Cantéodjayâ was written in 1948. Messiaen had long been interested in Hindu rhythms, relying on the listing of 120 such rhythms in the thirteenth-century Sangitaratnākara of Sarngadeva.
The score includes names drawn from this work and from Karnatic musical theory, the latter including the title of the work, indicating the element with which the piece opens, interspersed with intervening material.
The sixth appearance of this characteristic rhythm and figuration is followed by three brief refrains, a first couplet, a return of the first refrain and a second couplet. There follows the second refrain and third couplet, including a six voice canon. The first and third refrains are heard before the final return of the original cantéyndjayâ.
The work contains elements further explored in the Mode de valeurs et d’intensités. At a first hearing a listener unfamiliar with the style of writing might do worse than keep in mind the opening phrases, although the general form is one rather of superimposition than extensive repetition and development.
[Keith Anderson]
Neumes rythmiques (Neumi Ritmici) è il terzo dei Quattro Studi sul Ritmo di Olivier Messiaen, che comprendono anche il famoso Modi di Valori e di Intensità, ma è stato il primo ad essere terminato (1949).
In realtà il termine Neuma Ritmico è paradossale, perché i neumi sono una notazione melodica, ritmicamente indefinita, o, almeno, non definita con precisione. Qui, però, Messiaen opera una trasposizione e descrive così il brano:
Osservando le differenti figurazioni dei neumi nel canto piano, ho avuto l’idea di cercare delle corrispondenze ritmiche. La sinuosità melodica indicata dai neumi si muta in gruppi di durate. Ogni neuma ritmico è provvisto di una intensità fissata e di risonanze cangianti, più o meno chiare o scure, sempre contrastanti.
Traduzione mia:
come sentirete chiaramente, questo brano è formato da vari elementi melodico/armonici ben distinti. Ogni elemento è caratterizzato da un certo colore armonico fisso, una certa durata, che in partenza è fissa, e una data intensità, anch’essa fissa.
Così ogni elemento è, per Messiaen, un neuma. In tal modo, la successione dei neumi si tramuta in una successione di elementi, ciascuno con caratteri ben precisi e soprattutto, con una durata fissata. Di conseguenza, una serie di neumi determina una serie di eventi di colore armonico e intensità diverse, ognuno dei quali ha una precisa durata, caratteristica, quest’ultima, importante per il Messiaen dei Quattro Studi sul Ritmo, come il titolo suggerisce.
A complicare le cose, le durate subiscono delle mutazioni nel corso del brano. In una serie di neumi si espandono di un piccolo valore fisso, in un’altra cambiano seguendo una serie di numeri primi, mentre in una terza restano fisse.
Al di là della curiosità, questo studio è molto importante perché deriva dalla Cantéodjayâ, un lavoro basato sui talas (ritmi) indù che vi presenterò più avanti e anticipa l’inserimento dei canti degli uccelli, ognuno dei quali è assimilabile a un “neuma ornitologico”, nel senso che è un oggetto in sé dotato di caratteristiche ben precise.
Morton Feldman – The Turfan Fragments (1980), for chamber orchestra
The Turfan Fragments is pitched for a reduced chamber orchestra and marks the beginning of a pause in Feldman’s writing for orchestra that lasted a half decade (until he resumed it with Coptic Light).
The title refers to a significant trove of manuscripts in various languages discovered by German researchers in the early 20th century along the ancient Silk Road and which had been hidden away during the war. Feldman likely saw some of the collection when parts of it were again made available in Berlin, where he lived in the early 1970s. Feldman’s delicate stitching together of fragmentary but elusively repetitive particles hints at the enigmatic character of their namesake.
Feldman’s score repeatedly asks for an intensely subdued dynamic field (ppppp) which belies the tension of its chromatic blurs of dissonance and shifting pulsations. There are no violins to sweeten the palette, giving Feldman’s pointillist chords a tangier sound. Like Rothko’s lozenges of color, the musical fabric slowly draws out slight variations in perspective as fragments intersect and become absorbed into the whole, leaving us to savor their resonance.
A series of archaeological expeditions to East Turkestan, conducted by Sir Aurel Stein in the early part of this century, unearthed several fragments of knotted carpets dating from the third and sixth centuries. Though these fragments were too small to indicate either its design or provenance, they did convey a long tradition of carpet weaving. This is to a large degree the extended metaphor of my composition: not the suggestion of an actual completed work of “art”, but the history in Western music of putting sounds and instruments together.
Luigi Nono A Carlo Scarpa architetto, ai suoi infiniti possibili (1984)
per orchestra a microintervalli.
Sinfonieorchester des Südwestfunks, Michael Gielen, direction.
