With modern music, there’s often (ahem) sometimes a discrepancy between what the music looks like notated on the page and what it sounds like to the audience. In some of these cases you think that the composer is either 1) involved in some cerebral game that makes them completely oblivious to what they’ve just vomited on the page, or 2) really trying to mess with you, the performer. But in other cases, you don’t equate a composers’ seemingly illogical way of notating music with a diabolical need to undermine you. That’s how I feel about Giacinto Scelsi.

For me, getting “off the page” with Scelsi’s music (more so than with music by some other composers, in my opinion (again, not a slight)) is the key to a really convincing performance. But Scelsi sounds so improvisatory I find it much more difficult to get to that point even though his notation rarely approaches some of the more exceptionally perplexing scores I’ve tackled in the past.

At any rate, I took on his short work for low instrument, Maknongan, last month on Mobtown Modern’s Low Art show. Below is the live audio from the show (thanks to Jeff Mewbourn for recording), including the live remix of the piece that Erik created immediately following the work’s conclusion. Enjoy.

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(N.B. Here’s a link to a “studio version” of Erik’s Maknongan remix.)