"Shortly before his death, Giacinto Scelsi finally became famous. But the fame of the 'Quattro Pezzi su una nota sola' (1959), and the success the premieres of the great orchestral works and string quartets met with a year before his death have somewhat overshadowed this central fact: Scelsi's music arises from the voice. His work with Michiko Hirayama generated not only the great cycle of the 'Canti del Capricorno' ('Songs of Capricorn') for soprano solo, but was also the matrix for this form of writing by directed improvisation that is the basis for all his solo instrumental works, and of which the ensemble works are simply the development. As for the a cappella choruses, they make up a remarkable group of seven pieces, the composition of which extends from 1958 to 1973, thus covering Scelsi's most important creative period and ideally reflecting the duality of his music: religious and experimental at the same time, mystic and pre-spectral. On the spiritual level, one finds the attempt at a religious syncretism between Roman Catholicism and Zen Buddhism through the mixture of Gregorian chant and 'shomyo', and on the musical level, a synthesis between the contrapuntal, tonal tradition of European music, enriched with a phrasing of infinitesimal fluctuations of Graptes and pitches in the Japanese style.
"Except for 'Antifona', 'Tre canti sacri' and 'Three Latin Prayers', which use texts from the Latin liturgy, Scelsi's choral pieces are all written on phonemes. It is initially surprising that Scelsi, an excellent poet of the French language whose earliest flashes of inspiration were not musical but poetical, renounced using texts with meanings. At first glance, we tell ourselves that this choice of phonémes is intended to ensure him greater freedom in the intensification of the extraordinary profusion of singing methods and vocal colours that characterise the phrasing of his music. Thus, in addition to vibratos of variable width, infrachromatic glissandi, tremolos, trills, portamenti, glottal stops, blowing—all those ways he had of thickening notes, making their production smooth or granular—he adds specifically phonetic effects: changing vowels on the same pitch in order to modulate the harmonic spectrum, a process used well before Stockhausen systematised it in 'Stimmung' (1968); nasal or guttural production; use of occlusive, fricative and affricative consonants like so many differentiated ways of attacking sound; the superposition of identical melodic lines with lags of text between one voice and another, thus producing an effect of phonetic heterophony. That is the sound side of the Scelsian phonetic imagination but, like his music, which is both experience of sound and mystical through sound, these phonetic 'texts' also have a religious meaning.
"As Michel Rigoni showed, these vocal sonorities constitute a kind of meta-language. In Sauh, Yliam and TKRDG, the same vowels and diphthongs appear that Scelsci, thus following the Vedic tradition, uses for their expressiveness and, one might say, their quasi-meaning as sound. It is known that in the Vedas, particularly with the Pratiskaya treatise, in which the phonetic modes of Vedic religious music are enumerated, the texts have greater importance owing to their sound rather than to their meaning. It is the consonantal accents, the colour of the vowels that, even before the meaning of the text, are Epos: for striking the participant in the ritual. Similarly, in the musical tradition of Tibetan lamas, the two syllables 'Om' and 'Hum' are the syllabic incarnations of the spirit-matter duality. This mystique of vocal sound is found in Scelsi's music. The syllable 'Om', which lends its name to the central movement of the triptych for chorus and orchestra Konx-Om-Pax, also appears at the end of the first piece in RDG when the third bass breathes out the concluding phrase on a low E. On the other rane the phonemes 'Sa' and 'Ri', which always express terror in the Tibetan tradition, are practically absent from Scelsi's work (and later on, we will see the reciprocal importance of the word 'Pax' in the choruses on Italian texts), whereas he frequently uses 'GU' and 'Di' whose joining in Sanskrit means 'to pray'. One also hears 'Gou', 'Dó', 'Ke', 'Dn', 'TI', 'Kou' and 'DI', characteristic of ancient Mesopotamian languages such as Hittite. For although Scelsi's choral music takes its inspiration from Oriental religions, it also seeks to be the reinvention of Mesopotamian music. The result of this mixture is imaginary religious singing that—with the exception of Antifona, directly stemming from Gregorian chant—is to dogmatic ritual what, for example, folk music according to Bartók is to Transylvanian folk music: a synthesis of spirit going through the recreation of the letter; a mixture of cultures and periods; a learned art based on popular practices in order to transcend its message.