A Carlo Scarpa architetto, ai suoi infiniti possibili è opera dell’ultima vertiginosa stagione creativa del compositore veneziano, segnata dall’assoluta libertà formale, da un tessuto musicale fatto di lancinanti frammenti e importantissimi silenzi divarie sfumature, di anticipi e tensioni a quello che ancora mancao a quello che a fatica si ode. Dopo i trent’anni di una splendida stagione creativa, dai contenuti umanissimi e politici, Nono approda all’Unklangbar di Wittgenstein, alla violenza espressiva dell’irresonabile (come può tradursi il neologismo wittgensteiniano). Il compositore, anima autenticamente rivoluzionaria, intesse le sue partiture di pianissimo (sino a sette p!) contro la violenza non solo acustica del quotidiano contemporaneo ma anche contro la violenza di un passato musicale spesso subìto, cerca un “mondo lontanissimo e misterioso […] per sognare vari possibili futuri”. Il lavoro compositivo è sempre più fatto con altri, che sia l’Iperuranio di menti elevate che abitano gli studi, le letture e il lavorìo intellettuale del compositore, che sia fisicamente il lavoro sperimentale fatto con i musicisti interpreti, ormai consustanziale all’idea creativa: “ascoltare nel silenzio gli altri l’altro”. Il suono si carica del senso dell’essere e la sua naturale evidenza, non piegata da ragioni formali, crea una condizione di tensione permanente sentita come l’unica autenticamente umana. Evidentemente non c’è nulla di superfluo in questi luoghi sonori di arrischiata immaginazione. Se già del Canto sospeso erano stati rilevati la concentrazione eloquente e il riserbo, le isole di suono dell’ultima produzione, “infiniti colori-suoni-echi-spazi”, sono le illuminazioni di un mistico. E Nono trova il motto del suo ultimo ciclo di lavori, “caminantes, no hay camino, hay que caminar” a Toledo nel chiostro di un convento francescano del XVIII secolo.
In A Carlo Scarpa risuona l’utopia degli infiniti possibili, in perfetta consonanza col lavoro creativo dell’architetto amico, che parimenti usava dello spazio come elemento compositivo. Una natura aristocraticamente artigianale, il genio per i dettagli tecnologici, la raffinata sensibilità materica e la tensione creativa verso spazi possibili (e impossibili) avvicinano Scarpa a Nono, che nell’opera in memoria dell’amico realizza i suoi frammenti su due sole note mosse da microintervalli di 1/4, 1/8 e 1/16 di tono, sugli aloni e gli “infiniti colori-suoni-echi-spazi” derivati da una impressionante gamma di dinamiche: “Microintervalli di altezza e di dinamica sono tecnicamente possibili evitando banali approssimazioni ed effetti inquinanti di ottave, articolando tecnica e qualità del suono, vari gradi di sua presenza-pensiero, varie gradualità possibili tante, tutte da poter ascoltare”.
L’orchestra è attentamente pensata: mancano gli oboi e la tuba e sono rafforzati i flauti e i tromboni, il gruppo ascetico delle percussioni (campane, timpani e 7 triangoli di diversa altezza) è come un’orchestra Zhou (Cina 1075-221 a.C.) e gli archi senza secondi violini sono otto per sezione. Ne nasce un’opera ieratica, di spazi cupi e sacri che potrebbero essere occupati da silenziosi e misteriosi rituali.
Non si può tacere il nome di Scelsi parlando di un lavoro sulle variazioni microtonali di due unici suoni, e tutto sommato il nome di Scelsi getta luce sul percorso estremo di Nono legato a tante fascinazioni alchemiche, al confine del non poter dire – un processo che Cacciari, che così spesso ha trovato all’ultimo Nono le
parole per dire, definisce kenotico, di svuotamento. Dunque anche Nono verso una riduzione che apre l’ascolto di tempi e spazi inauditi; il ricercare luoghi sonori abitati da una tensione verso l’infinito avvicina Nono a Scelsi, e a Scarpa, come Scelsi più consapevole dell’Oriente presente in tale percorso. Eppure per Nono, diversamente che per Scelsi, non si tratta di una liberazione dal mondo ma di una liberazione del mondo, dall’imposizione che lo condanna al male dell’insignificanza o alla meccanicità dell’accadere, sognando un futuro concretamente possibile, come gli infiniti di Carlo Scarpa, per “non dire addio alla speranza”.
