A Personal Memoir: Remembering Scelsi

Author(s): Franco Sciannameo

Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 142, No. 1875 (Summer, 2001), pp. 22-26
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1004466 .
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 A personal memoir
Rememberin
Scelsi
FRANCO SCIANNAMEO recalls his association with
the grand seigneurof twentieth-century Italian music
T HE NAME OF THE ITALIANcomposer
Giacinto Scelsi (born 1905 in La Spezia,
died 1988 in Rome) still means little
to audiences worldwide, despite the
considerable amount of interest which his music
has awakened in recent years. For some people,
though, myself included, Scelsi's has been a
household name for a long time.
My association with Scelsi began in the late
1950s, when as a violin major at the Conservato-
rio di Musica Santa Cecilia in Rome I spent many
hours browsing the stock of the De Santis music
establishment in Via del Corso, a few blocks away
from the Conservatorio. I took notes about what
interested me and of the scores I wished to
purchase as money became available. The Pocket
Scores series of contemporarystring quartetspub-
lished by Universal Edition in Vienna was at the
top of my 'most wanted' list. The works of Berg,
Schonberg, and Bartok, presented with photo-
portraits of the composers on the inside covers,
were, for me, a 'must have'. Over the years I
bought a lot of them, including an odd item, al-
most an 'intruder'in the Universal series, which
had found its place on De Santis's shelf just a
quarterof an inch to the left of Schonberg:Giac-
into Scelsi'sQuartettoper archi (1944), published
by Edizioni De Santis in 1948. The typographical
style of the publication was pretty much similar
to the Viennese pocket scores; it even boasted a
photo-portraitof Scelsi in which he strikingly re-
sembled Bela Bartok. In addition, a list of Scelsi's
works, composed since 1934, also published by
De Santis, adorned the book's back cover. The
music of the Quartetto,at first glance, looked just
as complex and intriguing as Berg'sLyricsuite.
'Why does no one ever play it?', I asked my-
self. Even my illustrious violin teacher, Arrigo
Pelliccia, the man who had championed in Italy
the concertos of Berg, Schonberg, Krenek and
others, was not familiarwith Scelsi'smusic. 'Some
composers just have to wait for their turn; re-
member Beethoven's late quartets. The Viennese
public was convinced he had gone insane when it
heard them for the first time!', he said. It is also
true, though, that many composers committed
their most intimate and daring thoughts to the
string quartet - at once a form, a genre, and an
22 THE MUSICAL TIMES / SUMMER 2001
instrumental ensemble. Consider the enigmatic
opening of Mozart's 'Dissonance' Quartet, Beet-
hoven's late quartets, Schubert's'Death and the
maiden'and, in the twentieth century,Bartok'ssix
quartets,Berg'sLyricsuite (whose hidden message
was deciphered many year later), Shostakovich's
Quartet no.8, and the quartets of Sibelius,
Janacek, and others.
Generally, the string quartet did not flourish
in Italy. In the first half of the twentieth century,
the most noticeable works were Respighi'snoble
Quartettodorico (1924), Alfano's Secondo Quar-
tetto (1927), and the poetic eight quartetsof Gian
Francesco Malipiero, dating from 1920 to 1964.
Dallapiccola never tackled the form, and Petrassi
approached it only in 1958. So it was even more
surprising that Scelsi's Quartetto,a major work
composed in 1944, went unnoticed. I still have
that score in my possession. Several exemplars
have been part of the lending collections of some
Americanpublic and university librariessince the
work's publication in 1948. They are still there,
hidden on the shelves, just a quarterof an inch to
the left of Schonberg.
