Giacinto Scelsi:
This nine-movement suite for
piano is one of the earlier works that Scelsi created with the novel method he
developed for improvised composition. He
improvised at the keyboard, recording the sound on a tape recorder. The recordings were given to an assistant who
transcribed the tapes as notated music.
Scelsi then reviewed and edited the transcripts to turn them into
pieces. Thus, rather than “composing”
music, Scelsi felt that he “received” music that already existed somewhere,
somehow in the universe.
This process has been
described by Frances-Marie Uitti and other performers who worked with
Scelsi. The Suite’s origin in
improvisations is audible in its modest technical demands, the modal harmonies,
the repetition of elements, the movement by chromatic sequence, and the
introduction of musical ideas one at a time.
The meaning of the Suite’s
subtitle, “Ttai,” is not obvious. It may
have something to do with some Eastern religion or other. In a note, Scelsi said that the suitie was “a
succession of episodes alternately expressing Time . . . and Man, as symbolised
by cathedrals or monasteries, with the sacred sound –