Sciarrino Rules the Waves! H&N, Sat, 10/6/17; 10:15pm

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

This week's Hear & Now commemorates the recent seventieth birthday of the wonderful composer Salvatore Sciarrino (b7/4/47) with a performance of his Studi Per L'intonazione Del Mare ("Studies for the Tunings of the Sea") from 2000 - scored for solo counter-tenor, two quartets of flutes and saxophones, percussion, and originally an orchestra of 100 flutes and 100 saxophones; a characteristically imaginative ensemble, producing Music that is, as so often with this composer, spell-binding in both its beauty and originality. We seem to be hearing a "chamber version" for a mere 70 of each!

And before that, six works (two of them receiving their World Premieres) by composers who are all still in their twenties - all commissioned for Jack Sheen's new ensemble An Assembly, and "showcasing the huge range of composition in the UK today".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08t159z

With this programme, and the three previous from Techtonics, H&N is on a roll! NB - the slightly later start time this week: tune in at the usual 10 o'clock slot and you'll probably find yourself in the middle of a Mediaeval Eurovision Song Contest.

[Serial_Apologist]

This week's Hear & Now commemorates the recent seventieth birthday of the wonderful composer Salvatore Sciarrino (b7/4/47) with a performance of his Studi Per L'intonazione Del Mare ("Studies for the Tunings of the Sea") from 2000 - scored for solo counter-tenor, two quartets of flutes and saxophones, percussion, and originally an orchestra of 100 flutes and 100 saxophones; a characteristically imaginative ensemble, producing Music that is, as so often with this composer, spell-binding in both its beauty and originality. We seem to be hearing a "chamber version" for a mere 70 of each!

And before that, six works (two of them receiving their World Premieres) by composers who are all still in their twenties - all commissioned for Jack Sheen's new ensemble An Assembly, and "showcasing the huge range of composition in the UK today".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08t159z

With this programme, and the three previous from Techtonics, H&N is on a roll! NB - the slightly later start time this week: tune in at the usual 10 o'clock slot and you'll probably find yourself in the middle of a Mediaeval Eurovision Song Contest.

Thanks for the notice, as always ferney. Something at least, to raise the spirits...

(Anyone else share my envy for these Italians having such amazing names???)

[MrGongGong]

Fantastic stuff
he has some surprising enthusiasts

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Fantastic stuff
he has some surprising enthusiasts

Yes - IIRC, DJ Scanner is a fan?

[MrGongGong]

Yes - IIRC, DJ Scanner is a fan?

So is Tony Pappano

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes - IIRC, DJ Scanner is a fan?

Ah, yes -

https://vimeo.com/130376659

[Beef Oven!]

Can't believe he's 70. The time just seems to fly by.

[Richard Barrett]

Coincidentally I've just been writing a review of a new Sciarrino CD, the complete works for solo violin/viola, performed by Marco Fusi. I know you'll al be rushing to the newsstands to get the latest issue of Tempo when it comes out, but in the meantime I'll say it's a beautiful (somewhat short) CD and the playing is extraordinary. For me when Sciarrino is good he's fantastic, although sometimes he goes through the motions a bit.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

For me when Sciarrino is good he's fantastic, although sometimes he goes through the motions a bit.

Yes - I suppose with such a huge output of works, this isn't unlikely. But Sciarrino's "motions" are so much more rewarding than many other composers (alive and dead - and both) that I am always excited and keen to hear his Music, and (as you suggest with the "a bit") I've never been completely disappointed by any of his works.


(I shall look forward to reading your review when Tempo arrives in the post - sadly, I should warn the Forumistas queuing outside their local newsagents demanding a copy, it is subscription-only periodical, available from Cambridge University Press Journals. Some of the larger libraries will have it available, but, at under £30 a year for four issues [incl P&P], it is an inexpensive way of hearing about what's going on in the sort of Music-making that mainstream Music media likes to pretend doesn't happen any more.)

[Beef Oven!]

Yes - I suppose with such a huge output of works, this isn't unlikely. But Sciarrino's "motions" are so much more rewarding than many other composers (alive and dead - and both) that I am always excited and keen to hear his Music, and (as you suggest with the "a bit") I've never been completely disappointed by any of his works.


(I shall look forward to reading your review when Tempo arrives in the post - sadly, I should warn the Forumistas queuing outside their local newsagents demanding a copy, it is subscription-only periodical, available from Cambridge University Press Journals. Some of the larger libraries will have it available, but, at under £30 a year for four issues [incl P&P], it is an inexpensive way of hearing about what's going on in the sort of Music-making that mainstream Music media likes to pretend doesn't happen any more.)

On this subject, I haven't read 'The Wire' magazine for around 4/5 years. Is it still going/anygood, does anyone know?

[Pianoman]

Yes - I suppose with such a huge output of works, this isn't unlikely. But Sciarrino's "motions" are so much more rewarding than many other composers (alive and dead - and both) that I am always excited and keen to hear his Music, and (as you suggest with the "a bit") I've never been completely disappointed by any of his works.

Recitativo oscuro is a favourite of mine

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

On this subject, I haven't read 'The Wire' magazine for around 4/5 years. Is it still going/anygood, does anyone know?

It's still available - yearly subscriptions £49 print, £30 digital, and individual monthly copies available at selected stockists (including the RFH):

https://www.thewire.co.uk/about/

I can't comment on the quality, I've not read it in years.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Recitativo oscuro is a favourite of mine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AReN6OWSfpk

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Studi per l'intonazione del mare I thought illustrates Richard's point about Sciarrino "going through the motions a bit" in some of his works: the Saxophone sounds familiar from La bocca, i piedi, il suono of three years earlier, the vocal writing from Luci mie traditrici, the whispy flute sounds. And yet, and yet, and yet ... I was completely absorbed in the marvelful sounds for the whole forty minutes of the piece, and they're still "here" this morning, gurgling and popping happily in my memory. I want to listen to the piece again ... and (self-fulfilling prophecy alert) I have the feeling that the more I listen, the more "different" those "familiar" sounds will become.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's no surprise to me that the other works on last night's programme didn't make nearly as deep an impression - and it's no "shame" on the composers involved not to have produced a work that stands out when put in "the same" programme as a work by Sciarrino. For me, there was a diminuendo of interest with each work - I quite enjoyed and was intrigued by the first two works, but gradually lost interest as the time went on. I thought that the last piece was the sort of thing that - if Music Composition was taught in the same sort of way that Art is - would be produced in the folio of an "A"-level student who then went on to study Economics at University.

BUT - I think it's fantastic that The Assembly exists; that somebody has taken the initiative to show the wider(ish) audience that not all young composers in this country churn out safe, "crafted" work that sounds as if it had been written by a fifty-year-old Accountant wondering where their life went wrong. The sense of adventure ... of daring to try "daft" ideas ... the joyful willingness to "fail". All that was so much more important to me than the works' actual "failure" to conform to my own demands of a "successful" work. I hope to hear a lot more from this ensemble.