Christoph Maria Moosmann: Minimalism Is Relative

T   he melodies themselves go from sound to sound, but the internals are empty abysses—because the notes are lacking in sonic energy. The inner space is itself empty.”
  —  Giacinto Scelsi.

T he ways that the organ emulates the human voice are familiar enough. But minimalist, textural compositions can lead us to re-examine what is the voice, what is the self? Exhibit “A”: Christoph Maria Moosman’s 2009 recording (link below) of pieces by Giacinto Scelsi, Arvo Pärt, and John Cage.


    [50-sec clip, Christoph Maria Moosmann, Giacinto Scelsi, ‘In Nomine Lucis’, 1974, 1.6MB MP3]

T here are sudden variations in the dynamics and texture, giving a sense of suppleness and surprising vitality. The beat-frequencies of minor seconds leave impressions of quarter-tones. Frequently there appear string-like vibrato effects and pulsations within a single tone. These qualities mimic ‘vocal’ improvisations—things that piano and other instruments simply could not do. It isn’t plausible that Scelsi created these improvisations with certain ‘models’ in mind, even ‘ritual music’ of Tibetan Buddhism.

T   he creation of music is an event full of differentiation and multiple transfers. The composer intuits something ungraspable, as yet not definable and gives it a sort of shape. The result, the musical score, isn’t music yet, is not audible yet. If a person is able to imagine the soundscape that is hidden in a sheet of music, to ‘hear’ in his/her mind the sound and rhythms as yet to be expressed by instruments, then that person is capable of a feat that hardly anyone can master. We are utterly dependent on mediators who transform the visible-but-not-audible sheet of music into an audible-but-not-visible music.”
  —  Christa Maysenhölder.

W e might naturally assume that, if Scelsi was deliberate in his improvisations, he must have had some plan or sketch or idea of what he was aiming to create. Yet this ‘In Nomine Lucis’ and other pieces lead us to suspect otherwise: the music generates itself, its own form, its own trajectory. We know that it is the product of human creative activity, but it is, despite this, more like a natural object, a stream, a branch of a tree, moving but subjectless.

A fter Scelsi’s improvisations were recorded, he typically had collaborators help him realize and notate the final product: Scelsi believed that the processes of transcription and notation were not jobs for the ‘artist’ but should be instead given over to ‘craftsmen.’ He collaborated with various trusted friends and colleagues—Roman Blood, Sergio Caferro, Alvin Curran, Frances-Marie Uitti, Vieru Tosatti, others. Third-party transcription as a fundamental part of his method: Scelsi’s compositions feel even more ‘organic’ or more distanced from the composer on account of this.

F or me, this evokes the same sort of distancing or suspense that we feel when we hear laryngectomees using electrolarynx prostheses. The pitch and timbral variations that TruTone™ and Servox™ and other digital prosthetic devices are now capable of are considerable. But their nuances are still inevitably less than the natural voice would have. The prostheses embody restrictions, road-blocks, performance risk.

A nd these features lead us to discover in the boundaries-pushing, constraints-challenging, indomitable performance under duress: new dimensions of the person—of the ‘subject’, of embodiment, of ensoulment in the living body.

A    t the end of the nineteen-fifties, Giacinto Scelsi, a self-taught Italian composer and erstwhile playboy Count who had dabbled in Eastern religions and Theosophy, had the extraordinary idea of writing an entire work—the ‘Four Pieces’ for chamber orchestra—that consisted of only single tones, one for each movement. Scelsi was not the first to hit on this concept: Elliott Carter had ventured it in his ‘Eight Études and a Fantasy’ in 1950. Nor is the scheme followed literally—the instruments often bend away from the parent note, shifting by microtones, semitones, or larger intervals. But by the end of the work a paradigm shift has taken place: the Tone is all-powerful once more. Music returns to its primitive origins: melody formed from noise.”
  —  Alex Ross.

C hristoph Maria Moosmann was born in 1960 in Riedlingen, Germany. He studied Catholic Church Music at Freiburg Conservatory and subsequently studied for the Kapellmeister diploma in Basel and Zurich. From 1982 to 1988 he was organist at University Church in Freiburg and Artistic Dirctor of Musiktage at University of Freiburg. From 1988 to 1994 he served as organist of the City Church in Wil, Switzerland, and since 1995 he has been the principal organist of the Church Maria Frieden in Zurich-Dubendorf.

• Christoph Maria Moosmann website
  
• Moosmann C. Annum per Annum. (New Albion, 2009.)
  
• Scelsi: Four Pieces for Orchestra, Each on a Single Note, No. 4, 1959. (at Thomas Patteson’s Acousmata blog, 25-FEB-2009)
  
• Scelsi compositions
  
• Scelsi catalog at Durand-Salabert-Eschig
  
• Scelsi page at Classical.net
  
• Scelsi page at CompositionToday
  
• International Association of Laryngectomees
  
• Griffin Laboratories TruTone™ and SolaTone(tm) artificial larynges
  
• TruTone™ speech prosthesis video
  
• Servona SERVOX™ artificial larynges
  
• Guatterini M, Porzio M. Milloss, Busoni e Scelsi: Neoclassico Danza e Musica Nell'Italia Del Novecento. Mondadori Electa, 1992.
  
• Martinis L, ed. Giacinto Scelsi: Sound and Music. Le parole gelate, 1981.
  
• Rackley E. Music in the service of cosmology: Popol Vuh and Giacinto Scelsi. 3_quarks_daily, 02-MAR-2009.
  
• Ross A. Giacinto Scelsi: The Messenger. New Yorker, 21-NOV-2005.
  
• Sciannameo R. Remembering Scelsi. Musical Times 2001;142: 22-30.
  
• Scelsi page at IRCAM