"'Antifona (sul nome Gesú)' ('Antiphony on the Name Jesus', 1970) belongs to the works with a Latin text, but the source of inspiration is, as Michel Rigoni points out, less Western than Syrian or Byzantine Leary In this piece, Scelsi takes responsorial or antiphonal psalmody as a model: two voices (chorus of tenors and basses in unison — or soloists) answer each other on the name of Jesus. Here there is no heterophonic writing nor phonetic meta-language, but rather a kind of modal neo-Gregorian whose melodic line, with its Initial leap of a fifth recalls both the 'Ave Maris stella' and a hymn to Jesus from the Byzantine tradition. 'The Three Latin Prayers' (1970) feature the same neo-mediaeval 'minimalism', heightened in this recording by the fact that the women's chorus sings in the distance, then draws closer, like a procession of nuns.
"The 'spectral' choruses 'TKRDG' (1968), for six men’s voices, is essentially a rhythmic piece structured on the consonants of the title, irresistibly bringing to mind that exercise of Indian percussionists who memorise the rhythms of the tabla through the articulation of a series of meaningless percussive syllables. Here the voices are sustained by three percussionists (primarily playing conga drums), and an amplitied guitar played on the musician's lap (and therefore almost without the left hand, but the guitar has a special tuning; above all, one hears open strings and arpeggios on the tail piece): how can one help but think of the music of Northern India, with the congas taking the place of tablas, and the guitar replacing the tambura, in a sort of virtuoso rhythmic duel in which the voice guides the rhythm, taken up by the percussion and sustained, as in imaginary ragas, by the resonance of the strings?
"'Yliam' (1964) provides a total contrast with TKRDG: music of continuity and overlap, it prefigures Ligeti's famous 'Lux aeterna' (written two years later, but Ligeti, like everyone else, did not know this work, as it was not created until 1990). Thus, it would be more pertinent to evoke—since this is a question of 'immemorial' music—the passi-but-but of Taiwanese fishermen, a stupefying vocal tradition where the voices pile up by sliding progressively and imperceptibly higher. 'Yliam' is written in ten real parts (two solo sopranos, two solo altos and a double chorus of sopranos and altos, each divided in three parts). Here we do find, were it only everything said above, contrapuntal writing but, as in 'Lux aeterna', it is only the stratagem by which Scelsi obtains the sound of a moving framework, a long sliding cluster, giving greater importance to the furthest registers of the female voice, only a third wide (A-C), moving unbroken with imperceptible entrances, up to E flat. And still these pitches should be.defined as 'thick notes', to borrow Harry Halbreich's expression, the A, for example, going from G three-fourths sharp to B flat, by the lay of quarter-tones, and the more or less wide vibrato.
"'Yliam' (1964) provides a total contrast with TKRDG: music of continuity and overlap, it prefigures Ligeti's famous 'Lux aeterna' (written two years later, but Ligeti, like everyone else, did not know this work, as it was not created until 1990). Thus, it would be more pertinent to evoke—since this is a question of 'immemorial' music—the passi-but-but of Taiwanese fishermen, a stupefying vocal tradition where the voices pile up by sliding progressively and imperceptibly higher. 'Yliam' is written in ten real parts (two solo sopranos, two solo altos and a double chorus of sopranos and altos, each divided in three parts). Here we do find, were it only everything said above, contrapuntal writing but, as in 'Lux aeterna', it is only the stratagem by which Scelsi obtains the sound of a moving framework, a long sliding cluster, giving greater importance to the furthest registers of the female voice, only a third wide (A-C), moving unbroken with imperceptible entrances, up to E flat. And still these pitches should be.defined as 'thick notes', to borrow Harry Halbreich's expression, the A, for example, going from G three-fourths sharp to B flat, by the lay of quarter-tones, and the more or less wide vibrato.
