Giacinto Scelsi C/D S/D?

here's an article on him: http://www.hud.ac.uk/schools/music+humanities/music/newmusic/scelsi.html

eh?

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=4:43:39|PM&sql=Abgem97qakrkt

i like that he was fantastically rich

Thanks for the article, Julio. It's great, from a sort of anal-retentive musicologist perspective.

like Julio, i can't explain quite why i like it or what i'd call it (which is a good relationship for me to have with music)

thought you'd like it charlie. The picture cleared up a bit actually but I'd prob need to learn more jargon.

you want all of us to become insane

http://www.musicaltimes.co.uk/archive/0102/scelsi.html

blogspots coming up blank for

http://www.discogs.com/Various-New-Music-For-String-Quartet/release/772102

And here I thought Scelsi fans wore blue...

http://www.uitti.org/scelsi.html

It was during these sessions that he first played one of his taped improvisations made on the ondiola. This is a small electronic instrument with a three-octave keyboard. Additional dials and keys were available for producing glissandi, quarter-tones, vibrato and predetermined timbres. There were pedals to control additional octave transpositions as well as dynamics. Most of Scelsi's chamber music and orchestral pieces were created using this instrument.

The ondiola was a tool for far more radical musical thought. One finds a remarkable variety of techniques. Here Scelsi explored the limits of extreme velocity, dynamics, range, and duration. Many improvisations were centred on sudden variations in the dynamic texture, giving a sense of great power and vitality. There were also a number of monodic works, some highly ornamented around a basic melodic line. Others used extreme speeds of oscillating repeated figures, and still others incorporated dramatically pulsating dynamics in the low register. He used glissandi of various speeds as well as quartertones. Two and three equally important voices were simultaneously explored, at times using microtones and at other times glissandi in slow durations.

The ondiola works generally exhibit a unique sense of assymetry. Melodies that seem destined to create a tone centre suddenly break free to move into foreign registers with new harmonic implications, at times in wildly spaced intervals and at extreme speeds. The later works were often centred around an extended single tone with multiple voicings, in octaves. This single tone was compositionally developed by vibrati of various speeds, pulsations, glissandi and microtones. Comparatively speaking the later works have a longer duration, and often explore a richer timbre. Several of these last pieces were combined with prerecorded ondiola tapes played back normally or even backwards, producing a very rough timbral texture filled with overtones and subtle accents. Only the ondiola improvisations were transcribed for other instruments. I think it is important to acknowledge Vieri Tosatti's masterful and remarkably innovative realizations of the large ondiola scores. The guitar works are particularly impressive. Tapping, stroking, and strumming into a microphone transformed this too familiar instrument into a veritable percussion section.

so, it's been transferred... when will we get to hear the tapes of Scelsi's electronic music

!!!

That's from October 1995!

I must say I never listened to him, but Omaggio a Giacinto Scelsi by Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza is immense and makes me want to find his stuff.

would recommend starting with the Wyttenbach recording of Uaxuctum

http://rapidshare.com/files/34483520/Giacinto_Scelsi-quattro_pezzi__anahit___uaxuctum_-_1989.rar

& my favorite single disc overview is the one on Editions RZ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USk6UrE8cuI

equipment demo of the Ondiola @ 4:00, including a brief snippet of someone recreating a layered Scelsi-esque drone with the instrument to suggest what his multitrack improvisations sounded like

sure hope we get to hear those someday

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dod-idx/recovering-giacinto-scelsis-tapes.pdf?c=icmc;idno=bbp2372.2007.037

Recovering Giacinto Scelsi's Tapes

I don't suppose these have seen the light of day yet?

Can anyone recommend a good overview--that could mean book, compilation, or even online resource--of contemporary 'classical' music in this vein (as in frequently dissonant, occasionally difficult, dark orchestral stuff)? I'm a novice when it comes to this music, but I like what I've heard of Scelsi, Ligeti, some Messiaen, and rando odd stuff like Roland Kayn. I'm also way, way deep into the Tarkosvky soundtracks right now (and interested in hearing more Artemiev in general). But I have no real context, frame of reference, or sense of history (not that such things are necessary to enjoy anything, but indulge me). Little help?