Scelsi, G :: Krishna e Radha

Krishna e Radha, for flute and piano, is a joint composition by Giacinto Scelsi and Carin Levine. Carin Levine comments:

'Scelsi and I spent numerous evenings playing music together at his home in Rome. These evenings consisted of the both of us improvising on our respective instruments. He playing his very dusty and extremely out of tune piano and I mostly playing the normal C flute, although I did play the alto flute on several occasions. On this particular evening Scelsi and I had a visitor (one can hear his footsteps in the background sounding on the original recording). Without my noticing, Scelsi had turned on the ancient tape recorder situated next to the piano.

Several weeks later after my return to Germany, I received a package from Scelsi. In this package was a score and a tape recording of that particular evening's 'performance.' Much to my surprise, Scelsi had that tape transcribed; 'our' piece now had the title 'Krishna e Radha.'

Krishna and Radha are two characters described in the ancient Hindu Gita-Govinda poems from 1100 BC. This piece should be performed with a light playfulness - conveying two musicians casually enjoying an evening in the company of their instruments and one another.