Giacinto Francesco Maria Scelsi, count d'Ayala Valva (Italian pronunciation: [dʒaˈtʃinto franˈtʃesko maˈriːa ʃˈʃɛlsi]; 8 January 1905 – 9 August 1988) was an Italian composer who also wrote surrealist poetry in French.

He is best known for creating music based on a single pitch, which he changed in many ways using tiny pitch shifts, harmonic hints, and variations in sound quality and loudness. His work "Four Pieces on a Single Note" (1959) clearly shows this style. This piece is his most famous work and one of the few that gained recognition during his lifetime. Most of his music, which included all types of Western classical music except music for plays or operas, was not widely known during his life. Today, some of his music is more popular in certain postmodern composition groups, with pieces like "Anahit" and his String Quartets becoming more well-known.

Scelsi worked with American composers such as John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Earle Brown. He was also a friend and teacher to Alvin Curran. His music inspired Ennio Morricone’s Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza, and influenced composers like Tristan Murail and Solange Ancona.

Life

Luigi Scelsi was born in the village of Pitelli near La Spezia. He spent much of his early life in his mother's castle, where he learned Latin, chess, and fencing from a private tutor. Later, his family moved to Rome, where he received musical training from Giacinto Sallustio. In Vienna, he studied with Walther Klein, a student of Arnold Schoenberg. Scelsi became the first Italian musician to use a type of music system called dodecaphony, though he later stopped using it.

In the 1920s, Scelsi met famous thinkers like Jean Cocteau and Virginia Woolf and traveled to many countries. He first heard non-European music in Egypt in 1927. His first musical piece, Chemin du coeur, was written in 1929. Another piece, Rotativa, was performed in Paris in 1931.

In 1937, Scelsi organized concerts featuring music by composers such as Paul Hindemith, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Sergei Prokofiev. These concerts were stopped because of laws in Italy that banned music by Jewish composers under Benito Mussolini’s government. Scelsi refused to follow these rules and left Italy. During World War II, he lived in Switzerland, where he wrote music and developed his ideas about sound. He married Dorothy Kate Ramsden, an English woman.

After the war, Scelsi returned to Rome, but his wife left him. This event inspired his piece Elegia per Ty. He then experienced a deep personal struggle that led him to explore Eastern spiritual beliefs and changed how he viewed music. In this later period, he stopped writing traditional compositions and instead focused on creating music through improvisation. His improvisations were recorded and later written down by others, who worked with him to complete the pieces.

Scelsi believed that music was a way to share a deeper, spiritual truth with listeners. He saw himself as a guide rather than the creator of his music. For this reason, he never allowed his picture to be shown with his work. Instead, he used a symbol—a line under a circle—to represent his connection to Eastern traditions.

In 1957, Scelsi met the singer Michiko Hirayama in Rome. From 1962 to 1972, he wrote a large collection of songs called Canti del Capricorno specifically for her, because of her unique singing ability. He created these songs by improvising, recording them, and then writing them down.

From the late 1970s, Scelsi worked with many musicians, including the Arditti String Quartet, cellist Frances-Marie Uitti, and pianists Yvar Mikhashoff and Marianne Schroeder. These musicians helped spread his music worldwide.

Scelsi was a mentor to Alvin Curran and other American composers living in Rome, such as Frederic Rzewski. He also worked with composers like John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Earle Brown.

Frances-Marie Uitti, who performed all of Scelsi’s cello pieces, worked with him for over ten years. She helped create La Trilogia, a 45-minute piece called by Morton Feldman “his autobiography in sound.” This work was first performed at the Festival di Como and recorded by several companies. Uitti also adapted some of Scelsi’s chamber music for different instruments and recorded two improvisations based on Scelsi’s early recordings.

Alvin Curran remembered Scelsi as someone who attended his concerts in Rome, even on the day before Scelsi’s death. He described seeing Scelsi wearing a fur coat and hat outdoors during a summer concert, smiling and waving.

Scelsi died on August 8, 1988, in Rome, from a brain hemorrhage.

Music

Scelsi was not well-known during most of his career. A series of concerts in the mid to late 1980s introduced many of his works to the public, receiving much praise. These concerts included performances of his important orchestral works in October 1987 in Cologne, more than 25 years after they were written and less than a year before Scelsi’s death. Scelsi was present at the premieres and helped guide the rehearsals. The effect of discovering his music later in his life was described by Belgian musicologist Harry Halbreich.

Scelsi was also an important influence on Ennio Morricone’s group, Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza. Their live album Musica Su Schemi, released in 1976, includes a sixteen-minute track titled Omaggio a Giacinto Scelsi.

