The title of this piece translates as "Prayer for a shadow." If the idea of prayer is used to think about this piece, it should be underlined as a particular expression of struggle, because Scelsi's piece is all about struggle, his own and the performer's. The Preghiera per un ombra was only composed two years after Scelsi recovered from his absolute mental breakdown; it is assumed he wasn't exactly on solid footing yet. To help ensure his state of lingering crisis would be voiced, even in far-future performances, he marks the score of his prayer (a prayer for death?) with tempi so extreme that some of the busier passages threaten to flatten out into "sheets of sound," as the note-blur of John Coltrane's late playing was described. With the extreme technical demands of the score, every performance of the piece is bound to buzz with nervous tension that increases as the piece goes on. The evocation of Coltrane's name is no lark, either. Besides the fact that both musicians were lay-mystics, Preghiera, like all the pieces from this period, clearly betrays its basis in improvisation. Out of context, some passages wouldn't sound like anything more than the private noodling of a well-trained instrumentalist. It's the consistency of its delirium, its sustained spiritual tremor that makes Preghiera so much more than that. Rhythm is the key device: it's almost entirely built on rhythmic figures like triplets, fives, and sevens subdivided and broken up in difficult ways. It is also reminiscent of late medieval Ars Subtilior, which was also a rhythmically elaborate style based on improvisation. Its exponents assumed that more graceful and complex rhythms occurred in improvisation than when the musical imagination was mediated through conventions of notation. Scelsi obviously agreed, whether he was aware of the 400-year-old precedent or not; his pieces, from about 1952 onward, were all transcribed from tapes he'd made of his own improvisations at the piano or on the Ondiola. However the piece originated, Scelsi does a fantastic job of using the idiomatic characteristics of the clarinet, creating a wonderful portrait of its sound. It is assumed that the clarinet was the chosen vehicle of his dark prayer from the beginning. Difficult as they are to play, the wide melodic leaps across the breaks bring out the rich differences in tone colors and at times create an illusion that more than one instrument is sounding. The clarinet's capacity for precise dynamic control is taken full advantage of as well, with highly controlled crescendi, whisperingly soft passages, and screaming outbursts. After the long wave of tormented, growing intensity that Preghiera per un ombra is, its final, quiet high notes seem as tragic as a small sun trying to pierce the gloom of a smoggy inlet.

© Donato Mancini, All Music Guide