a r t i s t : Giacinto Scelsi
t i t l e : The Orchestral Works 1
d a t e : 2001
l a b e l : Mode
g e n r e : Avantgarde
r l s. d a t e : Jun/2006
t r a c k s : 14
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 76,5 MB
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Volume 2: The Orchestral Works 1
Hymnos (1963) for organ & 2 orchestras (10:59)
Hurqualia (1960) for large orchestra (4:37, 2:43, 4:02)
Konx-Om-Pax (1968) for large orchestra & chorus (5:41, 2:11,
9:59)
The Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic & Concert Choir
Juan Pablo Izquierdo, conductor
Canti del Capricorno (1962-72)
Canto No 1 for soprano & percussion (3:33)
Canto No 2 for tenor (2:30)
Canto No 14 for tenor & percussion (3:08)
Canto No 15 for soprano (2:50)
Canto No 18 for soprano & percussion (1:57)
Canto 19 for voices & instruments (2:33)
Pauline Vaillancourt, soprano
Douglas Ahlstedt, tenor
Volume 2 in Mode's Scelsi Edition presents three of his rarely
heard and recorded orchestral works, vividly captured in
outstanding sound.
Hymnos' large orchestra is divided antiphonally into two
almost identical groups, symmetrically placed on each side of
a central axis made up of the organ, timpani, and percussion.
About halfway through the piece, as a result of accumulated
pedal tones and their harmonics, the aura of a phantom choir
miraculously appears-or so it seems-in a spine-tingling sonic
revelation.
Hurqualia was written at the height of the composer's
maturity. As with Hymnos, Scelsi obsesses on a single note-in
this case a different note for each of the four movements. It
reveals a shocking Scelsi: violent, impulsive, loud, fast.
Konx-Om-Pax is the word 'peace' in three languages: ancient
Assyrian, Sanskrit, and Latin. This 20-minute work for choir
and orchestra is his crowning achievement. The orchestra is
the largest ever assembled by Scelsi, projected onto an
enormous landscape of sound. The joining of 'all' in the third
movement, combining the massive forces of orchestra and choir,
makes an inevitable allusion to a previous 'ode to joy.'
The orchestral works are interspersed with selections from
Canti del Capricorno. A collection of twenty songs, some of
the Canti are written specifically for soprano voice, while
for others the exact voice is not specified. Improvisation and
'personal inspiration' play a large part in the interpretation
of the songs. Presented here are some for solo voice and
others with instruments, performed by soprano Pauline
Vaillancourt and tenor Douglas Ahlstedt.
A student of Hermann Scherchen, Juan Pablo Izquierdo's
interpretations of the Viennese masters of the 19th century
continue a long-standing European tradition, while also being
internationally for his bold interpretations of avant-garde
music of the 20th century. His first Mode disc with the superb
Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic garnered rave reviews.
Reviews:
Giacinto Scelsi
The Orchestral Works 1
Hymnos; Hurqualia; Konx-Om-Pax; Canti del Capricorno
(selections).
Pauline Vaillancourt (soprano); Douglas Ahlstedt (tenor); The
Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic and Concert Choir, Juan Pablo
Izquierdo (cond.).
Mode 95
This is glorious Scelsi -- a must-have item for Scelsi fans,
and the perfect disc to make converts out of skeptics and
innocents. I take my Scelsi appreciation seriously yet
cautiously: This is a disc I play when everyone else is out of
the house.
Initially I was wary of the disc's order. Selections from
Scelsi's intimate song cycle Canti del Capricorno (for voice
alone and sometimes voice with instruments) are scattered
between three big orchestral works, Hymnos, Hurqualia, and
Konx-Om-Pax. But the short and delicate songs are refreshing
after the larger and more violent pieces. Pauline Vaillancourt
and Douglas Ahlstedt give us numbers 1, 2, 18, 14, 15 and 19.
We hear growls, nasal sounds and sometimes one singer must
produce two vocal sounds at once. Canti del Capricorno is a
rich cycle to draw upon, its primal and exotic qualities
definitely more comprehensible in small doses. Vaillancourt
has recorded another selection (numbers 1, 3, 5, 8, 12, 13,
16, 17 and 18) on the obscure Allegro-distributed SociΘtΘ
Nouvelle d'enregistrement (SNE 571) along with selections from
Georges Aperghis' RΘcitations. (My Aperghis rave will have to
wait until another time.)
