what do numbers tell us: the case of giacinto scelsi’s archives
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Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 1 of 19
What do numbers tell us:the case of Giacinto Scelsi’s archives
(v.49 2014-02-16)
Nicola BernardiniAlessandra Carlotta Pellegrini
Fondazione Isabella Scelsi – Roma
TCPM 2013 Montreal October 11 2013
Copyright© 2013 Nicola Bernardini, Alessandra Carlotta Pellegrini<nicb@sme-ccppd.org, direzionescientifica@scelsi.it>This work comes under the terms of theCreative Commons© BY-SA 2.5 license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/)
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 2 of 19
Who was Giacinto Scelsi?
Italian Composer
Born in 1905, dead in 1988
Early uptaker of dodecaphony
Long creative crisis in the ’50s
Complete change of compositionalmethodology
Improvisations recorded on tape andtranscribed by “copyists”
Musical result “in between” Varese andXenakis
Strongly opposed to in Italy, recognizedworld–wide since the late ’70s
Misterious compositional trajectory of hiscompositions
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 3 of 19
The Archive
The Fondazione Isabella Scelsi archive holds
16000+ paper documents (scores, articles,correspondence)273 magnetic tapes of primary interesta yet–to–be–assessed quantity of magnetic tapes ofsecondary interest (expected to be around 430)
Recovery and maintenance digital transfer over tohigh-definition media (24–bit/96 kHz)
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 4 of 19
Original Recording Conditions
Recordings via microphone
Various sources: piano, ondiola, other (traditionalinstruments), turntable for vinyl and wax disks, etc.
Little or no information concerning the recording speed,recording devices, recording direction, etc.
Mediocre (sometimes really poor) recording quality
A lot of ambient noise (room resonance, birds, carsrunning in the street below, etc.)
Accidental sound sources (telephone ringing, radio showfragments – which can be dated, etc.)
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 5 of 19
Peculiarities of the Recovery
Difficulties in assessing the key elements needed by the actualdigital transfer (e.g. the recording speed and direction)
Strongly experimental creative context (e.g. research overforms, articulation and technology)
Usage of ancillary sounds (i.e.: sounds of the recordingtechnology, room response, car passage, bird singing, etc.) tocollect important information (speed and tape direction, season,time of the day, room, house, etc.) all leading towards arecording date or a recording period
Detailed preservation of the acoustic state of the tape: no“restoration” whatsoever
Logic placement hypothesis of fragments performed over eachitem
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 6 of 19
Sample I
Tape NMGS0079-591
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 7 of 19
Sample II
Graphic Layout of the logic “interpretation” of a transfer
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 8 of 19
Sample III
Tape boxes
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 9 of 19
The tape transfer process
approx. 700 tapes
350+. . . already transferred
273 available to researchers
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 10 of 19
The Jaecker Catalogue
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 11 of 19
Section 1: tapes with identified sections
174 tapes
57 tapes contain works identified by Jaecker
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 12 of 19
Section 1: identified titles
189 works in the manuscript catalogue
117 works in the printed/published catalogue
54 works recognized by Jaecker in the tape archives
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 13 of 19
Section 4: tapes not described
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 14 of 19
Used words (Jaecker)
klavier or piano: 114ondiola: 111improvisation: 110gestisch (gestural): 15anlich (close to): 14uberlagert (superimposed): 1
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 15 of 19
Used words (Bernardini)
improvvisazione (improvisation): 882ondiola (ondiole): 588pianoforte (pf, piano): 474sovrapposizione/i (superposition/s): 129sembra (sounds like): 125gesto (gesti, gesta) (gestural): 0
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 16 of 19
Tape section subdivision
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 17 of 19
Future work
accumulate musicological notes on tapes
identifiy duplicates, near-duplicates, copies, etc.
tape (sketches, works, improvisations) genalogies
multi–dimensional scaling of works (proximity of sketchesto final works)
identify sketch fragments with actual work fragments
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 18 of 19
Thanks
the organizers of TCPM 2013: Nicolas Donin, MichelDucherneau, Johathan Goldman, Caroline Traube andCatherine Guastavino, and the Conseil de Recherches enSciences Humains (CRSH)
the Fondazione Isabella Scelsi and in particular NicolaSani (President), Mauro Tosti Croce (Coordinator of theArchive), and Ms.Barbara Boido (Board member);
the Istituto Centrale dei Beni Sonori e Audiovisiv and inparticular Massimo Pistacchi (Director), and BrunoQuaresima and Carlo Cursi (technical assistants) for thetape transfer process;
Friedrich Jaecker for his catalogue
Giacinto Scelsi
The FIS Archive
Original Conditions
Peculiarities
Examples
Numbers
Jaecker
Objectivequantitities
Future work
Thanks
Scelsi by numbers Montreal 11/10/2013 19 of 19
The END.Thank you.
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