"The 'Tre Canti popolari' ('Three Popular Songs', 1958) have not enjoyed the same success as their 'religious' counterpart, the 'Tre Canti sacri' (Scelsi's sole success in choral music), even though we find the same spirit and technique here. However, this is a work in which Scelsi calls for 'natural voices', probably like those one might hear in some isolated village along the shores of the Mediterranean. Sung here by four soloists in order to respect this folk-like character, Scelsi pairs the voices (a dessu—soprano and tenor—and a teneur—alto and bass) in primitive, traditional forms of polyphony: polyphony by overlap, polyphony over an ostinato in which Scelsi for once (and for the last time) writes true melodies, formulas decorating the diatonic phrase of the basses that is repeated in progressively longer values. There is also, as in every work of Scelsi's, a harmonic/polar journey: from G to G sharp in the first piece, from F sharp to the fourth (B) in the second, and a focus on C in the third.
"The choruses of the 'religious-experimental' synthesis 'Sauh' is a cycle of two sets of two pieces for women's voices. 'Sauh' I-/I does not, strictly speaking, belong to the choral works, being written for two solo women’s voices (or for voice and magnetic tape). 'Sauh' III-IV (1973), recorded here, is the development of the two initial pieces, using the same honetic 'text', but with forces douled. Here we experience one of Scelsi's most constant writing principles a two-part counterpoint in which each line is divided in two singing. voices with slight time-lags (heterophony), and that within a very limited ambitus (here, barely more than a third). But sauh, in pre-Buddhist civilisations, is a word with a very broad meaning: 'power' and 'domain' as well as 'tolerance' and 'wisdom'. As Michel Rigoni pointed out, this cycle of four Sauh (in a sense, 'the four widsoms') can be related to the 'Praises of the Four Wisdoms', a Buddhist chant in the Japanese shomyo tradition.
"'Tre Canti sacri' (1958), for eight mixed voices, is understandably Scelsi's best-known choral piece. Here he synthesises his various writing techniques: polar notes, melodic or phonemic heterophonies, infra-chromatic glissandi, off-centre arch form, quasitonal language, systematic use of quarter-tones (less for writing micro-tonal melodies as for enlarging the palette of vocal inflexions—these are thus ornamental micro-intervals as can be heard in recent interpretations of Gregorian chant). As Harry Halbreich pointed out, Scelsi sometimes writes doublings an octave higher, distorted by a quarter-tone, with the effect of bringing out the beating, or even_additional sounds (in the first of the 'Tre Canti sacri', by the friction of an E and a D three-quarters sharp) appear. But all this, which comes under modernity, is cast in a mediaeval form. The 'Tre Canti sacri' are motets in ternary form written on liturgical texts. The first deals with the Annunciation, using 'Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae et concepit de Spiritu Sancto' as the text; the second is the introit from the 'Requiem'; and the third, the 'Gloria in excelsis Deo'. As Michel Rigoni writes: 'All the tension that has built up in the course of these pieces converges on the final 'pax in terra', in a particularly impressive climax (third piece, bars 40-52) where, after ten extremely strained bars written in eight real parts on a single note (D flat) and textually based on the hypnotic repetition of the word 'pax', we have the explosion of polyphony in a dense, mobile texture, all the more striking as it is unusual in Scelsi's universe. The effect of this passage is undoubtedly intended to make the listener aware of the importance of this message of peace. With this final shock, the 'Tre Canti sacri' relate back to the tradition of the great works like Konx-Om-Pax (the title says ‘peace’ in three languages). The thirst for peace appears to be the cardinal point of Scelsi's thinking. Far from wishing to create a universal religious music, an ecumenical musical rite, Scelsi uses elements from known traditions in order to go beyond the eventual factors of conflicts between these religions, striving for a religion without God or worship but in search of a profound reality of the universe and a spirit of peace.