Scelsi's orchestral works build intense textures from very few
pitches. Some movements (or sections of movements) focus on
one single pitch played by different instruments in different
octaves and colored with accents, microtones and extended
techniques. In these three works Scelsi also uses long pedal
tones, prominent percussion, and groups of amplified
instruments. Every passing beat is a laboratory of
orchestration: We may hear two horns playing a D with an oboe
playing the same D an octave higher, and suddenly they will
fade away and reveal muted violas and cellos playing the same
notes. It's all very miraculous and entrancing, and has no
precedent in Western music.
From the single pitch that opens Hymnos (1963), Scelsi creates
the illusion of overtones and notes that are just not there.
Scored for organ and two antiphonal orchestras (the players in
one standard orchestra divided into two groups that face each
other onstage), the work is in arch form with a trance-like
central section. The outer sections move slowly, as if Scelsi
were describing the motion of planets.
Hurqualia (1960), subtitled "A Different Realm," is
unexpectedly vibrant and active. The pensive opening is
shattered by percussion and aggressive repeated notes,
including a propulsive minor-third gesture not unlike that in
Ride of the Valkyries. There are three groups of amplified
instruments; one includes a musical saw, and another playing
in unison (oboe, English horn and E-flat clarinet) sounds
particularly non-Western. I confess to using the 1990 Accord
(201 692, a three-disc set of Scelsi's complete works for
orchestra and chorus with orchestra) to test-drive headphones
and speakers, because Hurqualia has such a rich variety of
colors and timbres.
Most all of Scelsi's titles are strange: Konx-Om-Pax (1968)
links the word "peace" in Assyrian, Sanskrit and Latin. Its
subtitle is "Three Aspects of Sound as the first movement of
the Immovable; as Creative Force; as the syllable îOm1." The
work opens quietly with a delicate harp texture that has been
captured very well here. The short second movement exposes
blinding power, and a chorus is introduced in the finale --
waves and valleys of sustained single pitches become dissonant
chords.
The Accord set mentioned above is a cornerstone of the Scelsi
fan's collection. No two recordings of Scelsi's orchestral
music sound the same. This is a boon for the Scelsi lover who
scoops up every recording, but it points out a flaw in
Scelsi's largest scores. The notation often fails at providing
complete and incontrovertible instructions as to how
instruments in large ensembles should be balanced. I base my
remarks on seeing the Quattro Pezzi (su una nota sola) (1959)
in the Koussevitsky Collection at the Boston Public Library.
(That Koussevitsky had a Scelsi score in his possession
boggles the mind!) In the denser textures, every instrument
has its own dynamics, different from all the others. Almost
every note has a dynamic, and sometimes one note ends with a
decrescendo and the next begins with a crescendo; it's not
clear from what dynamic the second note should start.
Conductors usually solve these problems themselves, but
sometimes the publisher distributes a more completely edited
score (a page from the Quattro Pezzi appears in the catalog
put out by Scelsi's publisher Salabert, and unclear dynamics
are evident).
This is the second volume in Mode's ongoing Scelsi series,
promisingly titled "The Orchestral Works I," and it makes a
perfect introduction to the composer. The orchestral music is
much grander and mellower than in the Accord set, and the
combination of miniature vocal works and enormous orchestral
ones makes very clear Scelsi's non-Western interests and
preoccupations. Juan Pablo Izquierdo commands the Carnegie
Mellon Philharmonic with a greater evenness and zest than I
hear in his disc of Xenakis and VarΦse (Mode 58), and I can't
wait for more. In truth, it's easier to listen to Scelsi than
to describe his music. I recommend this disc wholeheartedly.
--- Grant C. Covell, La Folia online review, August 2002
(www.lafolia.com)
Giacinto Scelsi
The Orchestral Works Vol.1
Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic
Juan-Pablo Izquierdo
Mode 95
Since, as Harry Halbreich pointed out, the twentieth century
is now "unthinkable without Scelsi", it's perhaps surprising
that his orchestral works have until now only been recorded
once in their entirety, in 1988, by the chorus and orchestra
of Polish Radio and TV in Krakow conducted by Jⁿrg Wyttenbach.
