Scelsi Edition 6 - The Orchestral Works 2 - CD
The 2nd work for wordless chorus, ondes Martenot, and orchestra; the 3rd work for wordless chorus and orchestra. (viewed Feb. 7, 2013). Concentus Vocalis (2nd work) ; Wiener Kammerchor (3rd work) ; Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra ; Peter Rundel, conductor (1st & 2nd work) ; Johannes Kalitzke, conductor (3rd work). Recorded in 2005. Previously released as a compact disc.
Quattro Pezzi (su una nota sola) (1959) (16:54)
for 25 musicians
Peter Rundel, conductor
1st Movement (2:56)
2nd Movement (4:49)
3rd Movement (4:27)
4th Movement (4:41)
Uaxuctum-The Legend of the Mayan City which they themselves destroyed for religious reasons (1966) (21:14)
for ondes Martenot, seven percussionists, timpanist, chorus and 23 musicians
Peter Rundel, conductor
1st Movement (6:13)
2nd Movement (3:59)
3rd Movement (3:43)
4th Movement (3:12)
5th Movement (4:07)
Concentus Vocalis, Chorusmaster: Herbert Böck
La nascita del Verbo (1946-48) (31:58)
for chorus and large orchestra
Johannes Kalitzke, conductor
1st Movement (6:34)
2nd Movement (6:00)
3rd Movement (8:09)
4th Movement (11:15)
Wiener Kammerchor, Chorusmaster: Michael Grohotolsky
Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra
First Recording
The first recording of his 32-minute grand cantata La nascita del Verbo. Steeped in chromaticism, with hints of Scriabin and a sea of percussion, Nascita boasts a vast double fugue (one of the most imposing in the history of music) and a forty-seven voice canon in twelve keys. This work, “truly written in blood,” left Scelsi “in a deplorable state,” afterwards he stopped composing for several years.
One of Scelsi’s infamous pieces is the Quattro Pezzi (su una nota sola). Each piece is limited to one pitch with micro-fluctuations of sound (vibratos, slurs, spectral changes, tremolos…). Because of the nearly total abandonment of harmonics, the listener concentrates on new sonorous subtleties, on the orchestra’s timbre as a whole.
In 1966, he completed the ferocious, tormented, complex Uaxuctum. The myths and mysteries of this Mayan city is reflected in Scelsi’s compositional process: new instrumental and vocal techniques (breathing noises, nasal sounds, muted or inhaled gutturals…), rhythmic incantations, a petrified flow of time. Few woodwinds, a string section consisting of six double basses, lots of brass, and, in addition to a timpanist, no less than seven percussionists!
Hi-resolution 48khz/24-bit recording.
Also available on surround-sound DVD.
(NOTE: the DVD contains no video)
Reviews
More of Scelsi’s explorations into the properties and nature of sound
The most substantial piece here is Uaxuctum, scored for a large, idiosyncratic ensemble (including ondes martenot) with chorus. It evokes the legend of a Mayan city which they themselves destroyed for religious reasons”. Completed in 1966, it was only premiered 21 years later with the composer in attendance, a matter of months before his death. This live recording does it justice, as far as one can tell without the score to hand, and one is only rarely distracted by noises off. Scelsi’s explorations into the physical properties and nature of sound had begun about a decade earlier, following a long period of creative silence. On either side of that hiatus stand the two other works recorded here, first, the cantata La nascitit del verbo (“The Birth of the Word”), first performed in 1949, whose tide presages a typically Scelsian score. The piece’s opening minutes, before the entry of the choir, give a similar impression, but thereafter, it betrays its indebtedness to Italian music earlier in the century, and a scholasticism that is disconcerting, given the tide’s promise. The text is a collection of Latin invocations whose “minimal ism” also points, tantalisingly, to his future direction. The Four Pieces (on a single note) of 1959 marked a new beginning, both for Scelsi and for contemporary music. Next to Uaxuctum their range seems a touch restricted, but as studies in radicalism they remain reference-points. The quality of the live performances is remarkable. Anglophone listeners are advised to steer clear of the translation of the introductory text if possible: it is obscure, and often has the opposite meaning to the original French.
— Fabrice Fitch, © 2007 Gramophone
Links
Also by Roland Dahinden on Mode:
as composer:
Naima (mode 62)
Silberen, Lichtweiss (mode 138)
and as a trombonist:
Alvin LUCIER: Small Waves with Hildegard Kleeb (piano) and The Arditti
Quartet. (mode 124)
Christian WOLFF: Tilbury Pieces; Snowdrop. – with Hildegard Kleeb
(piano) and Dimitrios Polisoidis (violin, viola) (mode 74)
Roland Dahinden Profile
Roland Dahinden Online
