Search - Giacinto Scelsi, Luciano Berio, Luigi Nono :: Sofferte Onde Serene

Finally a profound reader of Italian expressionism

scarecrow | Chicago, Illinois United States | 02/09/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"we finally have a pianist that understands/comprehends the more extreme ends of Scelsi,his music has a rough,gruff unfinished quality to it, primordial,yet very different than Central European expressionism, more like a burnt canvas of Alberto Burri,than the impacted ones of Kiefer, this emanating from a man(Scelsi) living in front of the Roman Forums and wondering if his music would mount the durational longetivity of such monumental stones. 'quattro illustrazione'(1953) is evocative, hovering like charged mists around a few tones,compelling and immediate, karlsson understands this raw immediate aspect at work in this music,and is not afraid of making an ugly repulsive sound, and it is this content of what he brings to this italianate persona. The 'suite #10(ka)' or 'essence' is even more graphic,extremes of unleashed roaring piano with no sense of the contrasting strategy of the suite,like eroded mangled,microtonal bells are given to represent the piano timbre, and karlsson cracks/breaks,splits the tones,,like a dozen broken gongs. Scelsi is known as the Chas Ives of Italy and now I understand this label from the late Morton Feldman. 'cinque variazione'(1953) of Berio as well is a wonderful initiation work,hardly ever performed,yet filled with deep expressionistic content,yet restrained/entertained with the newly discovered language of pointillistic raw energy,spatializing a 12 tone idea,yet Berio even then carved the oracle power of the 12 into particles of 3,4,6,7 and found his own youthful voice there in beautiful modest lines, quite sparce,like single pencil lines humble on an abstract canvas, rather than large broom-like brushstroks. 'sequenza 4' is also a great reading making it much more than the work implies with its dual horizon/polar opposites of clipped attacked chords to longer melodic/linear ideas, both alternate and harbor/generate a dialectic of expressivity. this early pre-serial(high serialism) music, a transitional phase sought to open roads/pathways toward generating the materials itself,karlsson brings/ has a vision, a large dynamic spectrum of sound(9 ways of striking/killing the same(mocking bird) piano tone) here transcending the usually modest frame these sequenzas usually inhabit. 'brin' and 'rounds' are minutae by comparison,encore works, Berio was fond of dedicating piano works to hopeful,boring academics who had opened doors for him in the USA,.'serene waves endured'(gentle passionate waves)'sofferte onde serene' by Luigi Nono as well is(this time) too harsh and energized a reading,karlsson overdoes/overdetermines the music. His(karlsson's) interpretive gifts,give way and betray him here.Written for Pollini (in 1974 originally titled 'notturni-alba')fondles the struck chords as bells peeling, cathedral and boat-like bells Nono had heard from his desk at Giudecca in Venice where he lived. The work suggests/spatializes timbre, a realm he profoundly developed the next/last ten years of his life, the afternoon mists of early nocturnal setting of the sun,marvelous colours resulting in mixed metaphors with the washing of gentleness of water caressing the eroding shores/harbors of the eternal city of Venice.the piano is in dialogue with a prerecorded tape of piano sounds, Pollini's like a forever/playing fingerprint on the work for whoever/whomever plays the work, they play involutarily with Pollini's sounds, so the live pianist is limited yet still in the director's chair, as karlsson here who tears into the works beauty with unnecessary high energy,not that the work doesn't require this at times,still it is within the margins of the works premise. Nono disliked the original strategie of surrounding the audience in sound via loudspeakers,too monumental perhaps, instead, the way it is performed currently is with the speakers under and closer to the piano,the tape sounds in a live performance are like thuds,clumps,low marimba thuds, muted tympani,and other-worldly piano,evocative and arresting at times.the Nono was recorded live from the ultima festival 1995."