Though it's most welcome that Mode has now launched its own
Scelsi series, I wonder if Izquierdo and the Carnegie Mellon
Phil wouldn't have been better off going away to summer camp
to rehearse before recording the complete orchestral works on
one double-CD, rather than filling out this disc with the
"Canti del Capricorno" (which perhaps ought to be released
separately in their entirety). These songs, written between
1962 and 1972, with their invented phonetic language and
occasional quasi-ethnic accompanying percussion, have to my
mind always seemed slight, even superficial, in comparison
with the majestic, earth-shattering orchestral music Scelsi
was writing at the same time: "Hurqualia" (1960), "Hymnos"
(1963) and "Konx-Om-Pax" (1968) for large orchestra (augmented
by organ on "Hymnos" and chorus on "Konx") take their place
alongside the major orchestral works of the decade by the
likes of Ligeti, Xenakis, Penderecki and Zimmermann.
"Hurqualia" is, by Scelsi's standards, pretty vicious: his
characteristic exploration of single pitches through timbral
inflection and occasional migration to adjacent microtonal
neighbors becomes a screaming, smearing, seething mass of
lines, accompanied by some thoroughly cathartic blasts of
percussion worthy of VarΦse. "Hymnos", as one might expect, is
more cathedral-like, organ and orchestra combining to create
the fabulous illusion of spectral choirs in the sky above,
while "Konx-Om-Pax" (I agree with Riccardo Schulz's
description of it as "Scelsi's crowning achievement") should
be on every composer's work desk along with Stravinsky's
"Sacre", Debussy's "Jeux" (and a handful of other pieces) as
an example of truly spectacular orchestration. Though the
details of Izquierdo's reading are perhaps clearer than the
earlier Wyttenbach recording, there's something about the
acoustic of that Polish church (Saint Catherine's in Krakow)
that better lends itself to the great sonorous landscapes of
Scelsi's orchestral writing, where both instruments and
performing space must combine to form an immense - and truly
awesome - meta-instrument. There are some significant
differences in terms of tempi: Wyttenbach takes 7'26" to get
through "Konx"'s first movement, while Izquierdo nails it in
5'41"! Wyttenbach's last movement is all over in 8'39", while
Izquierdo drags his out to 9'59". This new disc sounds more
"Romantic" as a result - remember Halbreich also claimed that
this is the music Bruckner would be writing were he alive
today - perhaps Wyttenbach, as an ultra-modern avant-garde
composer himself, was less out to stress the music's spiritual
breadth and more concerned with its tiny spectral details
(shades of what they used to say about Boulez the conductor?).
In any case, after "Konx" dies away, anything, especially the
tiny "Canto No. 19" comes across as an irrelevant
afterthought. That said, I'm looking forward to Volume 2
enormously.
--- Dan Warburton, www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine,
April 2001
SCELSI: Orchestral Works I
Carnegie Mellon Philharmon and Choir; Juan Pablo Izquierdo,
conductor
Mode 95
Another lower case CD label doing yeoman service for
contemporary music, mode issues its first volume of orchestral
works by Giancinto Scelsi (pronounced Shell-see), a favorite
of S.F. Symphony's Michael Tilson Thomas. MTT tells wonderful
stories about the late eccentric Italian, but playing his
music is the greatest compliment, since records reproduce only
a fraction of the visceral excitement of a live performance.
Still, this disc contains vivid readings, in excellent sound,
of "Hymnos," "Hurqualia" and the piece MTT played last season,
"Konx-Om-Pax." The best way to describe Scelsi's large scale
works is to think of a juggernaut, rolling down a steep hill,
getting louder, more insistent, and yes, crushing everything
in its way. I love this music.
--- Stephanie von Buchau, The Tribune, Oakland CA, 21 February
2001
(http://www.moderecords.com/catalog/095scelsi.html)
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01-Canti del Capricorno No 1 [03:33]
02-Hymnos [11:00]
03-Canti del Capricorno No 2 [02:30]
04-Canti del Capricorno No 18 [01:57]
05-Hurqualia I [04:37]
06-Hurqualia II [02:43]
07-Hurqualia III [04:02]
08-Hurqualia IV [03:36]
09-Canti del Capricorno No 14 [03:09]
10-Canti del Capricorno No 15 [02:50]
11-Konx [05:42]
12-Om [02:11]
13-Pax [09:59]
14-Canti del Capricorno No 19 [02:33]
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60:22 min