warmly, but soon becomes austere & quivering, even ephemeral at times, yet retains a strong sense of human interaction (often in parallel layers), yielding to nostalgia at times through various dramatic tensions, but again coming to forge a sort of self-effective performativity.... Dharana thus ends up being both one of Scelsi's most effective & most impenetrable pieces (& the latter does require experience in order to ease for the individual listener, i.e. so as to receive the former...).
Maknongan (1976) (4') is sometimes figured as Scelsi's last work, although again the chronology is unknown at times, plus a few other late pieces have appeared.... (And he turned 71 in 1976, for reference.) For any low instrument (including voice), it's also unusual in his output for not being specifically scored, but otherwise takes up many of the concerns of Manto III, here involving more of a duality of registers, i.e. fusing low instrumental rumblings with either high overtones or sharp vocal outbursts. (Instead of the sibyl, then, it's inspired by a Filipino monster....) It usually comes off audaciously, and has actually been a popular piece to record, beginning already with three versions on the classic Léandre album (her own version, with voice, being remarkably tentative — particularly pace her typically fierce outbursts elsewhere in contemporary improvisation...). But I've also come to be most intrigued (technically) by versions projected entirely by a solo wind instrument, capturing both the piece's low rumbles & quasi-shrieks (again) in one body, that by Santi Mabad (contrabass clarinet) on his recent Full Metal album (2019) being especially well controlled. (Black is also very smooth & technical on string bass, as one would expect.) I don't actually find Maknongan to be as fascinating as e.g. Manto, though: For me, it's more of a curiosity from Scelsi's late output at this point.
And while it's unclear when Nuits II was actually composed (both parts being dated 1972 at the Scelsi Foundation), I'm presenting it as Le réveil profond (1977) (6'), its low subtlety taking up some of the detailed microtonal interactions of the late string duos, but also coming to sound thinner. Indeed, one might hear Le réveil profond as something of a continuation of the "distant radio signal" of Kshara II, but also as coming to "reassert" itself in a wave at times, i.e. not so unlike the dynamic of Aitsi.... The smoothness of its tone, together with its fragility, also suggests something of an abyss (once again), and so together with its title, comes to yield a late Scelsian figuration of death (i.e. as dissolution): A very brief chordal opening thus yields quickly to quivering, droning extension... the resulting sense of duration coming to suggest flickering final energies & emanations. (Its sense of smoothness almost yields a paradoxical sense of absence as well.) The starkness of this piece thus requires a particular mood. (And while I'd said above that I'd skip the recording discussion when reprising Nuits, I should probably still note the subtle harmonic smoothness of Black's rendition as sounding particularly apt....) I hear Le réveil profond increasingly as a a farewell, even as a yearning to depart....
Finally, String Quartet No. 5 (1985) (7') is the last piece that I want to mention here specifically, i.e. as a transcription of Aitsi apparently undertaken for the Arditti Quartet (& so included on their classic double album, from which it wasn't reprised until the 2024 Molinari cycle): In some ways, it's a return to Scelsi's typical process, i.e. transcribing a keyboard piece for strings, but the results are rather different here — in fact, sounding much more like e.g. Xenakis' austere late string torsos, i.e. via bare sequences of jerking unison chords. (Of course, for Scelsi's piece, the ability for sounds to become louder after they begin is no longer remarkable with a string quartet....) It's another strange & singular work (& involves a dubious musical economy), but does have its moments. Scelsi also wrote some other simple, late tonal pieces (after Maknongan), i.e. in the manner of little gifts or charming introductions: I'm not featuring these, but they illustrate a very straightforward (& traditional) sense of musical joy....
So now briefly to recap the works featured above, let me again emphasize vocal music, despite that these pieces can still end up seeming more like works in progress: The solo cycles — Canti del Capricorno (1962-72) of course, but also Khoom (1962) — come to form the heart of Scelsi's output, extending into the dynamic Pranam I (1972), and then the enigmatic Manto III (? by 1974) & Maknongan (1976).... (I've also kept two renditions of Khoom & Pranam I in active rotation — both of those by Hirayama & Schuppe.) And there's already the little choral nugget Yliam (1964), then the vexing Sauh (1973).... I've also particularly featured the late string works in this survey: L'âme ailée / L'âme ouverte (1973), Arc-en-ciel (1973), Voyages (1974), Dharana (1975), the daunting multi-movement Kshara (1975) & fading Nuits II (1977) continue to present as intimate masterpieces, as well as completely novel music.... However, the often ethereal accomplishments of the late works for small forces would (obviously) be unthinkable without Scelsi's 1960s classics: String Quartet No. 2 (1961), String Quartet No. 3 (1963) & String Quartet No. 4 (1964) are of course monuments, continuing to confront a classic chamber combo, with their arrangements for larger forces as Anâgâmin (1965), Ohoi (1966) & Natura renovatur (1967) presenting compellingly as well, reworkings almost coming to define Scelsi.... And the 60s were still especially rich, also involving prominent & innovative writing for solo & duo strings — setting the stage for the 1970s string tapestries already highlighted — with Xnoybis (1964), Duo (1965), Ygghur (1965) & Elegia per Ty (1966) (& even Manto II (?1964/67)). And while those works have come to be iconic as solos & duos, there're still the classics for orchestra, especially Quattro pezzi su una nota sola (1959), Hurqualia (1960), Aiôn (1961), Hymnos (1963), the "violin concerto" Anahit (1965) — & finally the highly gestural Pfhat (1974). And then to this list, I'll append Pranam II (1973) — seemingly in none of these categories, but one of Scelsi's most polished late pieces. Together, as noted, these works come to over six hours of listening, including the Canti..., but not any duplicated interpretations above (including that of Aiôn — which remains iconic for me personally among the earlier works). E.g. the Beethoven symphonies also come to around six hours of music, by way of comparison.
