David Ryan

Work-In-Progress

Video Installation: ‘Via di San Teodoro’

Giacinto Scelsi (1905 - 1988) was an Italian modernist composer who lived and worked in Rome, taking up residence with his sister Isabella at 8 Via di San Teodoro opposite The Forum. Scelsi, in many respects was a controversial composer, who at first worked in a semi-futuristic style (Rotativa for 2 pianos and percussion ensemble for example), and later explored dodecaphonic systems but settled into a unique approach to sound and microtonal material deeply indebted to his interest in non-western philosophical traditions. Improvisation was central to this latter phase and he composed his work on an early electronic instrument called the ‘ondiola.’ The taped improvisations performed on this instrument were given to others in order for them to be translated into traditional notation and take their shape as ‘pieces.’ Scelsi’s processes, therefore, ask questions about the relationship of sound to structure, and of composition to improvisation. Deeply mystical, his concern with sound and sounding also related to his choice of domain overlooking the Roman Forum with a sightline of a single palm tree, and in close proximity to the Greek Orthodox church of San Teodoro whose sounds also affected his music. Seldom photographed, he remained an enigmatic figure on the new music scene with a belated success in Germany in the late 1980s where his concern with microtonal drones seemed prophetic of an alternative approach to organizing sound. The present project is a projected video, approximately 40 minutes in length exploring aspects of Giacinto Scelsi’s music in relation to the immediate surroundings of his house. This will not be a ‘biographical documentary’, nor will it attempt to convey an artist’s portrait in the conventional sense.

It will be focused on the poetics of Scelsi’s music in relation to the environs of Rome and the spaces in the city which informed his practice – the Forum, the Greek Orthodox church on Via di San Teodoro, and, of course, the Casa Scelsi itself. Within the latter, visible clues suggest various aspects of Scelsi the man and the composer: his collection of non-western instruments, the piano and ondiola; and various memorabilia of a past aristocratic life. The film will reflect Scelsi’s mistrust of his music being used as a ‘background’ for film or choreography, in that it will ‘insert’ his music into the film without accompanying images. In this way a dialogue between what is seen and what is heard will be allowed to unfold.

Also of particular interest is the problematic of the relationship between music and film, and this has been longstanding for my own practice; in particular the problems that arise whereby music simply enforces the visual or the visual crudely illustrates the music. For this reason I would produce two versions of the video – one, to be realized with live music – incorporating pieces for voice and solo strings at certain points in the film; the other (more suitable for broadcast) featuring recording of these (or other) pieces. So, on one level it is an artist’s film – it is my response to Scelsi through the sight and sound impressions of his immediate working environment. I would be aiming for subtlety, for an approach to ‘get inside’ these sounds and spaces which will obliquely illuminate the music, and also to reflect, in another medium, the very interesting division between improvisation and composition that drove Scelsi’s approach to music on a formal level.