Giacinto Scelsi

Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi was born in Pitelli near La Spezia on 8 January 1905. When his family moved to Rome, he began private music lessons with Giacinto Sallustio. Later he studied with Schoenberg in Vienna, becoming the first Italian composer to use Schoenberg's twelve-tone system. In the 1920s Scelsi became friends with Jean Cocteau and Virginia Woolf, had his first experience with non-European music (in Egypt) and wrote his first piece, Chemin du coeur.

He organised concerts to expose Italian audiences to contemporary music, and spent much of World War II in exile in Switzerland. Back in Rome with the return of peace, Scelsi began experimenting with improvisation.

Meetings with leading interpreters in the 1970s led to increased awareness of his music and wider audiences.

Scelsi died in Rome on 9 August 1988.

A selection of M&V articles about Giacinto Scelsi

Ensemble. Sophisticated Musical Evenings - The legacy of Giacinto Scelsi twenty-five years on, by Giuseppe Pennisi

Ensemble. Illuminating the Spectrum - Contemporary music at Salzburg, heard by Giuseppe Pennisi

Record box - Boldly on. Recent music from Italy, with Basil Ramsey