In the early 1960s I was asked by Edizioni De
Santis to co-edit for publication a group of works
for harpsichord and strings by Martini, Felici,
and Guglielmi and, having become acquainted
with the head of the firm, Renato De Santis, I
asked him if he knew what had happened to
Giacinto Scelsi. 'That was some experience', De
Santis said. 'That man was difficult to deal with;
he did not know what he wanted. Fortunately,
though, he financed the entire publishing process
of his works, from engraving to printing, so there
were no losses to the firm.''Washe financiallywell-
off?', I asked; De Santis replied, 'Yesindeed, he is
still financially well-off; he is Count Giacinto
Scelsi d'AyalaValva, the last scion of an ancient
Sicilian family probably of Spanish ancestry. He
lives like a reclusein his house on Via San Teodoro,
overlooking the Roman Forum.'
Months later I was invited by violinist Massimo
Coen to join the Quartetto di Nuova Musica, a
newly formed group specialising in the perfor-
mance of contemporary music. There was much
work available to us - premieres at the Venice
Festival of ContemporaryMusic, a recordingcon-
tractwith RAI, a European tour and the prospect
of a long-term collaboration with a certain Giac-
into Scelsi, the composer of much string music
(four quartets to date), who wished to have it
recorded and performed worldwide. 'Scelsi has
the material means to do what he wishes', said
Coen. 'VieriTosatti,the well-known Roman com-
poser strongly suggests that we take on the job;
you should know that he too is involved in "edit-
ing" Scelsi's works; in fact, he has been doing it
since the late 1940s, when some of Scelsi's com-
positions appearedin the De Santis catalogue.'
And so, for me, the Scelsi mystery began to un-
fold.
A meeting with Scelsi was set. The composer
wished to meet each member of the quartet
and talk about his philosophies and the spiritual
reasons that had led him to change his composi-
tional style and, indeed, his life-style altogether.
His music, in fact, had changed dramatically in
the past twenty years, from anguishly atonal to
transparentlymicrotonal, pervaded by all kinds
of Eastern influences. He played some tapes for
us, the Quartettoper archi, now called Quartetto
no.l, performed by Quatuor de Paris; Xnoybis
(1964), for unaccompaniedviolin, played by Devy
Erlih; and the Quartetto no.2 (1961), performed
by Societa CameristicaItaliana.The music of that
piece, which employs some cumbersome copper A rarephotographof Count GiacintoScelsi d'AyalaValva
mutes invented by Scelsi, sounded terrible to us!
Midway through the listening, Salvatore, the cel- in the hall, to stand and take a bow. An upset
list, bouncing off his chair, screamed into Scelsi's Scelsi, though, moved rapidly to front stage and
face, 'Questa e la pazzia! You are crazy, and your in a stentorian yet agitated tone of voice declared
music is the reflection of it; you want all of us to that the instrumentalists' interpretation did not
become insane!' correspond to his wishes; therefore he could not
Needless to say, the meeting ended abruptly. acknowledge the audience'sapplause.
The next time we met at Scelsi'shouse we brought The German foursome must have not under-
along a new cellist, an American woman who stood Italian or the absurdity of Scelsi's dec-
had landed in Rome on a Fulbright Scholarship a laration, because one hour later they were the
few years earlier to study with Enrico Mainardi. guests of honour at a reception held in Scelsi's
Donna was an excellent cellist and made no se- home. Elliott Carter was among the guests that
cret, to Scelsi's amazement, that one of the job's evening, and upon learning that the Quartetto di
attractionswas for her the fact that the composer Nuova Musica was working on Scelsi's latest
was a real Count. Scelsi, sincerely amused by the quartet, he said that some day he would hope that
statement (he had a soft spot for foreign ladies), his two quartets (it was 1965) would be per-
gave all of us permission to address him as Count formed together with Scelsi's, so fond was he of
Scelsi; he did not like to be called Maestro. After Scelsi's music. Mr Carter then added that Darius
all the quartet members passed Count Scelsi's Milhaud also held Scelsi in high esteem.
