Three piano works by Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi: 'Suite No.9 "Ttai"' (1953); 'Quattro illustrazioni' (1953); and 'Un Adieu' (1978/1988); performed live in Tel Aviv by Israeli pianist Shira Legmann, who found these pieces particularly fascinating as she studied Scelsi's oeuvre, impressed by his compositional method of notating improvisations to create finished pieces.
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Shira Legmann-piano
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Cover photo by David Sylvian.
Label: elsewhere
Catalog ID: elsewhere 013
Squidco Product Code: 29866
Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2020
Country: USA
Packaging: Digipack
Suite No.9 "Ttai" recorded live at Clairmont Concert Hall, in Tel Aviv - Jaffa, Israel, on December 9th, 2014, by Itzik Mizrahi.
Quattro illustrazioni recorded live at HaTeiva, in Tel Aviv - Jaffa, Israel, on February 27th, 2014, by Ronald Boersen.
Un Adieu - recorded at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, in Tel Aviv - Jaffa, Israel, on June 19th, 2020, by Rafi Eshel.
"Shira Legmann is an Israeli concert pianist, with a wide repertoire from Baroque to contemporary and experimental music. This album contains three piano works by Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi's: 'Suite No.9 "Ttai"' (1953), 'Quattro illustrazioni' (1953), and 'Un Adieu' (1978/1988). 'Suite No.9' and 'Quattro illustrazioni' were recorded live at two different concerts in 2014, while 'Un Adieu' was recently recorded in a studio in June 2020. This is Legmann's second CD on Elsewhere Music, following the 2019 album 'Barricades' in which she was the pianist for Michael Pisaro's composition for piano/electronics.
"Scelsi's music is something that 'grows' on us both as listeners and musicians. When I first discovered his music about ten years ago, I just dove into studying it, and the connection grew slowly while getting into more and more nuances in the playing. For a few years, I've been fascinated by these three pieces, and have performed them in Israel. It was not an immediate 'crush' but something that has gradually matured in me."
"Scelsi was said to be a modest artist. He believed that as a composer, he is merely a mediator. For a substantial period, he composed his piano pieces by improvising: he conceptualized them and then improvised while recording. Later, with the help of friends and assistants, he notated from the recordings and that was his written composition. Since these compositions derive directly from improvisations, I felt the best representation of them would be as recordings of live performances, where there is also an element of risk, surprise, and spirit."-Shira Legmann
"A whole chapter of recent musical history must be rewritten: the second half of this century is now unthinkable without Scelsi... He has inaugurated a completely new way of making music, hitherto unknown in the West."-Harry Halbreich
Legmann's clean, supple yet solid piano sounds, which create a perfect balance of coolness and warmth, build a narrative flow with a stunning dynamic range, bringing these rarely performed piano works of Scelsi's back to life into the twenty-first century as timeless masterpieces.
The cover photograph was taken by David Sylvian. The desolate image of abandoned old piano keys echoes the mysterious Zen silence and discreet yet profound beauty of Scelsi's piano works."-elsewhere
Cover photo by David Sylvian.
Artist Biographies
• Show Bio for Shira Legmann "Shira Legmann [born 1981 in Aachen, Germany] is a concert pianist with a wide repertoire Đ from Baroque to contemporary music Đ and an interdisciplinary artist who creates new compositions and soundtracks based on graphic novels, animation and video art. In recent years, Shira has performed piano recitals that span Bach's Goldberg Variations, Olivier Messiaen's Vingt Regards, Gyrgy Ligeti's keyboard music, Morton FeldmanŐs late repertoire and Giacinto Scelsi's piano music, among others. Shira performs frequently as a soloist in Israel, Europe and the U.S. Some of the concert halls she has recently performed in include Muse de la Chasse et de la Nature and La Fondation Suisse in Paris, Jordan Hall in Boston, An Evening with Steinway series, the Tel Aviv and Haifa Museum of Arts and more. Alongside her activity as a soloist, Shira has benn serving for the last four years as co-artistic director and active member of Musica Nova, a unique collective comprised of musicians and sound artists dedicated to contemporary and experimental music. She was also invited to perform as a guest pianist with the Israel Contemporary Players ensemble, conducted by Ilan Volkov and Zsolt Nagy and with the Israeli Chamber Orchestra, with conductor Ariel Zuckermann. In addition to concert performances, Shira has presented original compositions at the Tectonics Music Festival in Tel Aviv, the fifth Biennale for Drawing in Jerusalem, and will be presenting a new work at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in June 2018 together with Musica Nova. Shira collaborates with artists from the fields of plastic art, dance and design. Notable among these are projects with British photographer and video artist Katerina Jebb for Comme de Garcons and Victoria Beckham fashion brands; video and plastic artist Hilla Ben-Ari, painters Adi Kaplan and Shahar Carmel, choreographer Anat Shamgar, and more. Shira holds an Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory in Boston, Mass., and a Masters from the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at the Tel Aviv University, where she graduated with honors. Shira studied under the guidance of pianists Alexander Korsantia, Natasha Tadson and Michael Bugoslavsky." ^ Hide Bio for Shira Legmann
9/11/2024
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Track Listing:
1. Suite No. 9 "Ttai", I. Calmo, senza espressione 03:50
2. Suite No. 9 "Ttai", II. Lentissimo 04:18
3. Suite No. 9 "Ttai", III. Uguale, senza espressione 02:39
4. Suite No. 9 "Ttai", IV. Non molto legato, ma sempre appoggiando profondamente 05:20
5. Suite No. 9 "Ttai", V. Uguale, scorrevole 03:01
6. Suite No. 9 "Ttai", VI. Lento 02:17
7. Suite No. 9 "Ttai", VII. Uguale, inespressivo 03:23
8. Suite No. 9 "Ttai", VIII. Lento 05:05
9. Suite No. 9 "Ttai", IX. Molto p eguale, non troppo legato 03:07
10. Quattro Illustrazioni, I. SHESHA - SHAYI VISHNU 03:57
11. Quattro Illustrazioni, II. VARAHA- AVATARA 03:51
12. Quattro Illustrazioni, III. RAMA - AVATARA 03:09
13. Quattro Illustrazioni, IV. KRISHNA - AVATARA 03:08 Un Adieu 06:24
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