Riflessione concettuale e percorso letterario in Giacinto Scelsi

Abstract

The theoretical and literary production of Giacinto Scelsi can be divided into three periods: the conceptual reflection of Sens de la Musiqueand the historical reflection of Evolution du Rythme and Evolution de l'Harmonie, in the forties; the definition of his human and artistic identity and the approach to spirituality of Son et Musique and Art et Connaissance, and of the three collections of poems, Le poids net,L'archipel nocturne, La conscience aigüe, in the fifties; and, finally the hermetic stage of the production of the eighties, Il sogno 101,Cercles, Octologo.
The first period is characterized by Scelsi's desire to define his artistic identity in relation to the contemporary musical panorama. His reflections concern both the proposition of a method of analysis - based on the theory of fundamental elements, that is the scrutiny of the rapport between the elements of music and the categories of images which the composer casts on the sound material - and its application to the study of the development of music between the end of the nineteenth and the first thirty years of the twentieth century. Thus the rhythmic and psychic elements come into the foreground, superseding the nineteenth century predominance of the intellect and the emotions.
The rhythmic element, inherent in music both through pulsation and through temporal perception, is examined by Scelsi as far as its deptg is concerned. This will be a fundamental appropriation for the development of Scelsi's musical language along the path of intrasonic research. The emancipation of this element is attributed to Liszt, Debussy, Stravinskij, to jazz and to the futurist experimentation. The psychic element, which is expressed through harmony (as Klang), is the projection in music of the deepest parts of conscience; it emerges in the work of Wagner, Debussy, Richard Strauss and especially Skrjabin. In this first stage Scelsi emerges as one who had great knowledge of the musical and cultural tendencies of his time and was seeking to establish a system of music criticism based on new categories of analysis.
In the second stage Scelsi's poetics are defined, and are associated principally with the idea of Art as a way to ascesis. It is possible, however, to identify correspondences with writers and artistic circles with which he came into contact in Paris: from the avant-garde movements of the beginning of the century (dadaists, surrealists, Cocteau), Steiner's theories, yoga and its theosophic reworking, the poets and friends Jouve and Michaux, to the philosopher Jankélévitch.
The paradigm of expressive essentiality, already present in the three collections of poems, is carried to its extreme consequences in the works of his maturity. The key to the understanding of his work may be identified in the recovery of intuitive knowledge, advocated by Scelsi himself as the only path to symbolism and metaphysical representation. His technique of composition, based on improvisation, demonstrates the use of this kind of intuitive knowledge and his desire to free himself from any kind of conditioning or rational intent. This is what Scelsi taught his pupils and the performers with whom he worked.