stringent scrutiny, finally, one day, the score and
parts of Quartettono.4 were distributed. We were Quartetto no.4 (1964)
given a few weeks to analyse the material prior to As soon as we opened the beautifully copied
rehearsing it under the supervision of both Vieri score (identical to the present Salabert edition),
Tosattiand Giacinto Scelsi. we realised that this quartet was the proverbial
In the meantime, a string quartet from Ham- 'different kettle of fish'. It was notated tablature-
burg gave a concert in Rome at the Goethe Insti- style, one pentagram for each string of each in-
tute. Its programme included Scelsi's Quartetto strument, as if the string quartet were a single in-
no.2. We were invited to attend the concert, at strument with sixteen strings. Scelsi's particular
which the Hamburg players performed hon- use of scordatura allows, in fact, the player to
ourably,and at the end of Scelsi's piece the first perform double and triple stops otherwise impos-
violinist invited the composer, who was present sible under normal tuning.

THE MUSICAL TIMES / SUMMER 2001 23

 Quartetto di Nuova Musica, from left to right: Franco Sciannameo, Donna Magendanz, Gianni Antonioni, Massimo Coen (Photo taken at
the Hellenic Week of Contemporary Music, Athens, on 19 April 1966, after the world premiere of Scelsi's Quartetto no.4)
Problems typically inherent to this type of mis-
tuning can be as serious as they are numerous.
First, there are unbalanced pressures applied by
the hyper- and tensionless strings on the belly of
the instruments (one violin experienced a sound-
post crack after a few days, and there were con-
stant problems in keeping the cello's high-A-
stretched-to-C in tune). Next, different fingering
systems had to be devised. And finally, the group
had to establish standard pitch for quarter and
three-quarter tones played below and above a
given central note. Fortunately,Tosatti'sinfallible
ear could detect an 'out-of-tune'microtone in the
midst of any situation. Rehearsalstook place every
other evening at Tosatti'shouse for about a month.
Tosatticonducted and took notes of any eventual
adjustmentsmade to the score, while Scelsi, keep-
ing himself out of sight, was mostly concerned
with the overall aesthetics of the piece. I remem-
ber him saying, 'There is an arch somewhere in
the piece which I want you to reach to; it should
sound like the culmination of a chorale.' But he
was never clear where in the piece it was going to
occur, and the notation in the score seemed un-
able to identify it. One evening the search for the
24 THE MUSICAL TIMES / SUMMER 2001
elusive chorale leading to the quartet's 'golden'
moment finally revealed it, as Scelsi exclaimed
from the other room, 'E qui, e qui!'. It was there
all along, in bar 167, triggered by a low pedal
note in the cello, playedfortissimo. We just were
not getting enough into the centre of the sound to
strike the right note - we had not yet entered into
the illusive third sonic dimension about which
Scelsi was so adamant. That was indeed a mo-
ment of discovery which unlocked, for the four
of us, the door to this complex man's poetic.
Luciano, our violist and most sceptical member
of the group finally let himself remark, 'You
know, I really think that the Count is good! I1
Conte e bravo!'.
The Quartetto di Nuova Musica recorded
Scelsi's Quartetto no.4 in the autumn of 1965.
Vieri Tosatti conducted the session which also
included two compositions for soprano, string
quartet and percussion belonging to Khoom
(1962), a set of pieces for soprano and various
instruments. Michiko Hirayama was the singer.
In the late 1960s our recorded performance of
Quartettono.4 was transferredto LP (Mainstream
MS 5009) and released in the United States. The
album, entitled 'New music for string quartet',in-
cluded Pierre Boulez's Livrepour quatuor:I, II &
V, performed by the Quatuor Parrenin and Earl
Brown's String Quartet (1965), performedby the
New YorkStringQuartet. This album was proba-
bly the debut of Scelsi's music on commercial
records.Earlyin 1966 we made another recording
of Quartettono.4, this time for RAI in Rome and
without Tosatti'sparticipation. Scelsi, present in
the studio, became actively involved by setting
up microphones and listening in the booth to
various takes. It was his suggestion to double-
mike the cello for a more effectiverenditionof the
Chorale,now that we finally had found its hiding
place.