"The choruses of the 'religious-experimental' synthesis 'Sauh' is a cycle of two sets of two pieces for women's voices. 'Sauh' I-/I does not, strictly speaking, belong to the choral works, being written for two solo women’s voices (or for voice and magnetic tape). 'Sauh' III-IV (1973), recorded here, is the development of the two initial pieces, using the same honetic 'text', but with forces douled. Here we experience one of Scelsi's most constant writing principles a two-part counterpoint in which each line is divided in two singing. voices with slight time-lags (heterophony), and that within a very limited ambitus (here, barely more than a third). But sauh, in pre-Buddhist civilisations, is a word with a very broad meaning: 'power' and 'domain' as well as 'tolerance' and 'wisdom'. As Michel Rigoni pointed out, this cycle of four Sauh (in a sense, 'the four widsoms') can be related to the 'Praises of the Four Wisdoms', a Buddhist chant in the Japanese shomyo tradition.
"'Tre Canti sacri' (1958), for eight mixed voices, is understandably Scelsi's best-known choral piece. Here he synthesises his various writing techniques: polar notes, melodic or phonemic heterophonies, infra-chromatic glissandi, off-centre arch form, quasitonal language, systematic use of quarter-tones (less for writing micro-tonal melodies as for enlarging the palette of vocal inflexions—these are thus ornamental micro-intervals as can be heard in recent interpretations of Gregorian chant). As Harry Halbreich pointed out, Scelsi sometimes writes doublings an octave higher, distorted by a quarter-tone, with the effect of bringing out the beating, or even_additional sounds (in the first of the 'Tre Canti sacri', by the friction of an E and a D three-quarters sharp) appear. But all this, which comes under modernity, is cast in a mediaeval form. The 'Tre Canti sacri' are motets in ternary form written on liturgical texts. The first deals with the Annunciation, using 'Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae et concepit de Spiritu Sancto' as the text; the second is the introit from the 'Requiem'; and the third, the 'Gloria in excelsis Deo'. As Michel Rigoni writes: 'All the tension that has built up in the course of these pieces converges on the final 'pax in terra', in a particularly impressive climax (third piece, bars 40-52) where, after ten extremely strained bars written in eight real parts on a single note (D flat) and textually based on the hypnotic repetition of the word 'pax', we have the explosion of polyphony in a dense, mobile texture, all the more striking as it is unusual in Scelsi's universe. The effect of this passage is undoubtedly intended to make the listener aware of the importance of this message of peace. With this final shock, the 'Tre Canti sacri' relate back to the tradition of the great works like Konx-Om-Pax (the title says ‘peace’ in three languages). The thirst for peace appears to be the cardinal point of Scelsi's thinking. Far from wishing to create a universal religious music, an ecumenical musical rite, Scelsi uses elements from known traditions in order to go beyond the eventual factors of conflicts between these religions, striving for a religion without God or worship but in search of a profound reality of the universe and a spirit of peace.
"This being learned vocal music of oral tradition, Scelsi needs interpreters capable of 'reading between the lines', since nothing essential is written if not there. It is necessary for the musicians to have understood that micro-intervals are not approximations of 'true' pitches, that playing styles are not a colour added to the melody, but the very foundation of the phrasing. The New London Chamber Choir, directed by James Wood and thoroughly familiar with the practice of micro-tonal music, is made up of such musicians. This recording of Scelsi’s choral music is the first complete recording, and, as concerns certain pieces 'PFKRDG', 'Yliam', 'Tre Canti popolari'), includes world premieres. It was made following a concert in tribute to Scelsi, celebrating the tenth anniversary of his death, given in September 1998 at the Abbey of Royaumont, in the framework of the 'Voix Nouvelles' ('New Voices') Festival. This music's difficulty of apprehension (even more than the difficulty of performing it) explains why we are hearing it for the first time as it is meant to sound, these works that are some forty—and thousands of—years old." (Marc Texier, tr. John Tyler Tuttle. From the liner notes.)
Performers: New London Chamber Choir, Percussive Rotterdam, James Wood
1. Three Latin Prayers: No. 1
2. Three Latin Prayers: No. 2
3. Three Latin Prayers: No. 3
4. Sauh III
5. Sauh IV
6. TKRDG I
7. TKRDG II
8. TKRDG III
9. Antifona
10. Yliam
11. Tre Canti Popolari: No. 1
12. Tre Canti Popolari: No. 2
13. Tre Canti Popolari: No. 3
14. Tre Canti Sacri: No. 1
15. Tre Canti Sacri: No. 2
16. Tre Canti Sacri: No. 3
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