Quatuor Molinari – Scelsi : Complete Quartets/String Trio

Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988) was a discreet composer throughout his life. He was admired by a few (Feldman, Curran), but the public knew little or nothing of his activities. He was eccentric and a touch mystical (he claimed to be a messenger from another world). Certainly, listening to his music, you might feel as if you were listening to an extraterrestrial presenting his latest composition. That or a recipe for crickets sautéed in garlic. This double album by Quatuor Molinari is a welcome addition to the growing catalog of complete works produced by this excellent Montreal ensemble. 

LISTEN TO OLGA RANZENHOFER OF THE MOLINARI QUARTET TALK ABOUT SCELSI’S MUSIC (in French)

Scelsi’s music is perhaps one of the most original, but also the most difficult to approach. If his first quartet, dating from 1944, has obvious links with Schoenberg, and ironically remains the easiest to listen to, the next four follow the approach that Scelsi was to adopt almost essentially until the end of his life: concentration on ultra-reduced material, such as a single note, a chord, a resonance. The result is music that has fascinated spectralists, but without the same roundness, the same corporeal presence. If Murail, for example, is expansive, Scelsi is reductive to the point of atomization. One is almost fleshy, the other rachitic. The Italian can study for long minutes all the possibilities of a single resonance as an expressive vehicle. It’s thin, but at the same time, it’s an exploration so unique and personal, it’s absorbing. 

Scelsi is not for everyone, be warned. But the Molinari, as usual, get all the juice they can out of the scores they have in front of them, and give it as much as discerning music lovers can ask for.