Scelsi, Giacinto - Maknongan
This restless and tense piece for baritone explores an almost drunken, staggering idea. The melodic lines' clumsy posturing almost foam at the mouth(piece). An amusing and abrupt resolution with octaves completes this brief excursion.
NM
Description by Donato Mancini
Except for a revision of an older work in 1988 to commemorate the death of his great friend Henri Michaux, Scelsi basically stopped composing in 1976. Maknongan, of 1976, is therefore one of his last works, if not his very last, entirely original piece. Its title, although it has a somewhat Celtic feel, is probably a mere fancy of Scelsi's. On an immediate level, the music is as simple as possible, being aimed only at bringing listeners into a much-sharpened awareness of the overtone richness of bass sound. A glance at his catalog shows that Maknongan is the third in a series of works investigating the darker registers. Only four minutes long, Maknongan is also possibly the most focused and abstract work Scelsi ever composed. It's not scored for any specific instrument, so long as the instrument used can express the deepest bass range of its own instrumental family. Tuba, contrabassoon, string bass, bass saxophone, contrabass saxophone, bass flute, bass voice; any of these is suitable. The two extant recordings are for contrabass clarinet and string bass. The part is digitally very easy to play, what Scelsi asks is the inverted virtuosity of supreme tonal control. The piece rumbles to life in the depths of the instrument's range, on a G sharp, which forms the absolute, paradoxically receding/expanding center of our focus. From there, it branches out cautiously and fleetingly into nearby notes. The effect, after each toe-deep excursion into the pond of another tone, is to make the principal note perceptually clearer and clearer. It seems to simultaneously expand and slowly implode in the mind's ear. There's a constantly shifting dynamic (the score shows hairpins under literally every note) and many quarter-tone inflections. A solemnly chewing, controlled vibrato sneaks in as well. These timbral embellishments displace and situate the central note at the same time, drawing a huge field of energy around it. Occasional leaps upwards of an octave fill out the outer overtonal regions like yellow flares cast upwards into darkness. By the end, when the G sharp has unnoticeably shifted downwards to a G, a strange and luminous sonic envelope has ballooned around the instrumental sound.
NM
Description by Donato Mancini
Except for a revision of an older work in 1988 to commemorate the death of his great friend Henri Michaux, Scelsi basically stopped composing in 1976. Maknongan, of 1976, is therefore one of his last works, if not his very last, entirely original piece. Its title, although it has a somewhat Celtic feel, is probably a mere fancy of Scelsi's. On an immediate level, the music is as simple as possible, being aimed only at bringing listeners into a much-sharpened awareness of the overtone richness of bass sound. A glance at his catalog shows that Maknongan is the third in a series of works investigating the darker registers. Only four minutes long, Maknongan is also possibly the most focused and abstract work Scelsi ever composed. It's not scored for any specific instrument, so long as the instrument used can express the deepest bass range of its own instrumental family. Tuba, contrabassoon, string bass, bass saxophone, contrabass saxophone, bass flute, bass voice; any of these is suitable. The two extant recordings are for contrabass clarinet and string bass. The part is digitally very easy to play, what Scelsi asks is the inverted virtuosity of supreme tonal control. The piece rumbles to life in the depths of the instrument's range, on a G sharp, which forms the absolute, paradoxically receding/expanding center of our focus. From there, it branches out cautiously and fleetingly into nearby notes. The effect, after each toe-deep excursion into the pond of another tone, is to make the principal note perceptually clearer and clearer. It seems to simultaneously expand and slowly implode in the mind's ear. There's a constantly shifting dynamic (the score shows hairpins under literally every note) and many quarter-tone inflections. A solemnly chewing, controlled vibrato sneaks in as well. These timbral embellishments displace and situate the central note at the same time, drawing a huge field of energy around it. Occasional leaps upwards of an octave fill out the outer overtonal regions like yellow flares cast upwards into darkness. By the end, when the G sharp has unnoticeably shifted downwards to a G, a strange and luminous sonic envelope has ballooned around the instrumental sound.