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Works

Giacinto Scelsi
Mantram
(1990)
for Double bass


Length: 05:00

Is one of Scelsi's last pieces. Mantras - it is believed - are effective only when they are received from a teacher (guru) or spiritus rector. That would predestine Stefano Scodanibbio to be the performer for the piece, since he worked it out with Scelsi: "He gave me the score of Mantram, telling me that it was a transcription of an anonymous song. This makes particular sense to me since I consider him the greatest anonymous composer of our time". As the piece was not written for a particular instrument, Scodanibbio adapted it for double bass. "In general he did not focus on small details but rather on sound, expression and big view of the piece. His 'idée fixe' was the 'suono rotondo' (round sound), not a sound with a beginning, a central body, and an end but rather a circular, out of time sound."
Modal pieces like this one are rare in Scelsi's oeuvre. He teased something out of the double bass, that is, in fact, particularly well suited to the instrument (at least when a master like Scodanibbio is working the bow) but has almost never been called for singing. The repetitions of the motifs conform to the tradition of short magic formulas. The subtitle 'Canto anonimo' alludes to one of the bass' possibilities: its sonority, realized in the canto (song). If the ancient Indian 'om' (a mantra that is found in the Vedas, but not the only one) in general reproduces the beginning and the essence of the whole cosmos as a vibration, what instrument could give more powerful expression to such a sacred syllable?
(Frank Hilberg, english translation by Steven Lindberg)