And so what has this project ended up teaching me about Scelsi's music? I've definitely appreciated some of the newer renditions, more so than I was really expecting.... After all, most of Scelsi's works had been recorded for a while now, with the interpretations often being supervised or arising from colleagues, etc., meaning that they've generally been good. (That Scelsi's music was originally improvised also attests to its performability, even if its economy might be modified in transcription....) Still, there's always more to refine, even if there aren't (many) remaining works to discover. And as already suggested, I do remain interested in new readings of the late jewels Arc-en-ciel (albeit already with an excellent recent version on Youtube), Voyages, Sauh & Manto III (or Manto per quattro) — as well as of the divergent orchestral pieces Anahit & Pfhat (& perhaps the larger orchestral works in general...). (I should also note Litanie "for 2 females voices or female voice & tape" (1975) (4') at the Scelsi Foundation: It suggests the first two parts of Sauh, a work also subtitled "Liturgy." Is this listing really an independent piece? If so, I certainly want to hear it, but I do have my doubts....) Meanwhile, as noted above, Voyages I was also the most recent significant piece to receive a groundbreaking release.... Beyond learning about the music, then, what of greater familiarity in the more directly aural sense? Obviously the novelty fades, but a strong affectivity does remain: It's difficult, though, to assess such an impression independently of my history with the music. In other words, to what extent am I basically rehearsing my own earlier thoughts when listening? (I still don't find much of a rhetorical relationship to the music emerging, i.e. an "irresistible" internal dialog about expectations & possibilities, rather than a focus on perception per se, so I'm happy about that....) But I was also very involved with Scelsi's music at one time, making it difficult (or impossible) to hear today outside of that life history: There're thus also various triggers around my own memory, perhaps even a sense of "ownership" developing — which I don't find to be helpful. (One might also note that the immediately prior comments could be reprised regarding the subject of myths in general: That's hardly coincidence, with mythos certainly extending & invoking far beyond my own personal narrative....) And I did find actually hearing the music again to be welcome, i.e. beyond simply spurring my own memory, even as the brevity of some of Scelsi's greatest works makes engagement relatively impractical at times as well: Maybe I should be concocting my own standard Scelsian playlists, instead of fumbling around every time with 5' pieces? (But would I want to standardize?) There's also a bit of a mood requirement for Scelsi: His music can arrive as disorienting for the listener, from a variety of contexts, but without the right focus, can also tend to drift past without actively drawing attention (especially while engaging familiarity per se).... (For some listeners, of course the shifting of pitches remains an active irritant, and experiencing their reactions, i.e. for the first time, can thus be bracing for me too.) I actually come to find many ways to relate, as Scelsi's works do retain a protean quality, i.e. a kind of (incantatory) energy that tends to emerge reliably in audition (& so to transfer across interpretations): These are paradigmatically "classical compositions" in that specific sense (if not in others).