Quartetto No. 4 was, at that time, Scelsi's
favourite piece of music, and he was very proud
to play our tape for special guests. I remember
the Roman critic Gianfranco Zaccaro being in-
troduced to Scelsi'smusic. He wrote an essay 'Un
musicien hors du temps: Giacinto Scelsi' after
listening to the work. On another occasion,
avant-gardeconductor Daniele Paris enjoyed the
intricacies of the Quartetto's unusually notated
score. Then came the turn of French violinist
Ivry Gitlis, in Rome for a performance of Rene
Leibowitz's Violin Concerto. When the tape of
Quartetto no.4 was played for guests, Scelsi
always requested the presence of members of the
group.
In 1965-66 Scelsi was ready to emerge from
self-imposed obscurity. Tosatti had prepared for
him the scores of most of his major orchestral
compositions, and many more works were in the
making. Scelsi's oeuvre was taking shape. How-
ever, it was still a secret shared by only a few.
Through the efforts of the Italian conductor-
pianist Piero Guarino and the Greek composer
Jani Christou, Quartetto di Nuova Musica was
invited to perform at the 1966 Hellenic Festival
of Contemporary Music in Athens, Greece. The
selected programme consisted of quartet music
by Alfredo Casella (Guarino's and Christou's
teacher), Franco Evangelisti,Luciano Chailly,and
- with the world public premiere of Quartetto
no.4 - Giacinto Scelsi.
Scelsi travelled to Greece ahead of us. There
he was treated like the grand seigneurof contem-
porary music, and his quartet soon came to be
regarded as the gem of the Festival. When the
audience demanded that Scelsi's piece be repeat-
ed, he was beside himself; for him it must have
been an experience just short of apotheosis. For
us, as we rearrangedchairs and music stands for
the encore, it was like entering a new era: the
twenty-first century.
A photograph of the Quartetto di Nuova
Musica was taken backstage by a reporter after
the performance. It is a pity that Scelsi declined
to be photographed with the group. That evening
THE HELLENIC WEEK OF CONTEMPORARYMUSIC
THE ,QUARTETTO DI NUOVA MUSICA, STRING QUARTET
The eQUARTETTO DI NUOVAMusIcA * established itself ia order to
specialize in contemporarystring quartet literature; its first public
appearance took place in April 1964 (Rome), on the occasion of
a cycle of events organizedby the I.S.C.M. and the S.M.I. in col-
laborationwith University Institutions; this resultedin the warmest
reviews by the most demanding critics. It dedicated itself, sub-
sequently, to the recording of extreme avant-garde compositions,
participating, among others, to a cycle of concerts organizedby the
American Academy in Rome in collaboration with the I.S.C.M.,
the U.S.I.S., and the R.A.I., which recently broadcast several out
of these recordings. During the present season, this Quartet has
been engaged for several events within the eNuova Conasomas, s
Festival in Rome, for the National Cherubini Academy in Flo-
rence, for the Roman Philharmonic Academy, and for recordings
for the RAI and the BBC.
COMPOSITION OF THE STRING QUARTET:
1. Violin: Massimo CoRN
2. Violin: Franco SCIAXIAMBO
Viola Gianni ANTONIORI
Cello Donna MAGEHDANX
TUESDAY, 19th APRIL, 1966 - 20.00 P.M.
* QUARTETTO DI NUOVA MUSICA,
STRING QUARTET
A. CASELLA : CINQUEPZZI for two violins, viola and cello
(1920) (G)
I. Preludio
II. Ninaa nanna
III. Valse ridicule
IV. Notturno
V. Fox - trot
L. CHAILLY SONATA TRITEMATICANO. 10 in one move1ment
(1962) (G)
INTERVAL
FR. EVAOELUSTI: ALEATORIO (1959)
o, SCXLSI : QUAh'rarrs io. 4 in one movement (1964) (W)
Extractfrom the programmefor the Quartettodi Nuova Musica'srecitalat the
1966 HellenicWeek of ContemporaryMusic
at a reception given by the Christous in their
Athens penthouse to honour the festival'spartici-
pants, Scelsi and two other gentlemen performed
on an upright piano a very dynamic and pro-
longed six-hand improvisation.