Scelsi’s music was heard by millions in Martin Scorsese’s film Shutter Island. The film included parts of two of Scelsi’s works, Quattro pezzi su una nota sola and Uaxuctum (third movement), along with music by his contemporaries György Ligeti, Krzysztof Penderecki, John Cage, and Morton Feldman.

Scelsi’s archives are kept at the Isabella Scelsi Foundation.

Selected discography

• Complete works for choir and symphonic orchestra (1. Aion – Pfhat – Konx-Om-Pax, 2. Quattro Pezzi – Anahit – Uaxuctum, 3. Hurqualia – Hymnos – Chukrum). Polish Radio and Television Choir and Orchestra of Cracovie, conducted by Jürg Wyttenbach (recorded 1988, 1989, and 1990; ref. 201692, 1992, 3 CDs: 1. ref. 200402, 1988; 2. ref. 200612, 1989; 3. ref. 201112, 1990; re-released by Universal-Musidisc in 2002).
• Scelsi collection, vol. 3: Aion, Hymnos, Four pieces for Orchestra, Ballata. RAI Symphony Orchestra, Francesco Dillon (Italy) (cello), conducted by Tito Ceccherini (recorded 2007). Released by Stradivarius in 2009 (STR33803).
• Elegia per Ty – Divertimento nº3 for violin – L’Âme ailée – L’Âme ouverte – Coelocanth – Trio à cordes. Zimansky, violin; Schiller, viola; Demenga, cello (ref. 200611, 1989).
• Quattro illustrazioni – Xnoybis – Cinque incantesimi – Duo for violin and cello. Suzanne Fournier, piano; Carmen Fournier, violin; David Simpson, cello (ref. 200742, 1990).
• Suite No.8 (Bot-Ba) – Suite No.9 (Ttai). Werner Bärtschi, piano (ref. 200802, 1990).
• Complete choral works (Sauh III & IV – TKRDG – 3 Canti populari – 3 Canti sacri – 3 Latin Prayers – Yliam). New London Chamber Choir, Percussive Rotterdam, conducted by James Wood (ref. 206812).
• Scelsi collection, vol. 7: Suite N. 6, Divertimento N. 1, L'Âme Ailée / L'Âme Ouverte, Xnoybis. Marco Fusi (violinist), Anna D'Errico, piano. Released by Stradivarius in 2017 (STR 33807).

• Chamber Works for Flute and Piano (CPO 999340-2). Played by Carin Levine, flutes; Kristi Becker, piano; Peter Veale, oboe; Edith Salmen, percussion; and Giacinto Scelsi, piano.
• The Complete Works for Clarinet (CPO 999266-2). Played by Ensemble Avance, conducted by Zsolt Nagy, with David Smeyers, clarinets; and Susanne Mohr, flute.

• Yamaon; Anahit; I presagi; Tre Pezzi; Okanagon (Kairos 1203). Klangforum Wien, conducted by Hans Zender.
• Streichquartett Nr. 4; Elohim; Duo; Anagamin; Maknongan; Natura renovatur (Kairos 1216). Klangforum Wien, conducted by Hans Zender.
• Action Music, Suite No 8 "bot-ba" (Kairos 1231). Played on piano by Bernhard Wambach (Germany).

• The Piano Works 1 (Mode Records 92). Played by Louise Bessette.
• The Orchestral Works 1 (Mode Records 95). Played by Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic & Choir, conducted by Juan Pablo Izquierdo (Spain), with Pauline Vaillancourt, soprano, and Douglas Ahlstedt, tenor.
• Music For High Winds (Mode Records 102). Played by Carol Robinson, clarinets; Clara Novakova, flute and piccolo; Cathy Milliken, oboe.
• The Piano Works 2 (Mode Records 143). Played by Stephen Clarke.
• The Piano Works 3 (Mode Records 159). Played by Aki Takahashi.
• The Orchestral Works 2 (Mode Records 176). Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.
• The Works For Double Bass (Mode Records 188). Played by Robert Black.
• The Piano Works 4 (Mode Records 227). Played by Stephen Clarke.
• The Works for Viola (Mode Records 231). Played by Vincent Royer with Séverine Ballon, cello.
• The Works for Violin (Mode Records 256). Played by Weiping Lin.

• 5 string quartets, String trio, Khoom. Arditti String Quartet; Michiko Hirayama, voice; and others (recorded 1988; Salabert Actuels, ref. 2SCD 8904-5; re-released by Montaigne / Naïve, ref. MO 782156, 2002; 2 CDs).
• Trilogia (Triphon, Dithome, Igghur) – Ko-Tha. Frances-Marie Uitti, cello (Fore 80, No.6 [LP]; Etcetera, KTC 1136 [CD]).
• Complete chamber music for string orchestra (Natura renovatur, Anagamin, Ohoi, Elohim). Orchestre Royal de Ch