GIACINTO SCELSI+LUCIANO BERIO+BETSY JOLAS+FRANCOIS ROSSE LP DANIEL KIENTZY-AVANT

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LUCIANO BERIO / GIACINTO SCELSI / FRANCOIS ROSSE / PAUL MEFANO / BETSY JOLAS

 INSTRUMENTA 3 LP

Poly-Art

Very rare french original with Daniel Kientzy performing works of Giacinto Scelsi, Francois Rosse, Paul Mefano, Luciano Berio and Betsy Jolas.

Some info on the release:  Rare original issue, released in France sometime in the 80's on Costin Miereanu's Polyart label (Anatol Vieru, Gyorgy Kurtag, Michael Levinas, Daniel Tosi, Jorge Peixinho, Michel Decoust, Francois-Bernard Mache, etc.). Belongs to the series of 7 compilations from Poly-art with experimental compositions, called "Instrumenta", this one is No3. Most of these, like the one here, were performed by Daniel Kientzy. "Tre Pezzi" is a really abstract experimental piece from italian mastermind composer Giacinto Scelsi. Francois Rosse's "Sonates en Arcs" is based on different degrees of improvisation structured in remembrance of the great ancient monodies. Rest of the pieces are Luciano Berio's "Sequenza IX b", Paul Mefano's "Periple" and Betsy Jolas' "Episode quatrieme". An indispensable experimental music sound document. Extremely hard to find, really never shows up on ebay, private pressing on Costin Miereanu's Polyart label!!

Here's a short bio of Scelsi from the web: "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. In Vienna, as a disciple of Arnold Schönberg, he became the first adept of dodecaphony in Italy, although he did not continue to use this composition system. In the 1920s, Scelsi made friends with intellectuals like Jean Cocteau and Virginia Woolf, and travelled abroad extensively. In 1927, in Egypt, he first came into contact with non-European music. His first composition was Chemin du coeur (1929). Then followed Rotativa, first conducted by Pierre Monteux at Salle Pleyel, Paris, on December 20, 1931. In 1937, he organised a series of concerts of contemporary music, introducing the music of (among others) Hindemith, Schönberg, Stravinsky, Shostakovitch, and Prokofiev to an Italian audience for the first time. In 1940, when Italy entered the war, Scelsi was in Switzerland, where he remained until the end of the conflict, composing and improving his conception of music. He married Dorothy Kate Ramsden, a divorced Englishwoman (whose daughter from her previous marriage was Katie Boyle). Back in Rome after the war, his wife left him (eventually inspiring Elegia per Thy), and he underwent a profound psychic crisis that eventually led him to the discovery of Eastern spirituality and also to a radical transformation of his view of music, his so called second period. He rejected the notions of composition and author in favour of sheer improvisation. These improvisations, recorded on tape, were later transcribed by collaborators under his guidance, then orchestrated and complemented by the composer's meticulous performance instructions, or adjusted from time to time in close collaboration with the performers. Scelsi came to conceive of artistic creation as a means of communicating a higher, transcendent reality to the listener. From this point of view, the artist is considered a mere intermediary. It is for this reason that Scelsi never allowed his image to be shown in connection with his music; he preferred instead to identify himself by a line under a circle, a symbol of Eastern provenance. Some photographs of Scelsi have emerged since his death. From the late 1970s he met several leading interpreters who have promoted his music all over the world and gradually opened the gates to wider audiences, such as the Arditti String Quartet, the cellist Frances-Marie Uitti, the pianists Yvar Mikhashoff and Marianne Schroeder, and the singer Michiko Hirayama. Scelsi was a friend and a mentor to Alvin Curran and other expatriate American composers such as Frederic Rzewski who lived in Rome during the 1960s (Curran, 2003, in NewMusicBox). Scelsi also collaborated with other American composers including John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Earle Brown who visited him in Rome. Alvin Curran recalled that: "Scelsi ... came to all my concerts in Rome even right up to the very last one I gave just a few days before he died. This was in the summer time, and he was such a nut about being outdoors. He was there in a fur coat and a fur hat. It was an outdoor concert. He waved from a distance, beautiful sparking eyes and smile that he always had, and that's the last time I saw him" (Ross, 2005).".

Condition: Vinyl lies in mint- condition, looks super clean and plays nicely, while cover lies in excellent shape, with only some light lamination peeling off, otherwise perfect (see picture).

Tracklist

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