Scelsi, Giacinto (1905 - 1988)

[Beef Oven!]

[teamsaint]

He seems to be a particularly good example of a composer far more appreciated in his own country that elsewhere , certainly in the UK. No doubt this is a common phenomenon, one becoming harder to understand in the internet age, of which Erkki Sven Tuur is another good example, although one of many.

I Suppose it is a chicken and egg thing to an extent,with ( lack of ) opportunities to hear the music live being the missing link.

It would appear that no Scelsi work has ever been performed at the Proms, for example,which if true is pretty shameful.

I ( we ?)heard Anahit performed at the RFH a couple of years ago, which was a great experience,and although I haven't really followed up on listening to a lot more of music, I will at some point. It is so important that programmers are brave in their programming.

[Richard Barrett]

He seems to be a particularly good example of a composer far more appreciated in his own country that elsewhere , certainly in the UK.

That should actually read "far more appreciated in the rest of Europe than in the UK", and it's a very common phenomenon among 20th and 21st century composers!

Actually Scelsi wasn't much appreciated in Italy for a long time, having been dismissed by the contemporary music establishment as an aristocratic dilettante who paid others to write his compositions down, all of which is true but not really relevant to whether the music is interesting or not. Most of the recordings of his work have been released in France.

[teamsaint]

That should actually read "far more appreciated in the rest of Europe than in the UK", and it's a very common phenomenon among 20th and 21st century composers!

Actually Scelsi wasn't much appreciated in Italy for a long time, having been dismissed by the contemporary music establishment as an aristocratic dilettante who paid others to write his compositions down, all of which is true but not really relevant to whether the music is interesting or not. Most of the recordings of his work have been released in France.

Thanks for that clarification Richard.

[Beef Oven!]

He seems to be a particularly good example of a composer far more appreciated in his own country that elsewhere , certainly in the UK. No doubt this is a common phenomenon, one becoming harder to understand in the internet age, of which Erkki Sven Tuur is another good example, although one of many.

I Suppose it is a chicken and egg thing to an extent,with ( lack of ) opportunities to hear the music live being the missing link.

It would appear that no Scelsi work has ever been performed at the Proms, for example,which if true is pretty shameful.

I ( we ?)heard Anahit performed at the RFH a couple of years ago, which was a great experience,and although I haven't really followed up on listening to a lot more of music, I will at some point. It is so important that programmers are brave in their programming.

I don't think I was with you at the concert that included the Scelsi. I think I'd have remembered that. if it turns out I was, I need to worry!

I was going to say about Europe-wide and Italy etc, but Richard has already explained.

Your post raises an interesting idea. Is it about "brave programming"? Do they need to be brave? I'm not challenging you - you are absolutely right - what I mean is that the lexicon is crucial. Why do we talk about "not an easy listen", "hard going" etc. I read a Gramophone (I think) review of a Pettersson disc and it ended with something like "not for the faint hearted".

As I've said recently, so long as you have some replay equipment or a ticket that will allow you into a venue, listening to music is really easy. After it gets to your ears, it then becomes a cognitive process, nothing to do with the music intrinsically.

[Serial_Apologist]

Why do we talk about "not an easy listen", "hard going" etc. I read a Gramophone (I think) review of a Pettersson disc and it ended with something like "not for the faint hearted".

As I've said recently, so long as you have some replay equipment or a ticket that will allow you into a venue, listening to music is really easy. After it gets to your ears, it then becomes a cognitive process, nothing to do with the music intrinsically.

I suppose it depends in what terms "a difficult listen" is meant. For me, listening to a lot of Mendelssohn is "a difficult listen" because, even if it is a piece of his I'm listening to for the very first time, the ways in which so much of the music lacks interest or any element of surprise makes it boring, and thus difficult to sustain attention. Then there are the kinds of music that are so loud, ugly and/or aggressive that I am literally frightened off. As a "world in a grain of sand" kind of person, all-out sensory engulfment seems like a short cut to present-centred consciousness of the fascist, manipulative mind-domination kind, so I never liked heavily amplified musics of any kind. Go towards music that's difficult in the best sense of challenging to complacency, try to meet it halfway, at any rate to start with; think of it as another antidote to capitalist culture that seeks to seduce you with surface gloss and over-presence; never let it swamp you. I could put it stronger than that.

[Beef Oven!]

I suppose it depends in what terms "a difficult listen" is meant. For me, listening to a lot of Mendelssohn is "a difficult listen" because, even if it is a piece of his I'm listening to for the very first time, the ways in which so much of the music lacks interest or any element of surprise makes it boring, and thus difficult to sustain attention. Then there are the kinds of music that are so loud, ugly and/or aggressive that I am literally frightened off. As a "world in a grain of sand" kind of person, all-out sensory engulfment seems like a short cut to present-centred consciousness of the fascist, manipulative mind-domination kind, so I never liked heavily amplified musics of any kind. Go towards music that's difficult in the best sense of challenging to complacency, try to meet it halfway, at any rate to start with; think of it as another antidote to capitalist culture that seeks to seduce you with surface gloss and over-presence; never let it swamp you. I could put it stronger than that.

That's what this is about. I love that sort of stuff, so it can't be intrinsic to the music, or we'd both like/dislike it

Funny enough, when I wrote that post, I thought of you and your comments about the Merzbow gig.

Do I find Elgar difficult, or do I just not like it?

[Bryn]

... listening to music is really easy. After it gets to your ears, it then becomes a cognitive process, nothing to do with the music intrinsically.

[Beef Oven!]