[Luciana Galliano]
The music does proceed in traditional ritornello fashion, with statements by the violin being followed by answers from the orchestra, and so on. Rarely does the soloist play with the full orchestra. Xenakis had by this point written a number of pieces for the violin, both as a solo instrument (Mikka, Mikka “S”) and in a chamber context (Dikhthas, Ikhoor, Tetras, etc.). The solo part, then, is extraordinarily virtuosic, as any good concerto should be, but many of the technical difficulties are peculiar to this composer’s style. After a lengthy hiatus from using his characteristic sliding string glissandi (the solo violin piece, Mikka (1971), is nothing but glissandi!), Xenakis reintroduced the glissando in this piece. Indeed, this style of playing is one of the main features of the solo part in Dox-Orkh. The music proceeds episodically, the sinewy, at times frenetic, lines of the violin trading off with dense orchestral sonorities. Xenakis uses clusters widely, playing off the bright colors of high woodwinds with massive string blocks and aggressive brass sounds. There is what might be thought of as a typical “slow” movement in the middle of this continuous piece. The texture thins, leaving the violin and the horns to unfold a rather plaintive, modal-sounding melody. The melody is also the harmony, a tricky feat achieved by overlapping the instruments and having each sustain its melodic note past the next one. The violin, too, is asked to sustain a note on one string while playing the next note on an adjacent string, holding the first one until the note following. No doubt it is difficult for the violinist to keep fingers from getting tied in knots! The strings fill out a background pad at different points in this section, gradually increasing the activity until the texture changes definitively. As the music builds momentum and density, Xenakis inserts a funny little dance break, with cluster chords being bounced around the orchestra in rhythmic fashion. Not regular rhythms, but it certainly seems so at first hearing. The music winds up, building to a powerful orchestral passage, then dissipates, finishing with grating double-stops in the violin, and soft, slow-moving clusters in the orchestral strings.
Gubaidulina’s entire piano output belongs to her earlier compositional period and consists of the following works: Chaconne (1962), Piano Sonata (1965), Musical Toys (1968), Toccata-Troncata (1971), Invention (1974) and Piano Concerto “Introitus” (1978). Some of the titles reveal her interest in baroque genres and the influence of J.S. Bach.
The Piano Sonata is dedicated to Henrietta Mirvis, a pianist greatly admired by the composer. The work follows the classical formal structure in 3 movements: Allegro (Sonata form), Adagio, and Allegretto. Four motives (pitch sets) are utilized throughout the entire sonata, which also constitute the cyclical elements upon which the rhetoric of the piece is constructed. Each motive is given a particular name: “spring”, “struggle”, “consolation,” and “faith.”
There are two elements in the primary thematic complex of the first movement: (1) a “swing” theme, characterized by syncopation and dotted rhythms and (2) a chord progression, juxtaposing minor and major seconds over an ostinato pattern in the left hand. The slower secondary theme introduces a melodic element associated with the ostinato element of the previous theme. In the development section, these sets are explored melodically, while the dotted rhythm figure gains even more importance. In the recapitulation, the chord progression of the first thematic complex is brought to the higher registers, preparing the coda based on secondary theme cantabile element, which gradually broadens. The second movement shifts to a different expressive world. A simple ternary form with a cadenza-AB (cadenza) A, the B section represents an acoustic departure as the chromatic figurations in the left hand, originating in section A, are muted. In the cadenza the performer improvises within a framework given by the composer, inviting a deeper exploration of the secrets of sound. It consists of two alternating elements- open-sounding strings, stroke by fingers, with no pitch determination, and muted articulation of the strings in the bass register-separated by rests marked with fermatas. The third movement is constructed of 7 episodes, in which there is a continuous liberation of energy accumulated during the previous movement.
Musical expression in this work is achieved through a variety of means. Rhythm is a very important element in the construction of the work, articulating a distinct rhetoric, as well as in the development of the musical material. Exploration of a wide range of sounds, within the possibilities of the instrument, involving both traditional and nontraditional methods of sound productions are another important mean.
Some examples of the nontraditional sounds produced are a glissando performed with a bamboo stick on the piano pegs against a cluster performed on the keyboard, placing the bamboo stick on vibrating strings, plucking the strings, glissando along the strings using fingernail, touching the strings creating a muted effect.
Two distinct aspects of the sonata-the driving force and the meditative state-can be seen through the architecture of the work as portraying the image of the cross. The first movement is related to the “horizontal” line, which symbolizes human experience while the second movement reflects the “vertical” line, which represents man’s striving for full realization in the Divine. The meeting point of these two lines in music happens at the end of second movement, and that reflects transformation of the human being at crossing this two dimensions. The third movement “celebrates the newly obtained freedom of the spirit”.
Nel Buddismo Theravada, Anagamin significa “uno che ritorna una sola volta”, cioè qualcuno che è sfuggito al ciclo delle morti e delle rinascite ed è destinato a reincarnarsi soltanto una volta ancora, prima del Nirvana [Britannica online].
