Giacinto Scelsi / Stefan Goldmann / Jeremias Schwarzer
Sfera
GERMANY MACRO M64 CD (2022)
Unusual and excellent record of modern music that gives us a number of short pieces by Italian modernist Scelsi, alternating with contemporary synthesizer music by Goldmann.
The Scelsi pieces are all played by Schwarzer, using various forms of recorder – the tenor, the soprano, the Renaissance basset, and everyone’s favourite the sub-bass recorder. Schwarzer adapted all the pieces himself; it’s a pioneering action, since I don’t think any of them were originally scored for the recorder, and what little I know of ‘Tre Pezzi’ (1956), for instance, indicates they were written for the soprano saxophone, although there may have been trombone renditions of them too. ‘Three Latin Prayers’, from 1970, was written for solo voice, yet here Schwarzer bravely transposes them into recorder music. I see nothing here to upset the classical purist; the estate of Scelsi has approved Schwarzer’s actions, and I like to think Scelsi intended a certain amount of flexibility in his work in any case. Jeremias Schwarzer turns in flawless performances, and expresses all the things I have come to love about this most mysterious and hermetic of the modernists; most notably the precision and deliberation. Each note lands with the certainty of a tiny hammer made out of stainless steel coated in silver. Quite rightly, Schwarzer refrains from employing too many expressive techniques, and exhibits the “dryness” which I feel is just right for Scelsi. Yet it’s not too severe, and the artiste finds ways to express a profound emotional truth within these short, restrictive pieces. A triumph.
Another player who recently worked hard to reinstate the recorder to its rightful place in modern music is Dominik Strycharski, who did it with the music of Louis Andriessen. There’s also the work of Lucia Mense, who has done great things with the sub-bass recorder; and one should also hear the recent Alex Riva record (WER054).
Giacinto Scelsi did compose for electronic music and magnetic tape, as the booklet in this release reminds us, but that side of his music is not directly represented here. I say “directly” as it’s perhaps hinted at by the contributions of Stefan Goldmann, who provides five instances of his craft here. One of the hallmarks of his music is “multidimensional movements across a vast parametric space”, which is a convenient way of describing the bold, abstract shapes of Goldmann. The hope is that he is emulating some of the characteristics of Scelsi’s music, in particular the “shape-shifting capabilities”. The album title piece ‘Sfera’ is one of the strongest in this regard, creating quite astonishing shifts which verge on something menacing and alien, yet still remain basically quite simple and rooted to an idea. At no point is he attempting an empty pastiche of the great Italian, and there are no surface tics or superficial resemblances, yet his music evokes the spirit of Scelsi. Goldmann is co-founder of the Macro label and his music is well-represented there; curious listeners may wish to investigate further.
The CD is programmed to create the idea of a “conversation” or “dialogue”, alternating between the recorder pieces and the electronic pieces, allowing musical resonances and patterns to become established, finding common ground. The idea is that the music “folds back” into itself, creating a conceptual full circle”, and in this the record succeeds admirably. The musicians play together on ‘Bair’ and ‘Sfera’; on the former, the recorder player has started with traditional Turkish music, and on the latter, his work has undergone some electronic processing. A booklet of notes, written by Bruno Santos, provides contextual detail about the project, and situates it within a solid understanding of Scelsi’s history, and 20th-century art in general. Recommended! Arrived 20 December 2021.