[Serial_Apologist]

That's what this is about. I love that sort of stuff, so it can't be intrinsic to the music, or we'd both like/dislike it

Funny enough, when I wrote that post, I thought of you and your comments about the Merzbow gig.

Do I find Elgar difficult, or do I just not like it?

Do you dislike some of Elgar, or all of it?

To me his music is expressive of the leisure classes, with time on their hands resulting from their position in society. As such he was able on the one hand to indulge in the kinds of spirituality which music can express only vouchsafed to working class people of his and previous generations closeted in churches on Sundays; it is difficult for me to imagine a working class person without the "right connections" writing music like his, with its redolence of deckchaired summertime relaxation when not deferentially inspired by outer trappings of power, or battling with its own conscience to beyond the grave. So it belongs to a time which can be re-evoked when patriotism once more becomes the refuge of the scoundrel. Do I hate it? No more than I hate Debussy's for being a French version of the aesthetics of its time. Debussy could afford to be aesthetically progressive, and we (well some of us!) love what music can make possible in terms of inner enrichment (if not escapism) while regretting that all the benefits advancing technology could have put at the service of more free time for the creativity of all have instead been devoted to competition over dwindling resources at the expense of environmental degradation, as the Romantics foresaw and the Arts & Crafts movements belatedly idealised in mythologised pasts, whle over the same time the arts have been individualised and professionalised.

This is how questions of this kind all link up for me.

[teamsaint]

I don't think I was with you at the concert that included the Scelsi. I think I'd have remembered that. if it turns out I was, I need to worry!

I was going to say about Europe-wide and Italy etc, but Richard has already explained.

Your post raises an interesting idea. Is it about "brave programming"? Do they need to be brave? I'm not challenging you - you are absolutely right - what I mean is that the lexicon is crucial. Why do we talk about "not an easy listen", "hard going" etc. I read a Gramophone (I think) review of a Pettersson disc and it ended with something like "not for the faint hearted".

As I've said recently, so long as you have some replay equipment or a ticket that will allow you into a venue, listening to music is really easy. After it gets to your ears, it then becomes a cognitive process, nothing to do with the music intrinsically.

I don't think you were there !

When I used the word " Brave", I meant really in terms of their career.

[Beef Oven!]

Do you dislike some of Elgar, or all of it?

The question was rhetorical, but you're quite right, there's a bit of context.

I like Enigma, In the South, 'cello and violin concertos and Dream (honestly!). Sinopoli & the Philharmonia almost cracked the symphonies for me, and I guess I might enjoy them once every five or six years or so.

To me his music is expressive of the leisure classes, with time on their hands resulting from their position in society. As such he was able on the one hand to indulge in the kinds of spirituality which music can express only vouchsafed to working class people of his and previous generations closeted in churches on Sundays; it is difficult for me to imagine a working class person without the "right connections" writing music like his, with its redolence of deckchaired summertime relaxation when not deferentially inspired by outer trappings of power, or battling with its own conscience to beyond the grave. So it belongs to a time which can be re-evoked when patriotism once more becomes the refuge of the scoundrel. Do I hate it? No more than I hate Debussy's for being a French version of the aesthetics of its time. Debussy could afford to be aesthetically progressive, and we (well some of us!) love what music can make possible in terms of inner enrichment (if not escapism) while regretting that all the benefits advancing technology could have put at the service of more free time for the creativity of all have instead been devoted to competition over dwindling resources at the expense of environmental degradation, as the Romantics foresaw and the Arts & Crafts movements belatedly idealised in mythologised pasts, whle over the same time the arts have been individualised and professionalised.

This is how questions of this kind all link up for me.

I struggle with this type of analysis, intellectually I mean - I don't seem to have the brain-power anymore!

Generally, I try to avoid delving into why composers wrote what they wrote. It's not a cop-out, I'm just not curious enough. Sometimes a programme note or a bit of context, I might like. All that stuff around DSCH drives me to distraction!

[vinteuil]

Do you dislike some of Elgar, or all of it? To me his music is expressive of the leisure classes, with time on their hands resulting from their position in society. As such he was able on the one hand to indulge in the kinds of spirituality which music can express only vouchsafed to working class people of his and previous generations closeted in churches on Sundays; it is difficult for me to imagine a working class person without the "right connections" writing music like his, with its redolence of deckchaired summertime relaxation when not deferentially inspired by outer trappings of power, or battling with its own conscience to beyond the grave. .

... Serial - do you approach all music with these sociological spectacles? Does our knowledge of the social environment of Couperin, Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin really help with an understanding of the music they produced? I mean at a deep level - of course the kind of musics their patrons required inform the structures they had to work within : but the actual music itself, the genius of the music - does a sociological take really help our appreciation?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I can't imagine any Music from the Western Classical Traditions written in the 19th Century written by "a working class person"! And Elgar was from a far less "leisured" background than most - AND his "Church" also kept him away from "Social Acceptablilty" for much of his life.

Not quite sure how we got onto Elgar from Scelsi (who was from a much more leisured background than Elgar, of course) - but it's a singularly neat coincidence that BeefO started the new Thread on the tenth anniversary of the death of David Osmond-Smith, one of the great intellectuals of the late Twentieth Century who (amongst many other things) did much to publicise Scelsi's Music.

Some more of this Music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfTjz6emd7c

[vinteuil]

Not quite sure how we got on to Elgar from Scelsi (who was from a much more leisured background than Elgar, of course) -

... wiki provides some colour -

"Born in the village of Pitelli near La Spezia, Scelsi spent most of his time in his mother's old castle where he received education from a private tutor who taught him Latin, chess and fencing... "