Revisiting Gemano Celant's 2015 Article: “Delinquent Spirit of a Drowned City for Solo Piano:” Sonic Concretism
Link to Full Article (12 Pages):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Pb9229BfhF_thplFmOc4YFyGFQUH1xEL/view?usp=sharing
Early in 2015, an unusual tableau unfolded on the stage of Carnegie Hall. Pianist Nicolas Horvath sat before the piano not just with a traditional score, but with an art object...an expansive, multi-layered manuscript by composer Bil Smith titled Delinquent Spirit of a Drowned City. This piano composition, written expressly for Horvath and premiered amid a marathon tribute to Philip Glass, stands at the intersection of music, visual poetry, and philosophy. It is a work as much seen as heard: a dense weave of textual fragments, graphic notations, and musical directives that collectively evoke what one might call a “concrete” music-text hybrid.
The Score as Visual-Textual Artifact
The score of Delinquent Spirit of a Drowned City exists as a striking visual-textual artifact, blurring the line between musical score and artwork. Smith’s composition is not delivered in conventional notation; instead, the score consists of four large boards (approximately 27.5” x 17.5” each) accompanied by three translucent overlays, a booklet of performance notes, a portfolio case, and even an oil-on-canvas integuments. In one section of the score (shown above), words coil and scatter across the page in spiral patterns, overlapping with angular shapes and translucent strips. These textual constellations consisting of snippets of phrases, neologisms, and syllabic clusters are placed with the deliberate care of a concrete poem. Indeed, Smith’s notation eliminates the familiar staves and notes, replacing them with a “complex system of imagery and layers.” The result is a score that one must read spatially and visually, as if decoding an abstract painting or an architectural blueprint of sound.
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