Giacinto Scelsi: Chamber Works for Flute & Piano

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
For the first time, we can hear Giacinto Scelsi playing piano! It's short (3:51) and the recording quality substandard, but Scelsi's improvisation with Carin Levine, Krishna e Radha, gives a window into the mind of one of the greats--that until now we could only hear through the veils of transcription and composition. The other premiere is Quays, for alto flute (1954). Levine has made her mark in the avant of avant-garde flute. The remaining pieces here have all been recorded at least twice already. Kristi Becker gives welcomed new perspectives on the piano works Five Incantations and Four Illustrations. --Robert Regile

Tracks:

Hyxos: I. Tranquillo - Carin Levine/Edith Salmen
Hyxos: II. Con Moto - Carin Levine/Edith Salmen
Hyxos: III. Tranquillo - Carin Levine/Edith Salmen
Pwyll - Carin Levine
Cinque Incantesimi: I. Deciso Imperioso - Kristi Becker
Cinque Incantesimi: II. Presto (Wild And Strident) - Kristi Becker
Cinque Incantesimi: III. Agitato - Kristi Becker
Cinque Incantesimi: IV. Lento (Misterioso, Sopran Naturale) - Kristi Becker
Cinque Incantesimi: V. Wild And Strident - Kristi Becker
Rucke Di Guck: I. - Carin Levine/Peter Veale
Rucke Di Guck: II. - Carin Levine/Peter Veale
Rucke Di Guck: III. - Carin Levine/Peter Veale
Quays - Carin Levine
Quattro Illustrazioni: Shesha-Shayi Vishnu - Carin Levine/Kristi Becker/Peter Veale/Edith Salmen
Quattro Illustrazioni: Varaha-Avatara - Carin Levine/Kristi Becker/Peter Veale/Edith Salmen
Quattro Illustrazioni: Rama-Avatara - Carin Levine/Kristi Becker/Peter Veale/Edith Salmen
Quattro Illustrazioni: Krishna-Avatara - Carin Levine/Kristi Becker/Peter Veale/Edith Salmen
Krishna E Radha - Giacinto Scelsi

Amazon.com

For the first time, we can hear Giacinto Scelsi playing piano! It's short (3:51) and the recording quality substandard, but Scelsi's improvisation with Carin Levine, Krishna e Radha, gives a window into the mind of one of the greats--that until now we could only hear through the veils of transcription and composition. The other premiere is Quays, for alto flute (1954). Levine has made her mark in the avant of avant-garde flute. The remaining pieces here have all been recorded at least twice already. Kristi Becker gives welcomed new perspectives on the piano works Five Incantations and Four Illustrations. --Robert Regile

Customer Reviews:

Good performances of middle-period Scelsi.......2003-11-28

This disc is almost exclusively devoted to works from Giacinto Scelsi's middle period, the years that lead up to his breakthrough Quattro pezzi for orchestra. It juxtaposes music for flute with two works for piano solo, and ends with a private tape recording of a late improvisation.

Hyxos, for alto flute, gongs and a bell, is one of the best-known of Scelsi's mid-period works. This three-movement work has the solo flute playing quasi-incantatory melodies in the outer movements, and a more lively, vigorous style in the central one. Against this, the gongs and bell play at important points in the work, setting up a ritualistic atmosphere. Quays, also for alto flute, is, in contrast, more conventionally melodic (as well as shorter). Pwyll, for solo flute, explores very much the same orbit.

More radical is Rucke di guck (the title comes from Cinderella), for piccolo and oboe. Here, the music is largely very fast and detailed, with the incessant chattering of the two instruments sometimes sounding like bird song, sometimes like a conversation. Unlike in later works for similar combinations, such as Ko-Lho, the two instruments remain clearly separate, and Scelsi does not try to blend their timbre.

The piano pieces are more weighty. The Five Incantations are mostly vigorous, toccata-like pieces (two are marked 'Wild and strident'), almost reminiscent of some of the early-20th century constructivist composers (Ornstein, Antheil, Mossolov, et al). Most striking is the fourth, the only slow one in the set, whose repeated focus on a single note hints at Scelsi's fascinations to come. The Four Illustrations, based on Hindu mythology, are more varied, the outer movement largely slow and meditative, the second vigorous, rumbustuous, and the third somewhere in between.