Dal punto di vista musicale, si tratta di un brano per 12 archi composto nel 1965, una meditazione intorno a una sola nota, tema caro a Giacinto Scelsi.
Questa volta la nota centrale è il SIb che si riflette anche nell’accordatura del due violoncelli, l’uno innalzando la corda più acuta, LA, a SIb, mentre l’altro abbassa di un tono il DO grave.
The new album by Vladislav Makarov “Multiplying Real – Multicello”, (c) makART rec. 038
Makarov is a pioneer free improvised music in Russia, the known cellist-experimentalist, this is a solo work, but not quite usual. 20 short pieces recorded with using the usual analog delay, but with mass author’s preparations such as the objects in strings, wooden, bamboo and plastic sticks, combs, straightedges of the miscellaneous format, as well as makarov’s branded receiving playing on cello as on guitar, referring us from hard-rock to technic great english musician Derek Bailey. The album as a whole carries the experimental character, but many acceptances Makarov used repeatedly above-ground performances. All the pieces have a different invoice and expression, but collected in conceptual album, subordinated powerful direction of the author. Many the tracks can cause the shock and perplexity, but the electric cello here sounds as whole orchestra in spirit of avantgarde composer Xenakis or Stokhausen. Stylistic and genre of the work it is difficult to define, it obviously much broader notorious free improvisation, but is an colours by the palette all radical styles our time from freejazz, avant-rock up to noise and drone…
For Irving Lippel è una composizione del 2004 di John Link (1962), compositore di Boston, allievo di Elliott Carter, aperto a varie esperienze: ha composto lavori per diversi media (orchestra, formazioni cameristiche, jazz ensembles, rock band e sistemi elettroacustici).
Questo brano è una fantasia che esplora le suggestive potenzialità della combinazione chitarra – vibrafono.
Oggi ci occupiamo di Lewis Nielson (che giovane non è, essendo nato nel 1950) e di una sua composizione per orchestra del 2005, chiamata St. Francis preaches to the birds.
Lewis Nielson’s compositional influences include the music of Luciano Berio, Edgard Varèse, and Iannis Xenakis. He is also heavily influenced by a wide range of philosophers including Edmund Husserl, Karl Marx, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as painting, poetry, and film.
Grants and awards for Nielson’s music include the Cleveland Arts Prize, Delius Trust, Groupe de Musique Expérimentale de Bourges in France, Ibla Foundation of Italy, International Society of Bassists, Meet the Composer, and National Endowment for the Arts. Nielson taught for 21 years at the University of Georgia in Athens, and since 2000 he has been on faculty at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he is director of the composition division. His work is recorded on the aca Digital, Albany, Capstone, Centaur, innova, and MMC labels.
Di questo brano l’autore scrive
“The piece is one long phrase. The single ‘phrase’ is kept in motion (perhaps suspension is a better word) through layering and elision of material within the layers … [There is a] gradual transformation from pitched, to less-pitched, to essentially non-pitched material in the solo violin part which, in turn, radiates in widely varying and sometimes very surprising ways throughout the sub-groupings and ‘sections’ of the ensemble.
“The piece is also like a funnel, or thresher, collecting seemingly disparate material, combining it and recombining it, turning one kind of music into another, winnowing out some aspects of an idea and transforming it into something new, resulting a continuous overlapping of ideas … Alternately in support and in contrast to the solo violin music, the other instruments also make musical contributions of their own, even in the act of assimilating or transforming themselves in light of what the soloist provides.
“Two general concepts govern structural growth: communication (or lack or inability thereof) between the soloist and the various ‘sections’ of the ensemble … and transformation of musical material within and between instruments and sections. The work is a long conversation among many individuals and groups, aiming less for a convenient sense of dialogue or dependent relationship between soloist and the rest than for the maintenance of a balance within the various musical ‘languages’ generated. […]
“While I do not intend any kind of direct correlation, the actual legend of St. Francis and his sermons to the birds … can provide, by way of analogy, some approaches to the workings of the piece and some various ways to listen to it … Whether or not one believes other aspects of the St. Francis legend, it’s clear that he sought to hold the birds’ attention, and that they were as eager to understand him as he them. Equally, as he listened to them he took away knowledge of a kind that resists codification while being very meaningful to him. […]
“It will be noted that the work concludes in an unusual manner: to wit, with the soloist leading the ensemble and the conductor seated, playing celesta with the percussionists. Besides making an historical ‘tip of the hat’ to the original leadership functions of the Baroque solo concerto, the soloist at the end embodies the catalytic and transformational agent he has been all along. […]
The new album by