DESCRIPTION:
Ilan Volkov, live performance
hr-Sinfonieorchester
October 7, 2016

Like so many of Scelsi's mature works, Aion is titled by obscure historical or mythological reference, in this case the ancient Greek personification of eternity. The only description he provides for this substantial orchestral score is the subtitle, "Four Episodes in one Day of Brahma." Fortunately, just as in Scelsi's music, every action is packed with meaning, and the aphorism provides an orientation toward the work and also toward his typical style. In Hindu theology, Brahma is the creator-God and the very stuff of the Universe. Like the endless cycle of reincarnation, the Universe flowers and wilts in a great sequence of being, where each interval of creation is known as a Day of Brahma and has a notional length of ninety thousand human years. The day is divided into four epochs reflecting the moral state of humanity, but this fact is likely incidental to the four movements of the present work. The incarnation of sound sustaining the Universe is also known as Nada-Brahma, giving the concept a firm sonic connection, although Scelsi's application is uniquely his own. While the eternal cosmology of the title might suggest a work of interminable duration, the writing is always compact. This self-contained expression parallels Hindu iconography, where the world's cycles are frequently depicted as bubbles, and bubbles within bubbles to ever-smaller spans of time. Perhaps more tangibly, the circle is the form by which the infinite becomes finite, and indeed Scelsi adopted a circle above a straight line as his emblem. The bubble analogy is particularly apt, because he conceives of musical notes as entities, with not only beginnings and ends but bodies as well.

Aion is biased toward low-pitched instruments, with an overall sonority resembling strokes on a gong of deep fundamental tone and shimmering higher overtones. Scelsi treats this collective sound broadly as thematic material, developing it by changing registers and varying timbre. Just as the highest overtones of a gong die out faster, similar changes can be carried out with greater precision across a broader canvass, using the entire orchestra to manipulate overtones in ways impossible on a single instrument. In fact, Scelsi returned to the orchestral medium in 1959 with four short pieces consisting of single notes scrupulously articulated. These have become models of orchestration, and the richness of sonority brought to each gesture is a feature of his style. Beyond variation in timbre, the more developed works mutate individual notes with glissandi or pull them by changing their overtones. The microtonal movement is nearly continuous in most of Scelsi's music, lending a strong sense of instability in stark contrast to the slowly evolving designation of particular notes. Chords mark points of stasis, but usually emerge from resonance between individual notes, giving them a special richness which can be displaced by violent eruption. Clearly identifiable melodies do appear, but are developed with primary attention to their constituent notes, often in minute detail. The rich infrachromaticism provides striking and unique harmonic motion within a tonal context, yet never yields to aimlessness.

http://www.medieval.org/music/modern/scelsi/aion_note.html