Upon our return to Rome, Piero Guarino, the
leader of a string ensemble to which we all
belonged, asked Scelsi if he would consider writ-
ing a piece for eleven solo strings. A month later
we were rehearsing Anagamin, a work strongly
related to Quartetto no.4, which received its
premiere in Naples shortly thereafter.
Our next Scelsi assignment was to learn the
Quartetto no.3 (1963), a tamer work than its
successor. That time also coincided with my join-
ing the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di
Santa Cecilia for a tour of the Soviet Union and
THE MUSICAL TIMES / SUMMER 2001 25
 the offer of a permanent position in that orches-
tra. I sadly resigned from Quartetto di Nuova
Musica.
INCE moving to the United States in 1968
I have chosen not to follow too closely the
ascent of Scelsi'smusic, his great success,
the various 'discoveries' about his music
on the part of newcomers, and the acidic
polemics which erupted after his death about the
authorship of his music. I have preferredinstead
to remember Count Scelsi as the extraordinary
man who re-invented his own persona by build-
ing a highly original musical patrimony. Scelsi
did not work alone; he needed collaborators.
Franco Sciannameo, Many times he said that he was not a composer
a former member at all, but only a messenger - un postino. He was
of the Quartetto di inspired from an Elsewhere; he himself taped
Nuova Musica, is sound sequences executed on small electronic
a Professor in the
School of Music apparati,but someone had to take care of the rest.
at Carnegie Mellon That someone was Vieri Tosatti.The scores of the
University and great orchestral compositions and the string
music consultant
quartetswere probablyset by Tosatti.I am certain
to mode records'
that Quartetto no.4 and Anagaminwere. Theirs
ongoing Scelsi
project, of which
was a collaboration that lasted some thirty years
vol.2 (containing - a lifetime, really - and it was a rare musical in-
Canti del Capricomo tercourse between two highly sensitive human
(selections), Hymnos,
Hurqualia and Konx-
beings. Theirs was perhaps a Faustian bargain,
Om-Pax) is now whose details can be known only to them. No one
available (mode 95). should assume the right to criticise or reduce the
26 THE MUSICAL TIMES / SUMMER 2001
value of their thoughts or their actions. Tosatti
was indeed wrongwhen, shortlyafterScelsi'sdeath,
he decided to enter the polemical frenzy by
launching his J'accuse, in the form of an article
entitled 'Giacinto Scelsi c'est moi!' published in
the January1989 issue of II Giorale della Musica.
Vieri Tosattiregretted that unnecessary outburst.
From the tranquillity of his villa outside Rome
he wished to remain silent on the entire Scelsi
episode. He hoped that some day his own music
would also receive due recognition. Tosatti
passed away early in the year 2000.
I would like to close my memoir with a cu-
rious note. Around the time of my leaving the
group, Quartetto di Nuova Musica asked Tosatti
to write a string quartetwhich, ideally,we would
programmetogetherwith Scelsi's.Scelsi had other
ideas, however.Of course, his ideal quartetconcert
would have consisted of an all-Scelsi programme,
but since we knew only one of his quartets, he
surprisingly suggested that we look into Faure's
String Quartet op.121 (1923) - his last composi-
tion - as a possible companion to Quartettono.4.
When, in 1968, Tosatti did finish his Quartetto
d'archi(recorded by Quartetto di Nuova Musica
the following year), he was no longer collaborat-
ing with Scelsi. In fact - and how strange - he
had ceased composing altogether.
For my part, I had already left that world
behind.