Trilogia (Die drei Lebensalter des Menschen), for solo cello
Those already initiated into the mysteries of Giacinto Scelsi may find his music a deep font of imagination and spirituality, but less sympathetic listeners may resist total immersion and feel skeptical about both its inscrutable organization and mediocre content. Setting aside Scelsi's personal eccentricities and granting that the improvisations behind many of his late works are legitimate artistic expressions, one can go with the flow and accept these transcriptions -- albeit by other hands -- as interesting artifacts ...
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Those already initiated into the mysteries of Giacinto Scelsi may find his music a deep font of imagination and spirituality, but less sympathetic listeners may resist total immersion and feel skeptical about both its inscrutable organization and mediocre content. Setting aside Scelsi's personal eccentricities and granting that the improvisations behind many of his late works are legitimate artistic expressions, one can go with the flow and accept these transcriptions -- albeit by other hands -- as interesting artifacts worth preserving. However, others of a more critical bent may find in Scelsi's outpourings a randomness that pretends to be "stream-of-consciousness," a lack of concentration that seems like sloppiness, and a concealment of purpose that amounts to self-indulgence. The work under examination here, Trilogia for solo cello, is a case in point: the three large sections -- Triphon (1956), Dithome (1957), and Igghur (1965) -- are extremely similar in their meandering phrases, weakly defined...
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