But this survey actually began, as noted above, first with a Cage project — for which I'd already written individual work discussions — and then with a review of Scelsi Revisited (which can be found, dated 6 October 2020, over at my Jazz Thoughts): To be clear, that new double album doesn't include pieces by Scelsi, but does make use of some of his unscored improvisation tapes, sometimes yielding more of a "classical composition" & sometimes still seeming more like an improvisation. Either way, those were finished by other composers. And again as noted, Scelsi Revisited did prompt me to shift my perspective, i.e. to regard Scelsi as more of an established figure — and so to move beyond prior criticisms of Scelsi as "not a composer" or these pieces as "not music." (I can thus begin to offer other criticisms....) And his works do pose new questions of compositional practice & interpretation, but various new working methods were developed otherwise in the late 20th century too, many of them technological — the use of improvisation & tape not even coming to seem especially striking today (unless as retro!). And of course part of my current reaction does arise from more thorough engagement with contemporary improvisation, a genre in which Scelsi was very much ahead of his time, and a genre for which his work continues to seem highly relevant.... (And I frequently note Scelsian evocations in contemporary music-making.) Scelsi's individual pieces also continue to be worthwhile, but as noted, their lengths can entail issues of programming, and so I often have to "make a point" to listen to this music — even as it does continue to buoy my other musical practice. (In that sense, it comes to seem less practical than a lot of current improvisation, but still potent....) In the review then, I also noted a perception of Scelsi's music as a sort of Lacanian real, emerging unstoppably through the interstices of Western chromaticism (i.e. as "world"): There's thus a strong sense of new creation arriving from elsewhere, and in an unstoppable (or always existing...) sort of way, its emanations usually seeming to find such strength from below (i.e. emerging from fundamentals, into various overtones).... So there's real acoustic power behind Scelsi's music, with nothing delicate about his "microtones" bursting through traditional musical relations: Physical resonance comes to mark a transcendence then, a (musical) change of state arising as the result of some "strange," nonlinear process.... ("Spectral" seems to work for Scelsi in the sense of haunting, so it's convenient that the term has also come to refer stylistically to the overtone spectrum....) Changes of state also invoke a sort of uncertainty, a becoming of course, but also a sense of randomness as well, as shifts can happen indirectly or intermittently: There's usually a kind of "instability" to Scelsi's music, then, but coming to sound so different from e.g. the stochastic processes of Xenakis or the Zen distractions of Cage, in part because there's also a strong directionality (as for Xenakis too, whose "indeterminacy" might be figured as more linear, versus Scelsi's as "more geometric"). Moreover, such a strong sense of direction was hard won for Scelsi, his 1950s pieces in particular involving various broad runs & frenetic circling (i.e. surrounding their target), and seeming (at least retrospectively) to be searching for a center: Once found, historical Western tonality starts to present as mere ornamentation, i.e. as useless rationalization to be stripped away, so as to continue moving toward more direct expression.... To that end, Scelsi also developed a sense of coincidental appearance, i.e. the kind of incidental & magical (i.e. quasi-random) emergence that keeps his pieces from actually sounding too blunt: Indeed they can present as fragile, even as they just keep coming.... (His pieces can also seem arbitrary or lucky, even as they just keep working....) Scelsi thus developed his own poetic sense of timing & line — & let's not forget that Scelsi was also a published poet — i.e. forged a poetry-infused sense of gestural form.
Such a poetic-material sense of form didn't appear from nowhere either, but required considerable development: As noted, Scelsi's 1960s masterpieces generally employ traditional Western movements & formal contrasts, i.e. retain an emphasis on hylomorphic deployment around his new sense of spectral (as it would come to be called...) "material," but such an orientation on "fusion" did come to fade.... Perhaps the song form in general is then the most straightforward reference for many of Scelsi's 1970s pieces.... (And this is ultimately lyrical music — also engaging a generalized "legato" quality, as already noted. Scelsi's calmly unfolding temporalities, often absent much in the way of rhythmic contour, are also suggestive of some of Cage's late work....) In any case, it also seems as though my own "discovery" of Scelsi was fortuitous, i.e. coming shortly after his death (which is when his music was suddenly more available) & around my work in ethnomusicology: Scelsi's status as a musical outsider only seemed to be confirmed by this timing, especially as I came to music in a roundabout way myself — often feeling like an outsider (& not for imaginary reasons...) wherever I've been. (But then, that Scelsi is not an outsider anymore was a prompt for this project: So perhaps I should be noting that prominent subsequent composers such as Curran & Murail appeared already on early recordings of his music... not to mention the other great musicians named above....) That Scelsi was already dead also apparently buoyed the impression of his music as arising from another time & place (an impression with which he'd've surely been delighted...), an impression already buoyed by his various non-Western & mythological title imagery, the variety of references probably characterizable today as cultural appropriation. And while Scelsi's employment of various cultural figurations can certainly seem imperialistic at times, there's also an attempt at "generality" (or even genericity...) running through his efforts: His is almost (already) an anthropology music, I'd say, an attempt not at capturing anyone's actual specificity, but the (spectral) echoes of some kind of underlying humanity.... And humanity in general does usually seem to be Scelsi's inspiration or target, as he generally indulges little of the naturalism of Xenakis or Cage — or if he does, it's already mediated by human perception (e.g. becoming-deity). (As such, Scelsi is more impressionistic than naturalistic, but often far more sonically direct than either tends to imply....) Scelsi's music thus engages various processes of identity, and perhaps that's a fruitful direction for future discussion: For one, Scelsi projects a very fluid sense of "identity" in sound, i.e. pace his "one note" concept, but also in a mode of continuous change & becoming: Everything is one, but nothing is ever really the same. (Scelsi might thus be criticized as a universalist. Or perhaps pitied as a remnant of medieval analogism....) But Scelsi doesn't proceed through contradiction, rather via affirmative gesture, i.e. real affective emergence & transformation: It's that sense of positivity then (desire even...), i.e. its creative sort of "becoming world" emergence, that continues to figure Scelsi's ongoing contemporary influence: His music came to be improvised (& then transcribed), and now comes to be highly influential in new modes of contemporary improvisation, moving beyond the bounds of any particular musical temperament (or indeed instance).... But beyond its historical influence, which is already substantial & growing, much of Scelsi's music also continues to be useful as affective modulation in everyday life. (And that was, ultimately, the object of this survey.)
To older selected recordings discussion.
Back to main Giacinto Scelsi page.
Todd M. McComb 5 March 2021 Updated (for new quartet cycle) 11 July 2024