endlessly playing the same note

giacinto scelsi - oeuvre intégrale pour choeur
et orchestre symphonique
accord - 1988, 1989, 1990
direction jürg wyttenbach et orchestre et chœur
de la radio-télévision polonaise de cracovie


quattro pezzi (1959), anahit (1965), uaxuctum (1966)

hurqualia (1960), hymnos (1963), chukrum (1963)

aion (1961), pfhat (1974), konx-om-pax (1969)

scelsi had already composed about thirty pieces, when, towards the end of the war, he underwent a serious crisis, calling for years of hospitalisation. whilst in the nursing home, he found his own therapy: he would spend hours at the keyboard, endlessly playing the same note and immersed in concentrated and intense listening, thus renewing experiences going back to early childhood. this saved him, and from 1952 onwards he started composing again, but in the entirely new and different language which allowed him to create about a hundred works within thirty years.
- harry halbreich - notes for release

pedal-points and bell-notes

marianne schroeder - lasciando, un'evocazione
produktion jecklin musikhaus - 1992
live recording july 1991

making strings vibrate and sing by stroking, plucking or beating them; tower up overtones on the basis of the fundamental tones; placing pure and tempered intervals in intermediate states; making basso continuo, sub-basses, pedal-points and bell-notes ring out; stirring and mixing basic tone colours; hammering multiple sounds into harmonies; playing the organ with a bourbon; building up notes then letting them die away.......
- jürg erni's suggestions - notes for release