The disc closes with Krishna e Radha, an improvisation for flute and piano recorded on poor-quality tape a year before the composer died. This is an interesting piece, but it's a shame that the excellent performers here did not choose to make their own recording of it in better sound: the tape quality here makes listening something of a trial. Nonetheless, this is a worthwhile disc containing much that is good about mid-period Scelsi.

nice sample of Scelsi's mid period........2003-01-25

This cd plays well, and is a welcome addition to any collection. The compositions are all from the '50s when Scelsi was searching and begining to arrive at his greatness. His interest in oriental, Egyptian, and even Gaelic(!) mythology is noted on this disc.

Some gems here. Rucke di guck is a tour de force of intense, highly interactive dialog for flute,pic.and oboe. This fantastic piece has also been arranged for sax, and can be great that way also. The piano pieces here display a surpisingly tough,rugged approach at times.
As a bonus, a recorded improvisation of Scelsi, aged 81 at the piano joined by Levine on flute. Abstract, enigmatic, beautiful.

My only reservation with this disc is a sense of a little too much warmth and human feeling at times. I would have preferred a more austere and detached approach. Basically, it highlights the link with earlier exoticism a la Debussy, Scriabin, et al., as opposed to a more contempory one, say John Cage for example. It is a minor defect, that doesn't distract too much. The disc is a keeper, and I am tempted to give 5 stars, but I am really excited about the Arditti double disc on Montaigne that just came out!

something there.......2002-04-24

It's like trance music trying to be something more, or variations without a theme. It has something to say in its own right, but you have to listen for a while. The works for different flutes with or without gongs or oboe, or for solo piano, each constantly returning to a single note, all hold and fit together somehow. Some of it sounds like japanese bamboo flute. The last poorly recorded piece, with flute and the composer at the piano, forms a kind of sad coda, like an unfinished Bach fugue. I was reminded of another album where, at the end, someone walks out of the studio and closes the door.

Giacinto Scelsi: Complete Works for Flute & Clarinet

Average customer rating:

A useful survey of mostly minor Scelsi

Giacinto Scelsi: Complete Works for Flute & Clarinet

Manufacturer: Col Legno
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Duets | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0000479AZ
Release Date: 2000-02-14

Customer Reviews:

A useful survey of mostly minor Scelsi.......2004-01-22

This disc claims to contain the complete works for flute and clarinet by the Italian mystic composer Giacinto Scelsi. Though this description is certainly inaccurate--none of the four Ixor pieces for clarinet appear here, nor does Hyxos for flute, gongs and percussion--this disc still contains a good survey of Scelsi's shorter chamber works.

The music on this disc falls naturally into three groups: firstly, the comparatively early, improvisational music written before 1959; secondly works from between 1959 and 1974, which is typically based on microtones and soft floating harmonies; finally the return to a more improvisational nature in the few pieces written after then.

Of the earlier works, the Piccola suite for flute and clarinet is a four-movement work often focused on short, incantatory melodies and repeated notes. In contrast, the flute solos Quays and Pwyll are more meditative and ritualistic in nature. The Tre studi for solo clarinet (also known as the Tre pezzi) are more virtuosic, and the tendency towards complex, difficult writing is taken to its extreme in Preghiera per un' ombra, also for solo clarinet. The last of the early pieces is the intriguing bird-like chatter of Rucke di guck, for the unusal combination of piccolo and oboe.

The next four works return to the flute and clarinet pairing, but in a completely different manner to the Piccola suite. Xnoybis (originally for violin solo) is an essay in slowly floating microtones; the two contrapuntal lines so close in pitch that the listener sometimes hears an illusory beat originating from the interference patterns between them. Ko-Lho is far softer-edged and distinctly more melodic in nature, with the two instruments instruments blending their sound carefully, as they circle weightlessly around a central tone. L'ame ouvert and L'ame ailée (also originally for solo violin) explore much of the same world as Xnoybis, but with a generally harsher tone.

The late works are distinctly contrasted. Maknongan, for solo bass instrument or voice, is played here in a version for contrabass clarinet. Intense and ritualistic, it is one of the finest of Scelsi's late works. Krishna e Radha is transcribed from an improvisation by Scelsi and the American flautist Karin Levine (the original recording, in very poor sound, is available on cpo). It's short, lyrical and somewhat slight.